A marathon to remember for coach

As if running 26.2 miles isn’t hard enough, Jackson Lindquist also had to deal with delays caused by a winter storm in Minnesota, then some of the most miserable conditions imaginable to run the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 16.

 

His ability to handle adversity paid off when the third-grade teacher from Delano Elementary finished 77th out of nearly 30,000 runners from 94 countries. He did so after a sleeping on an airport floor while stranded in Minneapolis, arriving just in time to register the night before the race, then splashing through pouring rain, leaning into stiff headwinds gusting over 30 miles per hour, and trying to stay warm in 35-degree weather for 2 hours and 36 minutes on race day.

 

“It was terrible,” he said with a laugh after returning to the classroom on Wednesday, April 18. “It was really cold, really nasty. It definitely took a toll.”

 

Lindquist, who also coaches cross country and distance runners in track at Delano High School, finished just 21 minutes behind the winning time of 2:15, but felt he could have done better.

 

“My expectations were pretty high, so when I finished I was more disappointed than satisfied, but I think that’s kind of the competitive nature in anyone, especially with runners. You always feel like you can do more,” he said. “But looking back now and understanding the perspective of everyone else, yeah, it’s really cool. To have that finish at that magnitude of a race -- kind of the pinnacle of American distance running -- it’s a pretty neat thing.”

 

Training

The Esko native is in his first year of teaching after graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Superior last spring. He ran his first marathon in Rochester last year to qualify for the Boston Marathon, which he attended along with a friend from his hometown.

 

Lindquist ran competitively at the Division III level in college, but said marathons are a different challenge.

 

“I’m always running, but I specifically started training in mid-December, and then I really started hitting it hard in January,” said Lindquist. “I was probably running 85-90 miles a week for a couple of months.”

 

His teaching job made it difficult to find the time to go on long runs of 20 miles or more, but Lindquist said his classroom remained the priority and training came when he could find the time. The Boston Marathon’s minimum qualification times provided an extra hurdle.

 

“People who are collegiate runners still might not qualify. You definitely have to train for it and be ready to go to qualify,” said Lindquist.

 

Race day

Lindquist planned to leave Saturday morning for the Monday race, but ended up grounded by the weekend blizzard. He spent the night on the airport floor and was transferred to nine different flights, all of which were eventually cancelled. After 30 hours of waiting, he eventually succeeded in flying out mid-day Sunday.

 

He arrived Sunday evening, registered for the race, slept at the home of his friend’s sister, then left at 6 a.m. to prepare for the 10 a.m. start. It was already raining.

 

“Trying to stay warm before was tougher than staying warm during the race,” he said. “That wind coming off the ocean was just ridiculously cold.”

 

Even so, Lindquist wore shorts and a sleeveless Esko jersey for the run. His goal had been to finish with a time under 2:30, but he decided to focus on finishing in the top 100 after viewing the conditions. In the early going he stayed behind other runners to avoid the brunt of the wind, and by mile 18 he was on pace to reach his goal time despite sheets of water that were running across the road.

 

“Then the conditions just kind of caught up with me,” he said. “At 18 miles my breathing was fine, but I started feeling it in my legs.”

 

The Boston Marathon is a notoriously difficult route, particularly between miles 18 and 21, where the only significant uphill stretches occur.

 

“It’s a weird, deceptive course because it’s mostly downhill,” said Lindquist. “But no one ever trains to run downhill, so how do you prepare for that? It works different muscles in your legs.”

 

Lindquist felt he lost a significant amount of time in that area, which includes the infamous Heartbreak Hill, but he recovered in the last few miles to preserve his time.

 

“As soon as we finished they were saying, ‘Congratulations for finishing the Boston Marathon in potentially the worst conditions we’ve ever had,’” said Lindquist. “I guess they’ve had snow. They’ve had really hot days, but they’ve never had that type of wind with downpouring rain and that temperature. It was miserable.”

 

Lindquist said he was warm enough during the race, but began to freeze immediately after he stopped running. He was impressed the fans who lined the route and the volunteers who helped the runners.

 

“They shut the whole city down,” he said. “I was talking to the bus driver and the buses run on Christmas and every other holiday, but not on Marathon Monday. The crowd noise the last four miles was incredible. It really helped pull me in. On a day like that for people to come out and stand in the pouring rain, and for volunteers to stand there handing out drinks to people long after I was done, it was pretty impressive.”

 

Coach's perspective

Lindquist said he may consider doing more marathons in the years ahead, but for the time being he has plenty to stay busy with at the Delano schools. In the race’s aftermath he appreciated the support of staff members and his athletes from DHS.

 

One message Lindquist has for his runners is that they won’t necessarily peak in high school or college and inevitably decline afterward.

 

“You can get much, much better the harder you work in running. I wasn’t as good as I am now just because I didn’t work as hard when I was in high school, but this can show them that hard work pays off and shows them a track they can take,” said Lindquist. “Maybe this can help them look at their sport in a different way. Maybe this shows them that it’s something they can do for the rest of their lives.”