Up North: Goucher, Grandma's, and the Bear

In our continuing effort this week to clear accumulating items off of the DtB news-desk, here are some notes grouped in a neat little northern Minnesota package ...

Kara Goucher ... Tying a bow on Duluth native Kara Goucher's Olympic experience, HERE's a recent Flotrack interview where Goucher talks about the Beijing 10,000 and 5,000 meter races and her impending move -- sometime in the next year, she says -- to the marathon.

There's also THIS Eugene Register-Guard story which covers similar ground and THIS earlier Duluth News-Tribune story by Kevin Pates about the friendship between Minnesota Olympians Goucher and Carrie Tollefson.

Minnesota Mile-Duluth ... Grandma's Marathon's Minnesota Mile series moves to Duluth on Sunday, September 7. Registration opened earlier this month, and race organizers have added a tempting little twist: 250 randomly selected Minnesota Mile-Duluth finishers will receive guaranteed entry into next year's Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon.

Entry forms are available HERE.

It's Alive! ... Half the stories from northern Minnesota have a bear in them, right?

Well, this one does, at least. DtB's own Chris Marshall, a junior-to-be at Carleton College, hit a 250-pound black bear in July which totalled his car. Authorities assumed the bear suffered equally terminal damage. But, as the News-Tribune reports today, HERE, the bear is still alive!

Marshall's Toyota Camry remains totalled, however.