Fargo Marathon
May 19, 2018
4:10:22 665/1461 Overall 443/808 Male 3/8 in 65-69
I had
originally planned to do the Fargo Marathon last year, but due to injury, I was
able to roll it over to this year. Fargo is in the far northeast corner of
North Dakota. In fact, the marathon crossed the Red River boundary and ran
through Minnesota for a short time. Fargo is a city of just over 100,000, and
the marathon along with the short races is a huge event for the city. The expo
was fairly good-sized and featured a lot of health exhibits since Sanford Health
is the major sponsor.
I
had fun at the expo meeting some ladies from the Minnesota State University
whose campus we would run through and a representative of the local Fellowship
of Christian Athletes group. I did some exploring of the city afterwards and
found that it was the home of Roger Maris who broke Babe Ruth’s single season home
run record in 1961. There was a fun museum inside a local mall and I enjoyed remembering
how Bill and I followed his quest for 61 in the first year that we really
followed baseball.
I
also discovered a visitor center that had a small walk of fame with celebrities’
names and handprints. It had the “woodchipper” from the movie, Fargo. The Hjemkomst Center that I went
to next featured a Viking Ship built by a Minnesotan of Norwegian descent in
the 1970s. He died from cancer but the ship was sailed by his family all the
way back to Norway. There is also a Stave Church on the grounds that again was
built by a local as a labor of love and replicates those found in Norway from
the 1500s. Additionally, I viewed a WWI exhibit there, and then saw Concordia
College.
The
marathon started and finished in the Fargo Dome. The weather was cold with
temps in low 40s and heavy winds making it feel-like 30s at the start. The
weather warmed during the race and it was good running temp and cloudy, but the
20 mph headwinds especially in the last 6 miles made it tough to keep the pace
I wanted. I was very happy at being able to run my goal pace of under 9:20 for most
of the miles, but the many turns made the distance 26.45 miles. My first half
was 2:04:47 so I had nearly even splits for the 2 halves. I was hoping to get
close to or under 4:05, but the turns and wind didn’t let me quite do that.
Nevertheless, I felt like I ran strongly and was not wiped out when I finished.
The
medal was the longest marathon medal I’ve gotten and had one of my favorite
Bible verses on the back-Heb. 12:1. After ice bath, nap, and burger at 5 Guys,
I did some more touring. I found the bridge between ND and MN that has some
Veterans memorials on it. For dinner I got a large blizzard from Dairy Queen.
This was Marathon #159; 24 states on 2nd go-round; All 10 Canadian
provinces.
Photos: https://photos.shutterfly.com/gallery/4feba295-4764-4379-930e-f53f8ac30145?type=shared
(The description is roughly in order of the pictures.)
Montana
Trip
On
Sunday I flew to Bozeman, MT to visit my Westmont buddies, Charlie and Ken. We’ve
known each other since 1968 so I thought it would be great to stop by on my
return trip from Fargo. Ken and Pam moved to Bozeman just a year ago. I enjoyed
seeing the great interior decorating Ken has done in the house and some of the
sports memorabilia that he has in the garage. On Monday Charlie joined us and
we went to Yellowstone via the north entrance and saw parts that I had never
seen before. These included the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River and
Yellowstone Lake which is nearly as large as Lake Tahoe. We saw hot springs, impressive
waterfalls, rock formations, buffalo, and elk. (We saw a number of Elk congregated
near us and Ken commented, “Looks like an Elks Club meeting!” Same Ken. Lol)
We
had a late lunch at the restaurant near Old Faithful (we seen the geyser a few
times before so skipped waiting to see it spout-off) and then headed back to
Bozeman. Yellowstone is huge; we put in 300 miles and just saw small sections
of it. Charlie and I dropped Ken off and then headed to Townsend, about an hour
away, where Charlie and Becky live. I spent the night with them and then we enjoyed
seeing the town which is a slice of Americana and Mayberry. We went to the
White Sulphur Hot Springs; the hot mineral water felt great after having just
run the marathon. After lunch in Townsend, Charlie and I drove back to Bozeman
seeing a touching tribute to a fallen Highway Patrolman. Wednesday morning Ken
and I went to breakfast in Bozeman and faced a pretty good downpour. Then I
flew back home where Charlotte was glad to see me.
Photos: https://photos.shutterfly.com/gallery/20bef2b5-7037-48c8-93a1-8b6af1da805e?type=shared
(The description is roughly in order of the pictures.)
