Garry bjorklund biography of william hill
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Training for Grandma’s
“Why did I ever sign up for this half marathon?” I think to myself, as I complete mile eight.
I arrived at my front door, all 9 miles completed, with a faster pace than inom had been expecting. Despite the pain in my legs, inom felt good. I had just run nine miles for the first time in my life, and was now only fyra miles away from the half marathon distance of 13.1. That downtown Duluth finish line of the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon actually felt within reach.
It didn’t always feel that way though. I was persuaded to sign up for the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon by a friend. At the time, I could hardly run two miles. He, on the other hand, could fly out the door and run seven miles with no problem. He signed up for the full Grandma’s Marathon; all 26.2 miles of it. Due to my lack of running experience, I decided I should start training early. So inom ran regularly in December and set January as my tjänsteman start date for training. In January, my first lon
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Nobody would have blamed Minnesota’s Dick Beardsley for skipping the 1982 Grandma’s Marathon. Sixty days earlier, Beardsley engaged Alberto Salazar in a historic “duel in the sun” at the Boston Marathon. The recovery time between races wasn’t sufficient. But Beardsley had a handshake agreement with Grandma’s founder Scott Keenan he intended to honor.
Keenan was at Boston in 1982, perched next to Salazar’s grandmother on the finish-line bleachers. He wanted to “lock in” Beardsley promptly. It wasn’t necessary. Beardsley never wavered from his commitment — even though he probably should have.
Had Beardsley expressed any doubts, Keenan would have respected them.
“I’d have probably encouraged him not to run because I think it was too hard for him,” Keenan said. “He ran (2:14:49) at Grandma’s and I think that was, back-to-back, too much stress.
“In many ways, I wish that he didn&rsqu
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Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon Race Report
Race Day: Saturday, June 17, 2017 – 6:15am
It was fun to go back to the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon after running Grandma’s Marathon the past three years (2014, 2015, and 2016). Leading up to the infamous Grandma’s weekend in Duluth, my training was pretty good. I was running faster and stronger than ever, had a huge bank of running volume from the Zumbro ramp-up in March, and had done a pretty nice job of sharpening up and running fast on top of big miles.
I set a 50 mile PR and a 5k PR both in April, but took a few weeks nearly entirely off shortly thereafter with an achilles tendon scare. Luckily, I nipped any injuries at the bud and felt pretty decent with my half marathon training. My workouts, tempo runs (NMTC spring race series), and long runs were consistent and I felt pretty spry on race week. Long ago, my goal was 1:15. I thought I could break 1:15, but barely, while plotting my racing calendar in January.