Tag: Michael Modzelewski
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Twin Cities, Minnesota Marathon
From St. Paul to Minneapolis through cool, crisp air and under autumnal bowers of blazing colors!
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Venice, Italy Marathon
A dream run from the Tuscan countryside into my favorite small city. Set-aside a few days to sightsee and get purposely lost in the labyrinthic, medieval streets and romantic waterways, for as Henry James wrote about Venezia: “The mere use of one’s eyes is enough.” Travel Tip: Fly into Zurich, Switzerland and take the…
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Barbados, Caribbean Marathon
Yah Mon! Evree Ting feelin’ IRIE!! A marathon to break-up a northern winter. Run past sugar-cane fields to the coastline to see the sun rise over the Caribbean tri-colored sea. Rastafarian runners in sandals and big-dread hats will depart the wisdom of the land if you keep pace. Award ceremony after turns into jammin’…
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Akron, Ohio Marathon
Where the rubber meets the road.There are 300 marathons run annually in U.S. cities from Maine to California. Add Akron to the list. First inaugural and it was a hilly beauty. Race began at the Lockheed Martin Airdock, construction site for blimps and the Goodyear airship flew low overhead at the start. Route included…
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Bermuda Marathon
“You go to Heaven if you want,” wrote Mark Twain. “I’ll stay in Bermuda.” The mid-Atlantic island chain (bunched together), 600 miles east of North Carolina is shaped like a fishhook and crowns an extinct underwater volcano. The sea is turquoise, the beaches pink (colored from the eroded skeletons of the red foraminifer, a…
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Valley of Fire Marathon
Incredibly beautiful and challenging course. Flew into Las Vegas, Nevada; then drove hour north to Overton, a cow town near Lake Mead. Race route out into high desert, through Valley of Fire State Park. Ran among massive rock formations, pumpkin-orange to fire-red and 150 million years old. Out & back with rolling hills, including…
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Big Island Hawaii Marathon
26.2 wearing a plumeria lei wafting beguiling fragrance through bamboo forests; under sparkling waterfalls; over black sand and rarest-of-rare green (!) beaches; past present-day gush of island-building lava meeting steam-hissing ocean. . . Hiked day before up over Kilauea caldera moody as a molten moon. . . Post-race, surfed Waikiki at sunset — gliding…
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The lost Dutchman Marathon
In the late-1800′s, Jacob Waltz, an immigrant Dutch prospector discovered gold in the Superstition Mountains (just east of Phoenix, Arizona). He died without revealing the location of his strike, and treasure seekers have been searching the desert ever since. I went in quest of other profits. The marathon started near the town of Gold…
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Mount Rushmore Marathon
Billed as a “Monumental Challenge” and that it was! Started in a cold, overcast, South Dakota autumn morning under the Four Presidents (my all-time favorite, Teddy Roosevelt) and finished at the Crazy Horse Memorial. Mile-high most of the way — from 5,208 feet at the start to 5,885 at finish and packed with hills.…
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Palm Beaches, Florida Marathon
Dedicated to my Step-Mom with breast cancer. One in every nine women now living in the United States will develop breast cancer. T-shirt on a Team-in-Training runner said it all: THINK RUNNING A MARATHON IS TOUGH? TRY CHEMOTHERAPY. Finished in 3:55:49; 207 out of 735. Joanne, this one for you — and all of our…