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PROFILE ‘I DON’T SUFFER.

I ENDURE.’

At mile 16 of Grandma’s Marathon, she started to sing to herself the melody of Amazing Grace, a song she’d heard the night before, after the Charleston, South Carolina, church massacre. Another runner (from Charleston!) heard her. They sang the first verses together as they ran. A third runner joined in with more verses. By mile 18, the other two women pulled ahead but the song stayed with Dorothy to the finish of the race. That is how now 80 year old Dorothy Marden describes her most memorable running experience. It was 2015 and Dorothy’s 36th marathon.

Dorothy’s first MDRA race was a 10K in 1984, a year after her daughter encouraged her to run. Dorothy was 47. She ran in Sears Roebuck shoes. Although she is quick to point out that she doesn’t consider herself competitive, Dorothy has been the Minnesota Runner of the Year in her age group 10 times since USATF Minnesota established the rankings and she is headed for an 11th title in the 80-84 age category. In 2017, she’s run races ranging from the mile to the half marathon. Three generations of Dorothy’s family ran the 2017 TC 10 Mile or the Twin Cities Marathon.

It hasn’t always been easy. A month after the 2015 Grandma’s Marathon, Dorothy smashed her left kneecap on the driveway while playing soccer with her grandson. Two surgeries and months of rehab followed. In 2016, roughly a year post-injury, Dorothy was back running.

She runs three to four days a week. Dorothy’s favourite routes are the West River Road to the University Washington Avenue bridge loop or south to Highland Park. Unless injured, Dorothy takes little time off from this schedule, running in all seasons. She is registered to run the 10K Drumstick Dash on Thanksgiving Day. Dorothy and her daughters are also registered for the 2018 Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon.

When asked why she races, Dorothy talked about the joy of running, the feeling of being one in a multitude of runners, the reward of finishing. “Races,” she said, “are like piano recitals. The race rarely goes as well as the practice.” When asked how she suffers through

BY SONJI JOHNSON

DOROTHY MARDEN NEARS THE FINISH LINE AT GRANDMA’S IN DULUTH. RUNNING, SHE SAYS, IS BOTH ‘SIMPLE’ AND ‘JOYFUL.’ Photo by Wayne Kryduba

the hard miles, she replied, “I don’t suffer. I endure.”

Good at math, Dorothy might set a high number and count backwards by 7s or 11s while running, concentrating on the trail of numbers, or she sings to herself. “We older runners have a different arc of what we experience as success. For most of us the kicker is simply running.”

“Running,” Dorothy added, “is more than running. It’s simple. It’s joyful.” Listening to this extraordinary runner, I think to myself that for Dorothy, and the runners like her, It’s more. It’s reaching for a kind of grace.