2023 Grandma’s Marathon updates: Hall of Famer, first-time marathon runner among 2023 winners – Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH — Saturday, June 17, 2023, was the 47th running of Grandma’s Marathon and 33rd running of the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon.

Here are this year’s winners:

Grandma’s Marathon
Men — Elisha Barno, 37, Kenya, 2:09:14
Women — Lauren Hagans, 36, U.S., 2:25:55
Nonbinary — Steven Bugarin, 37, U.S., 2:50:29
Wheelchair Men — Aaron Pike, 37, U.S., 1:27:34
Wheelchair Women — Jenna Fesemyer, 26, U.S., 1:47:20

Garry Bjorlund Half Marathon
Men — Joel Reichow, 29, U.S., 1:02:30
Women — Maggie Montoya, 28, U.S., 1:09:26
Nonbinary — Jonah Grant, 29, U.S., 1:12:59

10:44 a.m. — Steven Bugarin, 37, of Hammond, Indiana, won the Grandma’s Marathon nonbinary division in 2:50:29 on Saturday while Jonah Grant, 29, of Madison, Wisconsin, won the nonbinary division of the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in 1:12:59.

This year was the first time prize money was awarded in the nonbinary divisions of the marathon and half-marathon after adding the division last year. Bugarin receives $500 for winning Grandma’s and Grant receives $150 for the Bjorklund. Both races paid out the top three places.

10:15 a.m. — Running her first-ever marathon, Lauren Hagans, 36, of Flagstaff, Arizona, won the Grandma’s Marathon women’s title Saturday, stunning the crowd with a time of 2:25:55.

Hagans came from behind late in the race to pull past two-time defending champion Dakotah Lindwurm, the Minnesota native who finished 61 seconds back in second place in 2:26:56.

Lindwurm, 28, led through 20 miles and was on pace to break the women’s event record of 2:24:28 set by Kellyn Taylor in 2018.

But Lindwurm had a group of four runners — including Hagans — who kept within 10-11 seconds for the defending champ for a solid chunk of the race. Hagans dropped that pack just before the 20-mile mark and shortly after, Hagans raced past Lindwurm.

Lindwurm won last year with the second-fastest time ever of 2:25:01. Hagans’ marathon debut ranks fourth all-time at Grandma’s Marathon.

9:55 a.m. — Grandma’s Marathon Hall of Famer Elisha Barno, who was inducted 24 hours earlier, proved his running career is far from over Saturday, winning Grandma’s Marathon for a record fifth time in 2023 in 2:09:14. It’s the second-fastest time anyone has ever run Grandma’s Marathon.

Barno, 37, of Kenya, pulled away from defending champion Dominic Ondoro just past Lemon Drop Hill, where the two race legends initially left behind a pack of six. Barno then pulled away from Ondoro, a two-time champion who set the event record in 2014 in 2:09:06.

From 2015-2018, Barno owned Grandma’s Marathon, winning it a four-straight times. His reign ended in 2019 when he finished a disappointing 99th, however, he returned in 2022 to finish fourth with a time (2:10:22) that was faster than three of his first four victories in Grandma’s. His 2023 time was his fastest yet, beating his winning time of 2:10:06 from 2018.

Ondoro, 35, of Kenya, finished second in 2:09:59, which is the fourth fastest time ever at Grandma’s Marathon. He owns three of the top four times ever at Grandma’s Marathon.

9:26 a.m. — A year after finishing second, Jenna Fesemyer, of Champaign, Illinois, won the women’s wheelchair division of Grandma’s Marathon on Saturday, crossing the finish line in 1:47:20, beating the rest of the women’s field by over four minutes.

Fesemyer, 26, made her Grandma’s Marathon debut three years ago and finished fourth in 1:37:02. She returned last year and posted a new personal record of 1:33:50.

Fesemyer has posted top 10 finishes in London, Chicago, Boston and New York. She took eighth earlier this year in the London Marathon in 1:47:43. She posted top five times in Chicago (third, 1:49:52) and Boston (fifth, 1:55:59) last year.

In the men’s marathon, the lead pack thinned to two runners after climbing Lemon Drop Hill in Duluth. The two lead runners include four-time champion and Grandma’s Marathon Hall of Famer Elisha Barno and Dominic Ondoro — the defending champion and event record holder. They hit the 20-mile marker at 1:39:04.

9:08 a.m. — Aaron Pike has gone back-to-back as the men’s wheelchair champion of Grandma’s Marathon, winning the event for the fifth time in his career. He finished in 1:27:34.

Pike, 37, of Champaign, Illinois, won three-straight titles from 2017 through 2019. He smashed his own course record a year ago in 1:20:02, beating champion Johnboy Smith by three seconds. Fernando Sanchez Nava, who finished second in 1:28:54, hung with Pike for 20 miles before the reigning champion broke away for another victory.

Pike ranks third all-time in men’s wheelchair wins at Grandma’s Marathon behind Saul Mendoza (7) and Paul van Winkel (8).

