Minnesota native, one of world’s top trail runners, to give asphalt a go in Twin Cities Marathon

One of the best trail runners on the planet is planning to return to her home state of Minnesota this fall to try something unusual for her: Racing on pavement.

Courtney Dauwalter, a former star athlete at Hopkins High School, has penciled October’s Twin Cities Marathon on her calendar after she contacted race officials to seek an entry.

“Looking forward to seeing what years of training for 100-mile mountain races translates to on the roads, returning to a race and a place I love so much,” she wrote in a text to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Her entry is considered a big win for Twin Cities in Motion, which puts on one of the state’s biggest road events the first Sunday in October.

“It is one of the best surprises I’ve ever had at my job,” said Alana Dillinger, TCM’s senior event operations manager.

How Dauwalter’s mountain trail acumen will translate to the street and a shorter-than-usual distance provoked banter on LetsRun.com. While road racers generally are focused on speed and pace, trail runners like Dauwalter account for technical terrain and ultra-long distances.

Chris Lundstrom, head coach of the Minnesota Distance Elite team, downplayed the differences.

Plus, Dauwalter is a generational talent, he added. “If she has applied the same energy [in training] to a road marathon as other events, she is likely to do very, very well.”

Commenters online speculated about her possible time: Can she break three hours? Dauwalter, 40, now of Leadville, Colo., will arrive at the marathon about a month after an epic 100 plus-mile race in the French Alps: the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, or UTMB, which she has won three times.

In 2023, she won three prestigious ultramarathons — a triple that no other trail runner had ever accomplished in a single year. The feat included a record performance at the Western States 100 in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California.

Dauwalter isn’t foreign to pavement or the Twin Cities Marathon, which she has run twice.

The first, in 2009, was her first marathon attempt. She finished in three hours, 17 minutes, and credits the experience as the catalyst for her pro trail career. She also ran more slowly with her brothers in 2012.

After hearing of her marathon entry, he and some friends started a pool on what time she’d lay down from Minneapolis to St. Paul.

“I am going two hours, 47 minutes on no information,” he said with a laugh.

Dauwalter’s involvement is sparking inquiries at marathon headquarters in St. Paul from people wondering if the trail stalwart will make special appearances.

“We have had big names in road running come,” Dillinger said. “I’ve never gotten quite a response like this.”

Dillinger’s surprise entrant happened while she assembled the field for the Best of the Midwest, considered a race within the race of up-and-coming marathon athletes. But it was Dauwalter who applied to participate.

In addition to her trail running prowess, commenters alluded to other areas that have made Dauwalter a superstar on dirt:

Her sense of humor (she leans into her love of nachos and candy), her now-trademark baggy long shorts and her big smile belie a hard-nosed ability to dominate her sport like few other people ever.

Mike Harris, her former Hopkins track and cross country coach, is already thinking about race morning on Oct. 5.

“She is a natural magnet,” he added. “People are going to be drawn down to see Courtney.”

In recent years, Dauwalter has spoken to Harris’ student-athletes and applauded their exploits via social media.

Dauwalter’s grit was evident at Hopkins High, said Harris, who has coached and taught at the school for 27 years.

Dauwalter was on high-caliber cross country and Nordic ski teams that won back-to-back state titles her junior and senior years. She also won individual ski pursuit titles.

She excels under duress, Harris said: “Most of us would call it a day, but she would work out the tough moments to her advantage.”

Lundstrom, the elite team coach, doesn’t anticipate tough times on the flat-to-rolling Twin Cities course.