Jeff Burmeister

My long time friend Mickey Mikeworth’s husband Mark Yount is a bit of a nut, sort of like me. He is an ultra marathoner, and last year he accomplished a 72 mile non-stop run from Minneapolis to Gustavus Adolphus College for his oldest daughter’s graduation. During that run he came up with the idea of running from Thunder Bay Ontario to Duluth Minnesota. This short little 200 mile jaunt down the north shore would be spread over 4 days and that would make it a nice round two marathon a day event.

Mickey then asked in passing a few months back “you interested in coming along?” And I being the person that I am said, “Sure, sounds like a good time.”

Next thing you know I’m on my way north to Thunder Bay on a Tuesday morning to meet up with those two to act as support / pacer / mental fatigue limiter for Mark during his run.

The drive to Thunder Bay is roughly 350 miles from our house. I’m quickly detained at the border for 40 minutes while they run a criminal background check on me. Makes sense, I'm a bit of a nut case for just going along with this idea and they think so too. I finally get over the border and arrive at Hotel at 8:40 PM to find out that we're now officially in the EST time zone. 8pm because 9pm and it is suddenly bed time.

5:30AM rise for day one, a 52 miles day that officially gets started at 6:32 AM CST Mark starts his run while I drive back to the Canadian border and drop my car off there. Mickey follows me in the other support car and then drives me backwards over the course so I can memorize it for Mark and so that I can run this section with him. Mark has already knocked out about 10km of the course by the time I get back to him. He takes a little break, I warm up a bit and we are off. We knock out about 28 miles at about 11 minute per mile pace down to the Canadian border.

I’m really hurting from my longest run... well ever. And Mark is looking good. So I do everything I can to act like nothing is hurting and that I'm fresh too. But I’m really dying on the inside. I see something I can sit on, a swing set and decide this is a fun way to rest and make it look like it’s all in fun. But the border also means that I now have to jump back into my car and drive back to the US, and then continue down to the hotel in Grand Portage. Park, change my clothing, unpack my bike, and ride backwards over the course and find Mark, turn around, and then ride the bike with him back for the rest of the day.

I climb up Mount Josephine on my bike and decent down the other side and meet up with Mark as he is starting to plug up the climb, which just happens to be the largest Mountain in the Sawtooth Range. The end goal for today is to make it to Mile marker 140, this would give us a solid 60 Miles completed and would leave us with a 50, 45, 45 mile days left. Mark makes it to the end in grand style and fairly comfortably. We actually finish really early, 4:15 CST, for what we accomplished in the first day.

A large Steak Dinner for the first course and a large pizza with jalapenos for the second is my dinner for that night at the Grand Portage Lodge and Casino.

Day two starts with a little bit less enthusiasm. Start Mile Marker 140. 7:32 AM CST

We decided that today I'd start on the bike and then finish on the run so that Mark would have a bit more mental stability. A running partner is a lot easier to work with then a biking partner we found early on day one. So we start off and head South with the midday goal of Grand Marais for our lunch break. We get Mark down to GM and he has to take a conference call for work, yeah I know! Then we are off on the Run. Weather is still most likely good, but a wind is starting to blow from the South and my sailing hat goes on and I predict rain in 4 hours. It hit us in a little over 3 hours. So we are stuck in a cold rain and really hurting over the last couple of miles while we close in on Mile Marker 90 and the Lutsen Lodge.

We complete the run at 8:05 PM CST and then I have to get a ride back up to Grand Marais to get me car and drive back down. So I decide to stop at Sven and Ole’s for a second time that day for yet another Pizza! Finally into bed shortly before Midnight after trying to recover, eat, and speak with my pregnant wife that I’m starting to really miss.

The start for day three got off pretty late as we are all wiped out, and the weather doesn’t look good. But thankfully we spotted a gourmet coffee shop a few miles from the hotel. Mark and I drive up to the shop and load up on the first decent coffee we’ve had in a while.

8:35 AM CST and we are off in the rain and temperatures in the high 40’s. We are in for a rough morning as we are about to go through a huge construction job on highway 41. There is almost 10 miles of crews crushing rock, blast zones as they try to blast more room for the road, and numerous bridges that are closed. So here we are, running in the cold rain on mud and gravel while trying to get through a single lane roads.

Not a great start to our day as I step on a huge rock and turn my right knee. I try to shake it off and tell Mark it is nothing, but I know that I’m done now. I can only hope that Mark’s new relief crew shows up early so that I can get off my feet quickly. We get down to Terrance River Park and mile marker 77 before Mickey, the support car, and the new running support team is ready to go.

I happily help Mark into a new running cape for the second half of his morning run and I quickly get out of my running shoes and into my compression tights and a dry pair of shoes. I end my adventure with Mark and Mickey at 11:45am CST at mile Marker 77 Terrance River Park. Roughly 123 miles from where we started all of this!