Bob Mann: 2017 Fargo Marathon

Sat May 20, 2017

On Sat May 20 2017, I ran the Fargo Marathon in Fargo ND. North Dakota became the 38th state in which I have run a marathon. I believe I am still on pace to finish all 50 states before I turn 50. My 46th birthday was two days after this race, so I have four years left to complete the final 12 states. Barring a serious setback, I should be able to accomplish this.

An interesting side note -- interesting to me, anyway -- is that North Dakota was the only state in the U.S. that I hadn't been to more than once. I had set foot in all 50 states before I ever stated this marathon quest, thanks mostly to a few cross-country drives. And with 37 previous marathons, that right there put me in most states for at least a second time. So of the states in which I hadn't yet run, North Dakota was the only one that I hadn't been back to for some reason or another. This race was my reason to go back.

When planning my travel, I first looked into flying into Fargo. I couldn't find any nonstop flights from Newark, and tickets were in the range of $700. Instead, I found tickets to Minneapolis for about $300. I figured that was enough savings to make that drive worthwhile. And as I've said before, (most recently with my last marathon in Georgia), I enjoy driving around unfamiliar parts of the country. So I flew to MSP and drove the 240 miles through the Minnesota countryside to Fargo.

It seems that whenever I would mention "Fargo" to anybody -- at least the people I am around near home or work in New Jersey -- the people think of the Coen Brothers' movie. I had seen it back in the day, but it had been a while. So I rented it and watched it on the plane. Seemed like an appropriate thing to do. As I drove into town, the first stop I made was at the visitor center right off the highway. And right there was the woodchipper prop from the movie, among other props. Apparently the city of Fargo still embraces the movie.

And Fargo takes the marathon very seriously as well. There were events the whole week, including a kids' run and a dog run, and things like that. There was a 5k race at 6:30pm Friday evening, and I had decided to sign up for it just a few days before my trip. I had made it to town by midafternoon, so I had plenty of time. Once before, in Alabama, I had run a 5k race on the day before the marathon. I normally do a short, slow warmup run on the day before a marathon, so why not get another T-shirt for the effort? After checking in to my hotel, I drove out to the Fargodome for the expo. I picked up my gear for both the 5k and the marathon, then I waited around for the start of the 5k. There was a fairly large crowd for this race -- over 5000 runners. I was definitely going to take it easy, so I ran one of my slowest 5ks. My final time was 28:48. That was perfectly fine with me.

The marathon started 7:00am on Saturday morning. It was a cool and cloudy day, which was basically ideal marathon weather. Once again, it wasn't going to be the weather that would cause me to have a slow race. As usual, the culprit would be my poor training. Finally in April, I logged a month with 115 miles, which is the most I had done in a month in well over a year. I had been in this low mileage rut for a few years now, but I do still manage to keep churning out the marathons. I expected this race to be similar to most of my recent ones, which means I'd run for the first 15 miles or so, then do a run/walk combo the rest of the way, with an ever-increasing frequency of walking as the race went on. I expected my finish time to be somewhere in the area of 4.5 hours. Not very speedy, but good enough accomplish the goal.

The 5k on Friday had started and ended in the parking lot outside the Fargodome. But the marathon began and ended inside the arena. That was interesting. I had never started or finished a race indoors before. I wondered what this would do to my GPS tracking. Apparently not much, because my GPS mileage was pretty well in sync with the mileage markers right off the bat.

We ran outside and the course wound northeast from the arena. Almost immediately, I hit a good groove around a 9:30 pace. Around the 4th mile, we came up to the Red River, which separates North Dakota from Minnesota. We ran through nice neighborhoods until about Mile 7, then jumped on a bike path and followed close by the river heading southward, until mile 9 when we ran over a footbridge and crossed the river into Minnesota. This was the second time I had crossed a state line during a marathon, the first being way back when I did the Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon, which crossed into Kentucky.

