Grandma’s weekend has become one of my favorite annual traditions. I’ve run the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon multiple times now, and every year it is so enjoyable. All of it from the road trip, the expo, the dorm logistics, the early alarm, the friends, the cheering, the lake, the pizza afterward, and somehow seeing people from every corner of my running life all in one place.
This year, we were once again waitlisted for the dorms. This seems to happen every year, but thankfully we ended up getting in a few weeks before the race. We stayed in the UMD apartments this time, which worked out really well so four of us could fit in the room, and I think the beds were much comfier than the other dorms.
I picked Shaun up a little after 10 on Friday morning and we drove up to Duluth. We hit the expo, got our bibs (somehow I registered with my name all in caps so I got multiple texts of people asking why I was yelling or who I was mad at 🤣), checked into the apartment, and then swung by the dorms hospitality suite for some food and things. I grabbed a bagel for race morning, then went back to the dorm to read and relax for a bit while Shaun stayed at the hospitality suite to watch World Cup soccer.
Later, we picked Sayeh up from her hotel and met Cathy at Tavern on the Hill for an early dinner at 4:30. I’ve gone there the last three years for Grandma’s, and it always seems to work out well. I had bang bang cauliflower, a bang bang rice bowl, and a Mich Golden Light. Andrea met us after dinner to get my car because she was staying at a friend’s house and needed a way to get to the buses in the morning.
The whole weekend vibe was pretty chill. I have such an awesome group of running friends, and everyone understands that people have their own needs and routines before a race.
I slept okay. I shared a room with Cathy, and every time she moved, I woke up a little. Just the reality of sharing a dorm room. I woke up around midnight and could not fall back asleep, so I read for a little bit. Then my alarm went off at 3:35 a.m. so we could get ready and meet our friends around 4 to walk to the buses when they started loading at 4:15.
Race morning breakfast was a bagel with cream cheese and a banana. I really wished I had coffee. Since we were not staying at the other dorm, there was no easy coffee option…we would have had to walk way out of our way to get some. I was worried about not being able to go to the bathroom before the race without coffee…
The bus ride to the start was so fun. Being with friends made it go by so quickly that you almost forget it takes about a half hour to drive up there. At the start, I hung out with my friends for a little while, but we were in Corral 2, and the fastest pacer in that corral was the 2-hour pacer. Since I knew I wanted to run faster than that, I needed to get closer to the front, so I split off from them a little early. I did see them again when I made my own line for the portapotty.
I had also been trying to find my friend from work, Haley. There is basically no service up at the start, so you have to make plans the night before. She was in Corral 1 but had planned to pop back and run with me. We never found each other, so she ended up going with Corral 1. I was a little bummed we missed each other, but I probably ended up running better doing my own race.
Going into the weekend, I hadn’t fully decided whether I was going to race or just have fun with friends. My friends are amazing and acknowledged how hard I had been training, and that helped me decide to actually go for it. I wanted to be faster than my Get in Gear Half Marathon time from about a month earlier, which was 1:55:10. Ideally, I wanted to break 1:55 and prove to myself that Get in Gear wasn’t a fluke.
The weather was great, especially for the half. It was around 57 degrees and cloudy at the start. It did get a little warm toward the end and it was a little humid, but overall, it was good racing weather. It got hot later in the day for the marathoners, but for my race, the weather was pretty cooperative.
I wore my Northstar singlet and running shorts. I had two GUs tucked into my pocket and brought my AirPods, but I ended up not using them at all. Instead, I listened to my breathing, my own thoughts, and the cheering around me. I also had a drop bag with a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and flip flops. I should have packed sunscreen, I definitely got a little crispy.
At the start line, I suddenly got super hungry, so I took a caffeinated GU about 15 minutes before the race started.
The first few miles felt so good. My pace was faster than I had planned, but it felt easy, and the miles seemed to be flying by.
My first mile was 8:21, then 8:14, 8:23, and 8:25. I knew I was moving, and whenever I saw a split that was faster than expected, I would get a little worried that I was going too fast. At the same time, I felt good enough that my brain started recalibrating. I had come in hoping to break 1:55, but once the race started clicking, I started thinking it would be really cool if I could break 1:50.
Miles five and six were 8:18 and 8:11, but I still felt in control. I was not listening to music, and I think focusing on my breathing helped me stay calm. I kept counting down the miles in my head, but I was also reminding myself to run the mile I was in.
That was probably one of the biggest things that helped. I did not let myself get too far ahead. I knew I was running well, but I also knew there was a lot of race left.