9 a.m. — Two-time defending women’s champion Dakotah Lindwurm leads Grandma’s Marathon at the halfway point with four runners between 10-11 seconds behind her at the 13.1 mile-mark.

Lindwurm hit the 13.1-mile mark at 1:12:48. She is on pace to break Kellyn Taylor’s record of 2:24:28 set in 2018.

Lindwurm, who won in 2021 in 2:29:04, became the first Minnesotan to win Grandma’s Marathon that year since Janis Klecker in 1987. Lindwurm recently finished 26th at the Boston Marathon in 2:33:53.

8:52 a.m. — At the halfway point of Grandma’s Marathon, a group of six men make up the lead pack, including former champions Elisha Barno and Dominic Ondoro.

Barno is a four-time Grandma’s Marathon men’s champion who was inducted into the Grandma’s Marathon Hall of Fame on Friday. Ondoro is the defending champion and men’s event record holder. He set the event record in 2014 when he won the race for the first time.

Joining Barno and Ondoro in the lead pack are Thomas Rono Kiplagat, Bernard Kiptoo Koech, Panuel Mkungo and James Ngandu. They reached the 13.1-mile marker in 1:04:09 on Saturday.

8:37 a.m. — The 47th running of Grandma’s Marathon is underway, with the wheelers leaving Two Harbors at 7:35 a.m. and the waves of runners — starting with the elite men and women — following at 7:40 a.m.

The winners of the wheelchair marathon are expected to cross the finish line in Canal Park around 9 a.m. Aaron Pike, the four-time men’s wheelchair champion and race record holder, is the favorite to win a fifth title.

The elite men are expected to reach the finish line in Canal Park around 9:50 a.m. and the elite women are projected to finish around 10:10 a.m.

The top elite men’s runners to watch

in this year’s field features defending champion and event record holder Dominic Ondoro. Minnesota’s Dakotah Lindwurm, the two-time elite women’s champion,

will be chasing the Grandma’s Marathon record

that she missed by 33 seconds in 2022.

7:40 a.m. — Maggie Montoya broke Kara Goucher’s 11-year record in the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon to win the women’s title on Saturday, crossing the finish line in 1:09:26.

Montoya, 28, of Boulder, Colorado, beat the previous mark by 20 seconds. That was set in 2012 by Goucher, the U.S. Olympian and Duluth native, when the Bjorklund also served as the U.S. Half Marathon Championship.

Goucher was at the finish line Saturday to see her record fall.

She predicted back in May at her DECC Hall of Fame induction

that it would be broken this year.

Montoya was running her fourth race in 2023, having competed last month in the Boston Marathon, where she finished 23rd. She took 13th in the New York City Half Marathon (1:13:45) and 18th in the Houston Half Marathon (1:12:33). Her previous personal best was 1:10:06 from the 2020 Houston Half Marathon.

Jaci Smith, a 26-year-old astronautical engineer in the U.S. Air Force from Colorado Springs, Colorado, took second in 1:11:27.

7:07 a.m. — White Bear Lake’s Joel Reichow is the first runner of the day to cross the finish line on Grandma’s Marathon race day as the winner of the men’s division of the 2023 Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon.

Reichow, 29, of the Minnesota Distance Elite team won the half-marathon in 1:02:30, which beats his previous personal best of 1:02:38 from the 2020 Houston Half Marathon.

Reichow made his debut in the Bjorklund a year ago and finished 10th in 1:04:39. His lone major distance race since then was a third-place showing in the California International Marathon. Reichow took 13th in 2021 in Hardeeville, South Carolina, at the U.S. Half Marathon Championship with a time of 1:03:38.

Afewerki Zeru, 23, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, finished second, 10 seconds back, at 1:02:40.

6 a.m. — Race day is underway along Minnesota’s North Shore, with the 33rd running of the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon kicking off the day’s festivities with a 5:50 a.m. start.

The National Weather Service in Duluth is forecasting mostly sunny skies on race day with temperatures starting in the mid 50s in the early morning before reaching the mid-70s in the mid-afternoon. A morning lake breeze will come from the east at 10-15 mph. Air quality is not expected to be an issue Saturday after Duluth and the North Shore experienced warnings due to wildfire smoke earlier in the week.

The Bjorklund begins just north of McQuade Safe Harbor on Scenic Highway 61. The first half-marathon runners are projected to cross the finish line in Canal Park around 7 a.m.

The 47th running of Grandma’s Marathon is scheduled to begin at 7:35 a.m. just south of Two Harbors on Scenic Highway 61. The wheelchair racers will go first with a projected finish time of 9 a.m. The men’s elite race gun is scheduled to go off at 7:40 a.m., followed by the women’s elite gun at 7:45 a.m. Citizen runners will follow the women’s elites.

The first marathon runners are projected to reach the finish line in Canal Park around 9:50 a.m.