There was a slight uphill climb in the 11th mile, and I decided to use this as my first walk break. I didn't need to walk that early, but I knew there would be plenty of walking later, so I might as well conserve some energy while I can. And I feel that walking up hills is a good way to conserve. That 11th mile was my first one that wasn't within shouting distance of 9:30, as I completed that one in 10:05. I began running again, but didn't quite get back to the 9:30 range. The next few miles were closer to 9:45. I passed the halfway point, which was on the campus of Minnesota State University Moorhead, at about 2:07. That was fairly close to what I've been completing my first halves in over the last couple years. Maybe slightly slower. Nonetheless, I felt fine, and I kept going.

We crossed back into North Dakota just before Mile 15. That means that almost six miles of the Fargo Marathon takes place in Minnesota. The 50 State Marathon Club rules say that a marathon must begin and/or end in a state to count. Since both the start and finish line were in North Dakota, this race clearly counted for North Dakota. However, it got me thinking that once I am done with my 50 state quest, I will not have run 26.2 miles within the state of North Dakota. Even with the 5k the night before, I would only be at about 23 miles. The same holds true for Ohio. Again, it doesn't matter in terms of the quest. It's just another interesting side note. Interesting to me, at least.

Mile 16 was the last mile I completed in under ten minutes, at 9:57. From this point on, there would be too much walking to be very fast. As expected, my walk breaks began to occur more frequently. First it was every mile, then every 3/4 mile, then every half mile. My pace kept slowly slipping, but I was still moving. So I was happy enough. My knees were aching a bit, and I was blaming it on the fact that a good portion of the race had been run on concrete. I guess I'd call this my biggest complaint of the race. I crept back to the Fargodome, with the last three miles all taking more than 12 minutes.

I finally made it back inside and across the finish line in a time of 4:31:07. Not spectacular, but it got the job done. All things considered, I suppose I should be pleased with the time. My training was typically bad, yet I'd been slower on four previous occasions. The cool and cloudy weather certainly helped. I'm sure it would have taken me longer on a warm and sunny day. No matter what, I'm satisfied with the outcome.

Overall, I thought it was a nice race. Starting inside the dome was nice. I could imagine this being very helpful if the weather were worse. Some rain was forecast for the day, and it did in fact rain quite hard in the afternoon long after the race had completed. Had it rained a few hours earlier, being indoors would have been nice. I thought the course was quite scenic. For the most part, the course stuck with nice neighborhoods and parks. There was only a brief section around Mile 24 where the course ran through downtown Fargo that it reached any sort of run down or slummy neighborhood. But it wasn't too desolate and didn't last too long. So the scenery was mostly quite pleasant.

One thing I had been looking forward to was the "27 Mile", which was advertised as a pub crawl around town in the afternoon after the race. I had gone back to my hotel for a nap and a shower. And by the time I reached the first bar, they were already out of stock of the mug and punch card that we were supposed to carry around from bar to bar. It seems like the pub crawl was open to anybody, not just runners. And the goodies were all gobbled up quickly. Getting a drink at each bar on the list supposed to result in a medal, similar to a race medal. Apparently the bartender at this first place felt bad for me not getting the mug and punch card, so he just gave me a medal right there. While that was nice, having the medal just handed to me like that sort of took the fun out of the whole pub crawl idea. But the medal was pretty nice. It looked very similar to a real race medal, and it actually works as a bottle opener. So if nothing else, I got another souvenier out of it.

The next day I drove back to Minneapolis and had plenty of time to kill, so I bought a ticket for the Twins-Royals game at Target Field. They were playing a doubleheader because of a rainout on Saturday. I only stayed for the first game, then had to get back to the airport and my flight home. Overall I had a nice weekend in North Dakota and Minnesota. Next up is the San Francisco Marathon in late July. That's not enough time to train properly, and I probably wouldn't train properly even if it was farther away. So I'm sure that will be another slow one. And if it's too warm, it might end up being REALLY slow. But so be it.

And now the photos. Click any image to enlarge.