Mile seven was 8:25, and mile eight was 8:33. My heart rate was climbing, but the pace was still steady. Then mile nine came in at 8:18.
Lemon Drop Hill came with about four miles to go, and it felt hard. My pace slowed going up the hill, but I was able to recover. I also saw a coworker while we were going up the hill, said hi, and she was cruising.
Mile ten was my slowest full mile at 8:45, which makes sense with the hill. But then I came back with an 8:24 for mile eleven, thanks to some down hill.
Fueling was a little bit of a mixed bag. I took a liquid Gu around mile 4.5 and tried the cola flavor, which was ick. Later, around mile 9 or 10, I took a birthday cake Gu. That one hit hard, and not in a good way. I had stopped at the water stop to take it with water, and I think I took it too fast because it just kind of sat there weird. My stomach did not love me very much for the last few miles.
I had been drinking Powerade every two miles, and after halfway I also started taking water. Eventually I was grabbing something almost every mile until there were about two miles left, when my stomach felt like it could not hold anything else.
With a little over two miles left, I was definitely feeling it. There is a little hill as you head toward downtown, and I gave myself a bit of time to recover from that. I told myself I would push the last mile. I just had to keep moving. By then, I knew I was going to hit my original 1:55 goal even if I slowed down a lot.
The last mile felt so hard. All those turns coming into Canal Park were rough. I was struggling a little, but I kept telling myself to just keep moving. The Mill City cheering squad was also amazing with about two miles to go, and hearing people cheer helped so much.
When I finally saw the finish, I decided to kick it up. It felt hard, but doable. My final 0.18 on Garmin was at a 7:51 pace, and my finish video actually looked strong, which is always a delightful surprise because sometimes the way you feel and the way you look are not the same thing.
I crossed the finish line in 1:50:50. My official average pace was 8:28 per mile. I finished 1356 out of 7832 overall, 482 out of 4820 women, and 91 out of 680 in my division. Garmin had me at 13.18 miles in 1:50:52, an 8:25 average pace, with 266 feet of elevation gain. I think that was great use of the tangents!
I was happy and don’t think I could have done any better that day. I also was a little bummed because I was so close to breaking 1:50. But mostly, I was proud. I took more than four minutes off my Get in Gear time, proved to myself that race was not a fluke, and ran a really strong race. I also shaved off 53 minutes and 37 seconds from your overall finish time from the same race last year, dropping my pace by 4 minutes and 5 seconds per mile! So I guess I am proud of 🙂
After I finished, I saw my friends Vallana and Matt, who volunteer at the finish line every year. Then I grabbed my drop bag and ran over to about .75 miles from the finish to watch Andrea and Shaun finish. I watched a few more friends come in, then met back up with people at the finish line. I also finally saw Haley, the coworker I had planned to run with, and she absolutely crushed it.
That might have been the most emotional part of the day for me. Not just my race, but seeing so many friends from so many different areas of my life. Multiple running clubs, coworkers, people I have met through other parts of life, all connected through this weekend. I am proud that I took the chance to push myself, but I am also proud that I did not get so caught up in my own race that I missed the bigger thing. Grandma’s weekend is so much about friends for me.
I drank some beer at the finish, then we walked over to the brewery around mile 23.5 of the marathon course. I finally went pee, because the portapotties after the race were rough, the lines were long, and there was no way I could bring myself to use them.
I met up with my Moms on the Run group at the brewery area to cheer in the last couple of our friends. I grabbed a Caprese sandwich and a Diet Coke from the sub shop and got pictures of friends finishing. Our cheer group was so awesome. I loved how happy people looked, especially after more than six hours of running, when they saw strangers cheering them on.
We made the right decision to take a Lyft back to the dorms… the bus line was insane and would have taken an extra hour to wait and get back.
Later that night, we went out for pizza at Sammy’s, the same place as last year, with the same crew. It was super fun, but we were all so tired, so maybe not quite as rowdy as previous years. I slept really well that night and woke up feeling surprisingly good. My body felt great later in the day too, and I think all the standing around, walking back and forth, and cheering probably helped keep me loose.
Looking back, I am most proud that I took the chance to race. I could have chosen to run easy with friends, and that would have been a great day too. But I had been training hard, and my friends helped me recognize that it was okay to go for it. I’m proud of how steady I stayed when it got hard. The first half felt almost too good, the middle miles were strong, Lemon Drop Hill was tough, and the last few miles took work.
Grandma’s is one of those races that reminds me why I love running – the whole weekend but especially the joy of watching people finish something huge.
A 1:50:50 half marathon is pretty great and so is having a whole weekend that feels so amazing.
