Lapping it up: Nicole Porath and the concept of running an indoor marathon

Venue means a lot when you're running a marathon.

If it's a course with a few hills sprinkled in, the inclines will likely look more mountainous as the race progresses. If it's on a course with little to no tree cover, you keep your fingers crossed for cloudy weather and gentle breezes.

Or, if it's the Zoom! Yah! Yah! marathon at St. Olaf College in Northfield, you better be ready for a few turns and very little scene variety, because it all takes place within the confines of Tostrud Field House. Where you run around a track. For 150 laps.

The annual race took place this past weekend and, as reported by my colleague Jordan Osterman of the Northfield News, Northfield native Nichole Porath set the world record for fastest indoor marathon time by a female, clocking in at 2:57:34. According to Runner's World, Porath's time obliterated the previous record (held by Melissa Gillette) by more than 11 minutes.

Nichole Porath leads a group of runners at the
Zoom Yah Yah! indoor marathon at St. Olaf.
(Photo by Jerry Smith of the Northfield News)

"I must take the time for a brief aside to mention that I know this is an obscure world record, and I in NO way think that I am a world class runner. I am just merely the fastest crazy woman to run an indoor marathon!" Porath wrote to Runner's World.

Incidentally, the record-breaking time wasn't even Porath's fastest marathon. She ran a 2:44:12 last year at the Olympic trials in Houston and is currently training to qualify again this coming fall.

The concept of an indoor marathon isn't a new one. Joie Ray held the record for fastest indoor marathon time for more than 80 years until Michael Wardian broke it with a time of 2:27:21 in 2010. 

It is however a type of race with sparse participation. Despite its growing popularity in recent years, most indoor marathons have modest turnouts. The Zoom! Yah! Yah!, for example, had 44 racers this year. Of course, this is partly due to practicality, as it'd be near-impossible to cram the 10,000-plus runners who participate in Grandma's Marathon onto an indoor track. It would also be difficult to provide all of those runners with individual timers, as the Zoom!  Yah! Yah! does thanks to strong volunteer numbers.

Despite the low participation numbers, indoor marathon enthusiasts assure that it's a sociable race. Crowds are close to action at all times -- rather than just picking one viewing spot like you would at a conventional marathon -- and the time spent running next to each other on a track gives competitors a chance to get to know each other.

"It's one of the easiest marathons a person can run. It's a really controlled environment, and there is a lot of interaction with other runners," runner and Northfield native Joe Winegardner said in a Star Tribune story last week. "It's just a wonderful experience."

As with any marathon, indoor races have injury risks. The constant turns can have a serious effect on a runner's hips, feet and knees and the hard track surface doesn't do any favors either. Porath herself dealt with a blood blister on her foot for the last hour of her race.

However, most indoor races try to limit the effects of constant turns by allowing runners to switch directions every so often. The Zoom! Yah! Yah! race, for example, allows runners to switch every 30 minutes.

And as Porath told the Northfield News, the close quarters of the field house also helped her keep focused on what she wanted to accomplish.

“It’s much more of an intimate environment. Everyone is watching you literally every step of the way,” she said. “It was cool to have that support throughout."

I can't say I'll be one of runners converting to indoor races anytime soon. I love running outside too much and when I think of marathons, I visualize crossing the Brooklyn Bridge or conquering Heartbreak Hill. Running on an indoor track makes me think of the mandatory gym class I took in college and how I wished our professor would let us play badminton instead. Big difference.

I will however tip my hat to Porath for her amazing accomplishment and extend my admiration to the runners who make indoor marathons a regular race for themselves. It takes a lot of focus to get through a marathon even with the most picturesque setting as a backdrop. I can only imagine the concentration it takes to run 26.2 miles with nothing more than field house walls and an indoor track to look at.

River valleys and bike trails: A 2-day trip to Red Wing

Some scattered thoughts about a 2-day bike trip I took to Red Wing last week:

