Organizers Say Twin Cities Marathon Will Move to Air-Conditioned Mall Beginning in 2028
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Right: Mall of America, via wikipedia/CC, Runner1928
The Twin Cities Marathon will abandon its traditional outdoor course starting in 2028, organizers announced today, in favor of a route contained entirely within a climate-controlled shopping mall.
The move comes just a week after Twin Cities in Motion, owner of the event, said it was moving the race date from early October to mid-October, beginning in 2027. Both changes, organizers said, were made in the face of increasingly hot weather.
“The safety of our runners and volunteers is, and always has been, our top concern,” Vincent Benedict, a spokesman for the organization, said in a statement. “Pushing the race back by two weeks will lessen the risk of dangerously hot weather; moving it the following year into an enclosed, air-conditioned environment will remove that risk completely.”
The marathon was canceled outright in 2023, due to heat and humidity that organizers decided was dangerously high.
Twin Cities in Motion has not yet chosen a mall, Benedict said, but has narrowed the candidates down to “just a few,” including the Mall of America in nearby Bloomington, billed as the largest mall in the U.S.
“We are carefully evaluating several possible locations,” said Benedict, “with size being among our most important criteria, for obvious reasons.”
Benedict said the move might rankle some traditionalists, but he thinks they will come around to the idea of running 26.2 miles in an indoor retail environment.
“A large mall would offer a number of built-in advantages, including plenty of parking, real restrooms, and an abundance of fueling choices, from Cinnabon to Sbarro,” he said. “And no hills.”
“Oh, and Jamba Juice. That’s some good stuff.”
