She broke a portage marathon record in Ely — and got her life back

Minnesotans know that portaging a canoe is all part of a journey, and for a Shakopee woman, it proved a trip to both recovery and a world record at the Ely Marathon in September.

A year ago, Victoria Ranua, then 43, had lost her husband, the father of her two sons, to pulmonary fibrosis and complications of COVID. Then a bout of long COVID herself had left her in a fog that wouldn’t lift. She had been living in Tower, on the Iron Range, but returned to her home in Shakopee last year to find the house she had rented out had sustained thousands of dollars in damages. “It was definitely the lowest point of my life,” she recalls.

She found her path back by going back to her roots. In 1997, Ranua was a state champion in the 3,200-meter who went on to run cross-country and the steeplechase for the University of Minnesota for four years. It was during retreats with the university cross country team at Camp Voyageur, outside Ely, that she first experienced the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, where the canoe portage is part of the experience.

“I loved it the moment I stepped out of the vehicle,” she said of her first visit.

But after college, she married, had children and began a career. In 2017, her husband, Todd, received his terminal diagnosis. Wanting to spend his final years in the north country, they bought a house in Soudan.

There, she started running again and completed the Ely Half Marathon in 2022, several months after Todd’s death.

Back in Shakopee, she saw the offer of a $5,000 cash prize for breaking the world record in the canoe portage, part of the Ely Marathon. She decided to not just run it but also to beat the world record and claim the cash.

Only one other woman had ever finished the canoe portage marathon, running the course in 6 hours, 49 minutes. What’s more, at age 44, Ranua would be the oldest person to ever attempt the grueling contest.

Ranua focused on training, running as many 90 miles in a week before adding a weighted vest and eventually a canoe to her training regimen. As she regained her strength, the old Victoria, once ready to take on the world, had returned.

On race day, Ranua planned time at the start to recheck her gear, stretch for a few minutes and take a few calming breaths.

Instead, it was a mad dash. By the time she got the canoe to the start, the racers were already off. She was already a minute behind the leaders.

The Victoria of a year ago might have quit. But this was more than a race. It was a portage to a new chapter for Ranua.

“As the race approached, I began to see life as before the portage marathon and after,” she said.

She made up ground quickly and soon passed some of the men. By mile nine, she had passed all but two of the male racers, and was running at the world-record pace.

But by mile 17, Ranua began experiencing severe pain in her legs. She walked for just over a mile and took an allowed break to massage her aching quads. Then she put the canoe back on her shoulders and headed out. She was still more than an hour ahead of the women’s world record. She ended finishing third overall behind two 30-year-old men. She ran it in five hours, 25 minutes, 34 seconds, besting the previous women’s record by nearly an hour and a half.

Ranua’s feat, however, inspired race organizers and Piragis Northwoods Co., an Ely outfitter, who teamed up to award a second $5,000 prize for beating the women’s record.

In the end, her race proved to be so much more than the money.

“Just as a portage transports a canoe from one lake to another, I felt like this marathon was a distance I needed to travel between two parts of my life, my past life … and my future.”