Duluth, MN

If you recognize this name it would only be for several reasons. You are an Iditarod Trail sled junkie, you knew that "The Good Son" cliff scene was filmed here, or you are a Marathoner and have heard of the Grandma's Marathon.
I originally came into this town with almost no feeling about participating in this event. As always though, my good friend Nate is able to help me find that motivation to run another half marathon or whatever the case maybe at the event that we are at. In this situation it was either the half or a full. Since I just ran the San Diego Full, I decided not to attempt another full just "yet."
Either way, I find that this event seems to be more of a hassle in the first place. There are a lot of restrictions and rules that a lot of runners might find annoying. As I read on RunningEvents
that if you even think of running with music, you would get you banned. Usually since I am a sponsor we are allowed to run these events, last minute or not. In this event for the first time I was told no. So I did not run a half marathon this weekend.
This was a personal issue, but Something that I am not used to and or complain about on my blog, since I attempt to keep my blog pretty high tempo. and up beat. So by the end of the day I pretty much just pushed it to the side knowing that I truly do not need anymore stress in my life. especially in situations that I think that I can control when I really cannot.
But what made me feel really bad was later in the day.
I got into the elevator going from the 9th floor working my way down with random stops picking up other passengers. The elevator stops at floor five and in comes a nice lady. I saw her look me up and down as most people do when they enter elevators. she then proceeded to ask me if I had run the Grandmas Marathon. I told her no, that I had wanted to, but they wouldn't let me. I was not wanting to go into my cry baby details, so I changed the subject and asked her how her race had gone. I don't know what the time limit is, but she began to tell me that she finished the race, that they "let" her. But they cut her number so she wouldn't count because she was too slow.
Maybe this happens in other marathons, I just had never seen it first hand. I did feel really bad for her.
What I do like about Duluth, MN is the country... I did get a small amount of time to explore it first hand while geocaching the small town.