Similar to my approach for last summer’s Bjorklund half marathon, I took a more relaxed approach to this race and focused on having fun vs. running a fast time. I typically stress out over hitting every workout and get overly nervous on race day – leading to less-than-ideal results. Not this time! By attempting to maximize the amount of fun I had instead of the fastest splits possible, I ended up having a pretty dang good race!

Conditions on race day were amazing and the folks over at Adventure Running Company did a fantastic job getting the trails ready throughout Lester Park and Hawk’s Ridge!

Although training was less-than-ideal heading into this race I still wanted to give an honest effort and see how everything would shake out. I started out conservatively for this one and let myself ease into the morning of running. Although a wonderful way to start the day, I may have let the lead group get too far ahead of me.

I most likely wasn’t in shape to challenge for the lead anyway, but ended up running by myself for the last 7-8 miles. I kept pushing and thinking someone from that lead group would fall back to me. I ran really hard the last 3-4 miles to make one last push to catch some of the runners ahead of me…but to no avail.

I ended up taking 4th place – with my watch saying 1:43:56 and the official race time marking me at 1:44:58 (a surprising gap for some reason). I was certainly happy with this result and I’m looking forward to a year of dropping down in race distances…focusing on 5k to half marathon races instead of 50 milers 🙂

I really enjoyed the course and had an absolute blast — mission accomplished! A sunny, mid-20’s day on the trails in Duluth is hard to beat in early January. I’m a fan of running year-round outdoors and this race gives people with similar tendencies a reason to train for something mid-winter – it’s a neat concept!

Congrats to all who participated in the half & full marathons (including snowshoe divisions for both distances), and thanks to the race directors/organizers/volunteers who make such a wonderful event in Duluth possible!