Two Harbors runner keeps Grandma’s Marathon streak alive for 48th year
John Naslund is the last runner from Grandma’s Marathon’s original Iron Four, and his streak shows how a Two Harbors race grew from 116 finishers into a regional staple.
John Naslund is the last runner standing from Grandma’s Marathon’s original Iron Four, and that fact says as much about the race’s transformation as it does about his endurance. The Two Harbors native first lined up in 1977, when the marathon drew about 116 finishers, or roughly 150 participants by University of Minnesota Duluth archival counts. Now the field has swelled to nearly 24,000 people across three Grandma’s weekend races, while the route still runs from Two Harbors along Lake Superior to Canal Park in Duluth.
The Iron Man distinction no longer describes a group because Naslund is the last person left from the small circle that once ran every Grandma’s Marathon. At 76, the University of Minnesota Duluth graduate now lives in Bloomington, Minnesota, but his history with the race still begins in Two Harbors and carries through the North Shore identity the event has kept for decades. For Naslund, the goal is no longer about a personal best. It is about finishing and keeping the streak intact.
That shift mirrors the race itself. Former organizer Scott Keenan has described the early years as the "dark ages of road running," when the idea of more than 100 people willingly taking on a marathon on city streets was still unusual. What started after North Shore Striders members decided in August 1976 to host a marathon has grown into a weekend that includes the Gary Bjorklund Half Marathon, the William A. Irvin 5K, youth races, a fitness expo and a music festival.
The scale has brought an estimated $21 million economic impact to the region, but the course still ends where it always has, in Canal Park near Grandma’s Restaurant and the Aerial Lift Bridge. Naslund’s advice to newer runners remains simple: take it easy, enjoy the experience and do not let pressure take over the day. That outlook fits a marathon that has changed from a local experiment into a regional institution, even as one Two Harbors runner keeps carrying its first chapter forward.
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