It must be the early stages of the Wild Duluth 50K (31 miles) trail race because Deb Bennett and Mark Falk look relaxed and are still smiling as they head toward the finish line. While Falk ended up just ahead of Bennett, Deb won first place for her age group.
Running from the law is never a very good idea. But it’s an especially bad idea if you’re trying to run away from Cook County Sheriff Mark Falk, unless, that is, you plan to keep running for a very, very long time.
Falk, you see, is one of about a dozen ultra marathon runners in the county. A couple of years ago Mark was a 270- pound power lifter who competed in weight lifting events around the state. Since then he has dropped about 80 pounds as he has gotten back into running, something he was very good at as a kid.
Falk took about 25 years away from the sport of running after missing qualifying for the state track meet his senior year by a tenth of a second in the 800 meter run. He ran two minutes even for a half-mile back then, and if the speed is now gone, it has been replaced by endurance and good old-fashioned willpower, two things he has plenty of.
On a cool, crisp Saturday, October 16, Falk lined up with 119 runners to take part in the Wild Duluth 50K trail race run mainly on the Superior Hiking Trail.
After spending the last few years competing in weight lifting events, Mark Falk put the barbells down and put his running shoes back on and is now one year into trail running and racing. Bennett is an experienced trail runner who runs for fun. As evidenced here, she’s still good enough to win her age group on talent alone, but camaraderie, not competition is the main thing for her at this stage of her life.
Falk was joined on the starting line by Grand Marais ultrarunner phenom Deb Bennett. Bennett, age 52, at one time ran 120 miles in 24 hours (no, she didn’t use a car) but now takes part in races for fun. Still, she won her age group with a time of 6:26:45 for the 31-mile race. Bennett placed 30 overall, 6 places behind Falk, who finished with a fine time of 6:14.45.
Jonathan Rova, age 38, Grand Marais, winding down a long season of racing finished 8th place in the Wild Duluth half-marathon with a very good time of 2:03, only about 10 minutes behind the winner.
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