A fellow runner asked a question about the Paavo Nurmi marathon and then I realized that I had written a race report for it last year but had never actually posted it here. So here is a belated report for a great little race in rural Wisconsin- that I would very much recommend.
Paavo Nurmi Recap
Weather: Humid but not hot. Most of the first half of the race was run in a fog
Course: Beautiful and very hilly. The definition of a “scenic” marathon
Results: 4:02:13 (13.1 in approx 2:05)
Overall: 32 of 105
Male: 26 of 74....and my 20th State
I have no split data for the race other than the half. Based on the elevation map for the race I knew that a PR wasn’t going to happen and since I had to drive almost 3 hours back to Marquette after the marathon to catch my flight home I decided to just use the timer without GPS on my watch and concentrate on keeping an even effort on the course.
Location: Hurley Wisconsin- a border town just across from the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. I was in Marquette on a business trip and every time I mentioned I was going to Hurley over the weekend before flying back I got funny looks until someone explained to me that Hurley had a reputation bars, saloons, strip clubs, etc. Indeed, after I picked up my packet the night before the run I walked down to Silver Street, where the Paavo Nurmi torch lighting ceremony was taking place at a trail head and observed that the other end of “famous Silver Street” was a glow with neon signs and a significant portion of the people I passed on the street were stumbling. I had pasta dinner at the Iron Nugget Restaurant and walked back to my hotel.
Race morning- boarded the bus to the starting line in Upson. My hotel had a spread out for the runners early enough to sit and eat while waiting. The starting area itself was a clearing across the street from a couple old bar/motels that may or may not have been still operational based on their condition. The morning was densely foggy but not cold. There were only 105 full marathon finishers but there was a half marathon and five-person relay as well. Paavo Nurmi is Wisconsin’s oldest marathon (48th annual) and is a really well run event.
Everyone was friendly and more than a couple of times I found myself beside someone who wanted to chat for a bit while we ran. The elevation chart looked pretty rough in spots- especially between miles 5 and 9. I met a guy who had run every Paavo since 1983 and another who told me that he had run it several times before and had counted at least 30 hills on the course if you didn’t include the small ones.
Volunteers were great. There were sponges, water, and Gatorade at every aid station with ice and treats in the later miles. Sprinklers were set up periodically to run through and one guy was using an old fire truck to pump water out of a lake and spray runners.
I was a little shocked by how slow I ran the first half of the race even with the hills but I felt fine so I just went with it. People kept saying this course was about 20 minutes slower than a standard one and that was pretty true with me. There were a few flattish miles beginning at mile 16 so I surged a bit and again from mile 23-25 before a big hill on 25 ended my hopes of going under 4 hours but I still had a pretty decent negative split on the course and was able to walk to my car and drive back to airport.
Overall: I ran 7 miles slowly today and other than sore quads I’m fine. I’ll take it easy and then start training again for Flying Monkey and potentially First Light in January. I’m glad I got to run this race. I had planned originally on running Marquette on Labor Day weekend but my business trip for moved up three weeks so I ran this one instead. It was early in the season and probably too close to my last marathon for me to have run better even if I wanted to. OC took a lot out of me but I feel good after Paavo so I think I took the right approach. I’d come back if I had the opportunity to see the people here again and would recommend Hurley and Paavo Nurmi to anyone who wants to get a scenic summer race in. I imagine if I was into Hunting or fishing it would be a great area to take a summer vacation and cap it off with a race.
Moments
- Just before the half there was a man who rang a Giant “Freedom Bell” for every runner that came by
- The guy pumping water out of the lake with an old fire truck hose suspended on a ladder to cool us off
- The narrow road over the Gille (sp) flowage where I looked around and there was beautiful mountain lake on each side of the me….breathtaking
- The grizzled runners with long beards- there were several talking about the ultras they were doing and how they come back here every year. I was behind one shirtless subject at the midway point who had found a giant feather he had stuck in the back of his shorts (I assume so he didn’t have to carry it) and kept thinking that based on the feather’s location it must now be both itchy and smelly.
- Mile 20-21 I came over a hill and there was a little black lab that came up to me with a cup in his mouth. I politely declined taking a drink from a canine but he was with a little blonde haired boy that was probably six or seven years old that was holding a cup of water and a cup of beer. I took a beer and he excitedly told his dad that they just had 11 cups of beer left to go before his table of beer could be refilled.
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