Marathon Website Fails to Mention Shitty 7-Mile Stretch of Course on Remote Multi-Use Path
/
depositphotos photo illustration
The official website of a small marathon includes at least a dozen beautiful photos of the course, Dumb Runner has learned, but makes no mention of miles 16 through 23, a bleak and barren stretch that takes runners out and back on a multi-use path that parallels a busy highway.
The Frostbite Falls (Minnesota) Marathon, which bills itself as “America’s Prettiest Small Town Marathon,” typically attracts about 5,500 runners each spring. And it does indeed seem beautiful, judging by the event’s website—colorful photos show runners massed at the start, staged just off a quaint town square; streaming past cheering spectators along tree-lined residential streets; and waving to the camera as they near the finish in the town’s pedestrian-friendly shopping district.
What website visitors don’t see are photos, or even descriptions, of a seven-mile section of the course that multiple finishers have described as “boring,” “grim,” and “just awful.” That segment—which one marathoner said “seems to go on forever”—takes runners outside the city limits, past empty fields, sprawling warehouses, an abandoned gas station overgrown with weeds, and multiple homeless encampments. Noise and fumes from a nearby highway provide the only distraction.
“It sucks,” said Jay Ward, a local runner who has finished the marathon three times. “I mean, I get that the organizers only have so many picturesque miles to work with—they have to cobble together 26.2 miles, in a small town, you know?—but sheesh, those seven miles are just dismal.”
Several other runners, speaking on the condition of anonymity, shared that sentiment with Dumb Runner, with many pointing out that the unpleasantness is compounded by the fact that the segment in question is an out-and-back.
“So you spend the first three and a half miles (of the segment) bored out of your skull, listening to cars and trucks speeding past, and then you turn around at an orange cone and get to experience it all over again,” said one.
“Plus, it’s flat and wide open, with practically zero shelter” said another. “So if there’s a strong crosswind, which there usually is, you get all of it.”
“Beautiful, my ass,” they added.
Reached for comment, Frostbite Falls Marathon organizers emailed Dumb Runner a link to the even’t website.