• The route I took can be broken down into four parts. I took the Sakatah Singing Hills Trail from Mankato to Faribault. From there, I hopped on Highway 3 and headed north to Northfield. Once in the town of Oles and Knights, I went west on Highway 19 to Cannon Falls (map between Faribault and Cannon Falls here). After that, it was a simple 20-mile jaunt on the Cannon Valley Trail into Red Wing. Collectively, it equated to being about 90-95 miles of biking one way and close to 200 miles both ways. A minuscule amount compared to what Eric and Christie Nelson pedaled (who are now back in Mankato after a 14,000-mile ride, congrats you two!), but a decent 2-day trip.
• My reasons for taking the trip were simple. I had a couple days off in a row from work and was getting bored with the everyday rut I was in. It seemed like everyday revolved around either work or getting a good training run in; not my kind of routine. Aside from all that, I read about the Cannon Valley Trail in the bike trails book I rented from the library and wanted to see if I could make it there from the end of the Sakatah trail. Cannon Falls (the start point of the Cannon Valley Trail) is less than 30 miles from Faribault on back roads; turns out it was very feesible on a bike.
• Since it was a 2-day trip, I had to pack a change of clothes and a tent on my bike somehow. I resorted to buying a $20 bar rack at Wal Mart and bungeed everything to it (see photo). I also packed a small bike repair kit on the front of my bike. The one hitch in this plan was that the rack wasn't designed for my bike and needed to be bungeed down to keep it from moving. Next time, I think I'll try someplace other than Wal Mart to do last-minute bike shopping.
• I was initially going to use this trip as a way to explore the notion of connecting the Cannon Valley and Sakatah trails at some point. However, as the trip progressed, it turned into more of a juxtaposition of how much better shape the Cannon Valley Trail is in. See my column in Sunday's paper for further details.
• Best part of the trip: Finding a random bar called Chuggers in downtown Cannon Falls to watch the Vikings-Jets game after setting up camp for the night. Good atmosphere, passionate fans, decent drink prices and an entertaining Monday night game. Not sure if I've ever head that many verbal barbs aimed at Brad Childress in one 3-hour stretch (which is saying something).
• Worst part of the trip: The 16-mile stretch of road between Northfield and Cannon Falls. Rolling hills, no shoulder, busy traffic and curse-worthy swirling winds. Let's just say the beer at Chuggers tasted a whole heck of a lot better after that ordeal.
• 2nd worst part of the trip: Paying $25 for a non-electric campsite to set my tent up for a night at the Cannon Falls Campground. I understand campsites need to make money, but charging the rate of a cheap hotel room for tent camping is a little ridiculous. I spent the rest of the trip wondering if I could have set up camp on the side of the road without being noticed.
• Despite Red Wing being the destination of the trip, Northfield was probably the coolest town I visited. It's home to a very quaint (and bicycle friendly) downtown area by the Cannon River, complete with quirky shops and tasty local eateries. I looked around the mall there for awhile and, on the suggestion of locals and websites alike, ate at Basil's Pizza Place for dinner. GREAT pizza and very reasonable prices. St. Olaf and Carleton campuses were also fun to look at for awhile. Liberal arts colleges usually have some impressive old-fashioned architecture to admire, and these two were no exception. Considering Northfield is an easy 11-mile jaunt from the Sakatah trail, I might need to make that trip again sometime. The third photo on the right is a picture of Northfield from the viewpoint of the top floor of Larson Hall at St. Olaf. Beyond the buildings at St. Olaf, you can see Carleton College off in the distance on the left and can see the downtown area of Northfield as well.
  
• I wish I would've had more time to explore Red Wing. I really only had about a 3-hour window to explore the town, and part of that was spent eating lunch at Liberty Restaurant downtown (recommended by locals; I wasn't a huge fan of it, too pricey). Red Wing apparently has some great hilltop vantage points from Memorial Park and Barns Bluff (pictured in the background in the first the photo, which is of Main Street in Red Wing). However, I didn't have the time to hike up to either of them. Instead, I looked at a few shops downtown, biked over the Mississippi River into Wisconsin, and checked out the riverfront park. Definitely fun, but there was more to see in that town.
• As par for the course with my other bike adventures, this one was not without equipment problems on my two-wheeled companion. My rear-wheel brake lever actually detached from the handlebar between Northfield and Cannon Falls (see photo), making it impossible to use that brake for the rest of the trip (not the safest biking I've ever done). Additionally, the extra weight of my gear caused a rear-wheel spoke to break on the second day of biking. Thankfully, I was able to locate a bike shop in Cannon Falls (really more of an old-timey hardware store, really wish I would've got a picture of it) to fix my spoke and duct tape the brake lever back to my handlebars.
• The trip was initially intended to be a 2-day adventure where I would leave late Monday morning and get back Wednesday around lunch. However, thanks to a combination of a head lamp and my legs getting second wind in Faribault, I managed to make it back into Mankato late Tuesday night. Collectively, Tuesday a 120-mile biking day, with the majority of the miles pedaled after 1 p.m. Not the best idea in retrospect, I felt like crap the next couple days.