A few minutes after 4:30 a.m. I determined I was awake. It was one of those unusually rare early morning rises where fighting off sleep is not needed. I was awake before my eyes opened, and when they did I was up. It was a Saturday to boot.

In less than three hours Grandma’s Marathon would commence. In an hour a shuttle that would take me from the UNM-Duluth dormitory to the start line near Two Harbors, Minn., would arrive. 

Shop talk with one of my roommates and fellow runner dominated that time. We unexpectedly compared notes on the delivery of Inherit the Wind and observations of fundamentalism in our own time and town.  The shop talk continued on the shuttle, until he noted that our conversation helped pass “the lengthy trip out of town.” It was.

Our destination was Canal Park in Duluth, some 26.2 miles away.  I spent a few hours down there the night before, carbo-loading.  

Grandma’s Restaurant hosts an all-u-can-eat pasta buffet that I took advantage of with the wife and kids when they dropped me off in town. The chicken mornay – a white, cream-based sauce with bathing chicken breasts – was used to drown two platefuls of whole wheat pasta. Breadsticks too.

“Fuel for tomorrow” I thought without a shred of guilt. The waitress had given me a wrist band to distinguish myself from other non-buffet eating patrons. This would prove a useful tool.

Transitioning to race preparation after a week-long vacation with the family in northern Minnesota was a bit tricky. On one hand, hanging out with the family on the waterfront, showing them the big shipping freighters and loading docks, taking in the cobblestone streets and event atmosphere was entirely appropriate. 

On the other hand, part of me just wanted to pick up my packet, shove a bunch of pasta in the gullet, and focus on the run. A middle ground was found and they shoved off in late afternoon wishing me well as they left me in the dorm.

A few hours later I found myself back in Grandma’s Restaurant with a table of friends. They needed dinner and I had recommended the place, so I felt obligated to hang out. Turns out I still had my wrist band on from earlier. Hmm.

What is the ethical obligation in such a situation? I paid earlier for an all-u-can-eat buffet, but it did not specifically state if it was for a single sitting or single day. The messages from my tablemates were not entirely clear either. “Just go up there,” but with a tone of confidence said, knowing the speaker is not the one pushing the bounds. I know that tone as I’ve used it before myself.

I was upfront with our waitress as I showed her my wristband. “Look, I was in here a little bit ago with my family and had the buffet. Now I’m here with them. Can I please have one more plate?”  She gave me a bit of an eye roll and offered me another wrist band since they had changed colors.

In geologic terms my word choice of “a little bit” was completely appropriate. Really, it had been a couple hours…four, tops. One more plate of chicken mornay it was.

Back at the start line, a sea of moving bodies each preparing for their run was herded in by dozens of port-a-potty doors opening and closing. Runners making last minute deposits of used water, Gatorade, microbrews or pasta. The entire mass being quiet only for the national anthem and military flyover, the latter raising the hairs on my neck, but maybe not for the same reasons as it would others.

I did in fact run the race, my first time at Grandma’s. It generally follows old Hwy. 61 down the north shore of Lake Superior back to Duluth. The unusually high humidity of the day was interrupted several times early on with sporadic, cool, energy-providing wind gusts off the lake.

Listening to Warren Zevon’s “Splendid Isolation” while watching dozens, hundreds, of runners join me in moving through a growing heat I couldn’t help but conclude that energy could be derived from such positive, collective suffering of sorts.

There was the old-timer I passed at the 15.25 mile mark who had a bottle of Leiney’s Honey Weiss in his hand. “My son offered it to me at the last water station, how could I pass on it?” I didn’t verify, but he must have been a Wisconsin resident.

As the course enters the 20th mile at the outskirts of Duluth, college kids continue the beer theme by running beer stands or offering beer bongs to runners. As much as I would have enjoyed imbibing for the sake of a good story, the body would have none of it. I was content to run under virtually all of the garden hoses residents had set up as roadside sprinklers.

One runner did imbibe a few sips. The college kid kept up with him as he ran, finally requesting the obvious. “I need my cup back.” It was not destined to be one of hundreds of thousands of cups that were raked up off the course that wasn’t completely fully and freely given.

What was fully and freely given was the time of the 5,500 race volunteers, many working along the race course’s 15 water and ice stations. All sorts, from high school and college organizations, entire families, senior or developmentally disabled groups all pitched in to offer refreshments and friendly encouragement. Even with exhaustion often looming over my shoulder it was easy to offer “thank you” to the holders of all the cups I grabbed, even the Elvis impersonators.

As I hit the cobblestone streets of Superior Street in downtown Duluth, Walter Isaacson’s biography of Benjamin Franklin was being read in my earphones. My mind, perhaps suffering from early stages of heat stroke, contrasted the evolution of Franklin’s compassionate conservativism as he aged with the bigotry and narrow mindedness that replaced thinking of liberation and questioning of youth in other historical figures, such as a Martin Luther.

It is odd that a person not sweating at Mile 24 of a 26.2-mile run concludes that pragmatism is a better route than being dogmatic. 

At Mile 25 an unknown fan shouted to me as I staggered by, “those guys that finished in front of the pack hours ago, have no idea what it is to push through this heat, this long. You do. Savor this last mile.  You’re almost in.”

Savor.  Hmm.  I managed to jog across the finish line with a time that is nothing worth blogging about. Must have been that third plate of chicken mornay.