Grandma's Marathon is simply a celebration of sweat

Sam Cook, Duluth News-Tribune

Sunday, June 18, 2006

The obvious question is why? Why would someone pay $65 to run 26.2 miles on a muggy Saturday in June?

To understand the answer, you have to go back to a 15-below-zero morning in February. Or a noon-hour in November. Or a slushy night in April. That's when the 14,000 runners who showed up Saturday were out there laying the groundwork for Grandma's Marathon. After months of solitary or near-solitary training, they turned out to celebrate on Saturday.

For one day in June, they ran alongside their brethren of the lonesome pavement. For one day, they were carried along by the cheering of an enthusiastic throng. For one day, they enjoyed a post-run buffet of strawberries and yogurt and bananas.

To say nothing of the finisher's T-shirt.

If you don't think this celebration of sweat is a big deal to those of us who run, you haven't seen us racing to the post office with our entry applications the same day we received them back in January. We all want an invitation to this party.

A few days before the marathon, a runner I know was asked an unusual question. He had run exactly 170 marathons and ultra-marathons. "Have you ever won one of those things?" one of his colleagues asked. The runner thought for a moment. "No," he said.

Most of us never think about winning. We'll leave that to the gifted athletes at the front of the pack, people we rarely lay eyes on during the race, or even afterward.

You want to know why we show up? It's the slumber party with friends and relatives the night before. It's all the crazy get-ups our fellow runners wear. It's all you sweet people who throw us wet sponges and squirt us with hoses. It's the lake. It's the gulls and grass of Canal Park. It's the sea of Mylar blankets. It's Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty" blaring from a set of speakers along the way.

For so many other days since last June, it has been so different. We have risen before dawn to hit the road. We have loaded the dog and headed for the trail. We have squeezed out our requisite miles between committee meetings, on road trips, on vacations.

Yes, it's hard to get out the door when it's 15 below. Or raining. Or icy. Or dark. Or hot. We do it because running has become more than a casual thing in our lives. And because when Grandma's comes around, we want to enjoy the party.

How crazy are those of us who run? I knew a guy who ran in place in a sauna to train for the Honolulu Marathon. And once, on a trip in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a friend of mine paddled out to the road, ran 16 miles, and paddled back in to camp. He was training for Grandma's.

And so, on Saturday, we set the alarm for 4 or 5 a.m. Suddenly, the old yellow school bus groans to the drop-off zone, the doors flap open and we spill out onto Minnesota Highway 61. It's Grandma's again. Let the celebration begin.

Out of the fog, our elongated festival of legs churned toward Canal Park early Saturday. Relatively speaking, the humidity was off the chart. For 26.2 miles, each of us wrestled with our resident demons -- a squeaky knee, an agitated Achilles tendon, an unhappy hamstring.

And for a day, we were athletes. We knew, for a few hours, what it feels like to hear the roar of the crowd and the playing of bands. We knew what it felt like to spend every last increment of strength to hurl ourselves toward the finish line.

Somewhere, Jackson Browne is wailing: "Everyone I know, everywhere I go, people need some reason to believe." Every year, on a Saturday in June, we believe in Grandma's.