That will be one we will talk about for years to come!
What a sad day for the Twin Cities Marathon and 10 Mile that were canceled because of the heat. Upper 80s/low 90s are not safe for people to be racing a marathon, so I think the race director made the right call to cancel the race and not risk overwhelming EMS or anyone’s life by canceling the race.
Of course there has been backlash, but most reasonable people understand why the race was canceled, and if you were running outside on Sunday, you definitely understood–it got steamy! (Our car read 95*F that afternoon.)
The week prior, we had been receiving emails from the event organizers that this year was going to be hot, and they provided good tips on running in the heat (slow your pace, drink more fluids, consume electrolytes, wear light/white clothing, etc.). There was an email the day prior to the race stating that the races were expected to go on, but if they did decide to cancel the race, they would let us know by 5:30 a.m. race morning. (The 10 Miler was slated to start at 7:00 a.m. and the marathon was to start at 8:00 a.m.)
So that weekend I knew canceling the race was an option, but honestly, I never even considered it actually happening. I’m a planner, and usually if I know there’s a chance something might happen, I’ll plan for it in case it does. However, I never once considered what I would do in the event the 10 Mile race was canceled–I was that confident the race would go on. (Maybe my subconscious knew because I was not an ounce nervous for this race!)
I got up at 4:00 a.m. Sunday morning, got ready, and started eating my pre-race food. I had coffee along with a Nature’s Bakery fig bar. I pinned my bib to my sports bra and threw on a sweatshirt that I was going to toss at the start. I left my phone at my sister’s (where I was staying) because there was no bag check at the start. (There usually is a bag drop for this race, but an email before the race stated that they had lost their primary transporter of the gear, so we had to check anything we wanted for the finish at bib pick-up/the expo prior to the race.)
My sister (Kristy) (who was running the marathon), her husband (Nick) (who was running the 10 Mile as well), and I left just a few minutes after 5:00 a.m. I ate a banana, plus half of a bagel on the way there. We drove to the finish of the race, parked, and then walked a few block to get on the metro, which is the train that would take us to the start.
While we were waiting for the train to come, which was around 5:20 a.m., Kristy, all of a sudden exclaims, “The races are canceled.” We all look at her in disbelief. She said, “My friend Maddie just texted and said she got an email saying both the marathon and 10 Mile are canceled.” I didn’t know what to say! (Kristy even took a video of us right after this, and I’m just standing there speechless!)
We ask a couple other runners around us if they had gotten an email about the races being canceled. Neither one of them had. (But if you know anything about mass emailing, you know it takes the server a while to send the email to everyone.) A few minutes later, others starting getting the email saying the races had been canceled. We debated what to do and ultimately decided to head back home and figure out our plans. I thought about going to the start and running the course itself, but I also wasn’t sure if the race officials wanted people doing that.
We got back home a few minutes before 6:00 a.m. and joked with Craig I ran a sub-1 hour 10 Mile. Luckily all the kids were still sleeping, and then a friend of Kristy and mine texted us inviting us over to her house for a group run since we couldn’t do the race. We knew would be running some way or another because like we said during Covid, “Races may be canceled, but running is not.”
So we headed to Minneapolis to my friend Bree’s house and there was a group of six of us who ran around the lakes in Minneapolis. Most of us did 10 miles, but Kristy and her friend Maddie (who had initially told us the race was canceled) were supposed to run the marathon, so they ran 18 miles.
When we started our run at 7:00 a.m. the air was cool, but by the time we finished around 8:30 a.m., you could tell it was going to be a warm day. Kristy finished her run around 9:45 a.m., and she said she understood why the race was canceled.
Honestly, doing this easy run together with friends was just as much fun as the race. We had fun chatting and talking about this day that we will remember for years to come. We ran around the lakes and there were SO many other runners out doing the exact same thing we were. There were also people cheering for us–just as if they would have been cheering for us in the race. People were cheering for us, we were cheering for others, it was so memorable and special. The running community is the best. (You can watch an Instagram Reel I made of our morning HERE.)
Like I said, most people understood why the race was canceled, and I know the race director did not want to cancel the race. Could people have run a marathon in these temps? Yes. Would it have been safe for a lot of people? No. People push themselves a lot harder and more in a race than they would in a training run, and I know you would have had a lot of people collapsing and needing medical attention. I won’t forget running Grandma’s Marathon in 2016 where they changed the flags to black, and I heard many stories of people collapsing and not being able to finish.
All in all, still a special day, and a day we got to celebrate running. My heart goes out to all of the marathoners especially. My sister decided to run Mankato Marathon three weeks after this race, so she’ll be repeating the last three weeks of her training in hopes she can still run a strong race. I don’t know what my plans are as far as more races this year, but it would be fun to do one or two more before we close out the year.
