July 23, 2009: Welcome sign for Marathon at the south end of former IA 390. Nearly a decade later, the paint on the church sign had noticeably faded.
It’s 16 years to the day since I set foot in Marathon in the first of now four visits. The first time, I wasn’t sure where the exact end of IA 390 was, two more were pass-throughs while I traveled IA 10 and M54 nearby, and the most recent was last year, after I knew for sure the endpoint and also wanted to photograph the school (now the community center). As it turned out, I had the endpoint guessed correctly earlier, but the key shot was out of focus, hence a surprisingly high number of visits to a map dot in northwest Iowa.
This post is about the giant sign at the junction with IA 10. For years it gave the date of the next Marathon to Marathon, a 26.2-mile run from Storm Lake. But that event has been discontinued with a phrase to strike fear into the hearts of small towns everywhere: “We have run out of volunteers.”
Rather than let the date of the last marathon sit at the bottom, falling increasingly in the past, here’s a suggestion to keep the spirit alive: Place the years of the run, “1996-2017”, there instead. It would be a fitting reminder of the event. And then, if it ever starts up again, there will be a sign waiting for it.