First Grandma's Marathon champion kick-started an active life

DULUTH – The least-known, least-talked about, least-recognized Grandma's Marathon champion is back in town this week. She grew up nearby in Hoyt Lakes, Minn., lives in Eden Prairie and won the inaugural 26.2-mile women's race in 1977.

Wendy Hovland Cregg will be reintroduced to Minnesota's distance running community Saturday morning, holding the women's finish-line tape in Canal Park at the 43rd Grandma's Marathon.

"I once heard a definition for passion that I like: You lose all track of time, feel younger than you are and finish with more energy than when you started," Cregg said. "My goal was never to be a star runner, but to be active. If I'm still active when I'm 80, I'm a winner."

She's getting there.

Cregg, 60, a nurse practitioner and married to Casey Cregg for 35 years, is a mountain biker, Nordic skier and kayaker.

At Aurora-Hoyt Lakes High School, Cregg, a 1976 graduate, took advantage of the early years of Title IX to participate in cross-country running, Nordic skiing and track.

While not a varsity athlete at Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Cregg was in shape through community sports there, and the 18-year-old college freshman entered the Duluth race set for June 25, 1977. Ten women finished in a field of 150 on a stifling 80-degree morning along the North Shore. Cregg was 41st overall in 3 hours, 23 minutes, 39 seconds.

It was Cregg's first and last marathon. She remains the youngest winner, female or male, in race history.

"I was fairly confident I could finish, and by 15 miles I was still feeling really good," she said. "About 22 miles, I passed a friend of mine, Brian Karich, and he said, 'That's the first woman right ahead of you.' I'm competitive, so I started to speed up. When I finished, I was pretty spent. My grandma in Virginia [Marcia Hovland] saw me interviewed on TV that day and when I talked to her, she was upset. She thought running that far would ruin my health."

While Cregg didn't stick with marathoning, she kept her running shoes and says she wore out more than a few strollers in raising three children, now ages 33, 31 and 29. Her sole Grandma's performance has earned the 2019 Scott A. Keenan Founder's Award, going to those who embody the history, vision and spirit of the race.

Kenyan Elisha Barno, 33, has entered Grandma's Marathon four times and won four times the past four years. His success is unprecedented in race history among able-bodied entrants. He's also the Twin Cities Marathon defending men's champion. Can he add to his Grandma's streak?

Training partner and Grandma's course-record holder Dominic Ondoro, 31, of Kenya may have something to say about that. He's back for the first time since his 2014 record run.

"I had to do some convincing to get [Ondoro] here, but I wanted him so that maybe we could push each other," Barno said Friday following a news conference.

Together they've ruled Minnesota's two largest and oldest marathons this decade. Since 2014, at Grandma's and Twin Cities, they've combined to win nine of 10 races and place second four times.

Ondoro holds the course record in both events — 2:09:06 in the 2014 Grandma's Marathon and 2:08:51 in the 2016 Twin Cities Marathon. Yet he lost to Barno in 2015 in their only Duluth head-to-head meeting.

• Defending women's champion Kellyn Taylor of Flagstaff, Ariz., who set a Grandma's course best time of 2:24:28, isn't entered. Former record holder Sarah Kiptoo, 29, is running. She won in 2:26:32 in 2013, and was first in 2016. "I've won it before, but I'm not in that kind of [course-record] shape," said Kiptoo, who didn't finish last year's race.