Blind marathon runner leaves COVID behind her at the finish line
A stretch of the Lakewalk in Dec. 17, 2020, in Duluth, Minn. The city has been identified as a potential destination for future “climate migrants” — people who leave their homes due to rising sea levels or climate-related extreme weather. |
Derek Montgomery for MPR News 2020
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By Dan Kraker
Duluth native Karen Pagel Guerndt remembers when she first heard that her hometown had been singled out as an ideal location for people seeking refuge from the growing consequences of a warming world. It was January. And it was 20 degrees below zero.
"And so to me, the whole idea of climate migration, it kind of made me laugh," she said.
If anything, she and other locals mused, Duluth’s climate is going to keep people away. Winters, after all, can be notoriously frigid, long and unforgiving.
But Harvard lecturer Jesse Keenan, an expert on climate adaptation, had recently identified Duluth as a potential hotspot for future “climate migrants” — people escaping rising sea levels or extreme conditions like drought, heat waves and wildfire smoke fueled by climate change. Keenan described the city's climate as moderate, and he noted its access to abundant fresh water and room to grow.
When he traveled to Duluth to pitch his idea for the city to playfully market itself as "Climate-Proof Duluth," the media loved it. The New York Times did a big story; CNN visited. Pagel Guerndt got interviewed as well.
And soon afterward, she said, "I started hearing from people, from clients from the two coastal areas mostly, East Coast and West Coast, saying, ‘What is this place called Duluth? And what is your weather really like here?’ "
She sold a house to a couple from Colorado who cited climate change as their chief reason for moving. And the calls are still coming. She’s currently working with clients from North Carolina and Utah who cite climate change as primary reasons for their interest in Duluth.
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Laura Brennan, Natalie Elmore, Laura Sosalla and Rachael Bentley celebrate after crossing the finish line of the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon on Sunday. Evan Frost | MPR News
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By Lindsay Guentzel
On May 27, Laura Sosalla sent a message to Rachael Bentley through United in Stride, an organization that matches visually impaired runners with guides.
Sosalla, who was declared legally blind earlier this year in the wake of a battle with COVID-19, wanted to run a marathon. To prove to herself that “I can still do the same things. I can still be the same person.”
She and Bentley soon started running together, along with Bentley's sister Natalie Elmore and Sosalla's neighbor Laura Brennan. The four women would sometimes run from Sosalla's parents' home in Bloomington, Minn., other times around Lake Harriet, where they would use the bandshell as a meeting point to switch out who was guiding Sosalla along the route.
And on Sunday afternoon, after those months of training, all four ran the last mile of the Twin Cities Marathon together — exactly how Sosalla wanted her marathon experience to end.
Read more about her journey. | |
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