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Event and Race Reviews

This is a growing collection of Race and Event Reviews. All of these reviews were written by our members and represent each author's experiences and opinions only.

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Grandma's Marathon
(Duluth, Minnesota)

Author: Gabe
Date: 2006-05-16

I ran this in June 2004. It is a great marathon and has been rated highly in Runner's World. Duluth is a smallish city, so the entire city basically shuts down for the event. Lots of cheering along the way. It is a point to point marathon. There is great organization. Buses transport runners from various meeting points in the city (usually from lodging points) to the start line. Roughly the first 20 miles is run through an old highway along the shores of Lake Ontario. Beautiful and elatively flat. Then you enter Duluth proper for the final 6 miles. There is a gentle hill at about 24 miles.

Entry is limited and usually sells out within about 2 weeks. Bottom line - great organization, great race. Definitely worth doing.

One bummer thing about the run is that it is about 1 month after spring marathons, so if you run in a group, most others are recovering from marathons while you're hitting the peak of mileage and training.