Early this morning, starting at 7:30, they'll toe the starting line, not far from Two Harbors. Nearly 4,000 elite and weekend athletes, they'll race 26.2 miles along the picturesque North Shore of Lake Superior. They'll finish in Duluth's Canal Park, where the party will just be starting.
Grandma's Marathon?
Not today. Think faster. Think Grandma's with a sugar buzz, and that's the 13th-annual NorthShore Inline Marathon, the largest race of its kind in North America and one of the Northland's most-celebrated weekends of the year.
"We are one of those diverse events that people really look forward to," inline marathon board member John Bray told the News Tribune editorial page yesterday as competitors and spectators flooded the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center around him to pick up race packets. "We never thought we'd be here, but we're here to stay, attracting people from 17 foreign countries and from every state in the nation."
The marathon embodies all that's right about inline skating. And if snowboarding can be part of the Winter Games, inline skating can certainly find a home in the Summer Games, something the International Olympic Committee is considering.
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Don't believe it? Roll on over to the North Shore and Canal Park this morning for a closer look.
