From a Rock Ledge over the St. Louis River - Pre Curnow Thoughts

My View Right While Writing This Blog - St. Louis River, Carlton, MN

Date: 7/14/17

Location: Jay Cooke St. Park – on a rock ledge over the St. Louis River

Last year I did the Eugene Curnow Trail Marathon on a whim because I was in Duluth for a wedding that shared the same date. With the run starting at 6am, and the wedding at noon, it seemed like an obvious choice to register. The Curnow used to be known as the “Half-Voyageur,” before it’s namesake, Eugene Curnow, a trail running pioneer in the Northwoods Minnesota area, passed away.  Since then, it has become a real event of it’s own; although it still runs two weeks prior to the Voyageur 50-miler each year.

There is something so different about running 26.2 on this beautiful course running from Duluth to Carlton, MN on various trails following the path of the St. Louis River. Although I had done the Voyageur 50 prior, there was something really magical about my Curnow experience last year. As soon as the registration opened for 2017, I was excited to add this to my race calendar for the year.

Although I would call this race a “Focus” race for me, I find myself a day out from the start, potentially in the best running shape I’ve been in my life. My last two runs, a 7^th place/4:42 finish at Chester Woods 50k, and a solid, although not mind blowing, 1:36 at the Red, White, and Boom half marathon (on what was a very hot and muggy morning) a week and a half ago, have me feeling pretty good about my race at the Curnow tomorrow morning.

A little more than a month ago, I made a decision. I decided that I wanted to be a great runner. Not just a good runner, or a “front of the mid-pack runner” as I had been in the past, but a great runner that contended for the top spots and the podium at the races I entered. I came to the realization that the biggest limiting factor in my running was the mental limits I had placed on myself. Ideas that have been with me since I was very young still held a place in my mind. I was, after all, that kid that couldn’t pass the mile-run test in high school – one of just three students out of a class of over 900 at Cooper High School, that couldn’t pass by running a mile in less than 12 minutes. I was 75 pounds overweight, miserably addicted to junk foods and sugar, and without an athletic bone in my body.

Obviously, things have changed from those days. The truth is those ideas of being un-athletic, and limited still live in me somewhere. My realization of this happened right before Chester Woods 50k last month, and with just days before the race, I decided that there was absolutely no reason that I wasn’t racing with the top-10, and there was no reason that I couldn’t be approaching this race as if I was a great runner. It changed how I ran the race, it changed how confident I was, and I managed to get my best placing to date in an ultra, and beat my newly minted 50k PR (formerly 4:55) with a 7^th place/4:42 finish. While having the same type of break through can’t be ensured at tomorrow’s event, I will go in with the same mentality, that there is no reason I can’t be fighting for a top placing with the front of the pack.

Wish me luck!