The 49th running of Grandma’s Marathon has raced by, with more names etched into the history books.

Inclimate weather was not what Grandma’s Marathon runners had in mind on the 49th running of the race on Saturday.

Strong storms with high winds pushed the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon and Grandma’s Marathon back 30 minutes, affecting corral times, and of course, when the horn went off.

But the skies cleared up, making way for a historic Grandma’s Marathon.

First to cross the finish line was Murphy Smith, a 22 year-old from the Naval Academy. Just 10 days ago, he was representing Navy in the 10,000-meters in the NCAA championships, where he finished 14th, but in his first Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, it was a time of 1:02:49 that secured a win, making Smith the youngest half marathon winner on the mens side since 2003.

“I raced at the NCAA nationals for the 10k just about 10 days ago, and I wanted one more race on the schedule because I always thought I was a strength guy, and I was talking to my dad this morning and I was like, go out there and embrace the challenge. Have fun with it, I didn’t know what I was capable of,” said Smith.

Finishing after Smith was a proven winner in the half marathon – Annie Frisbie with a time of 1:09:05. The win makes Frisbie only the third woman to have multiple titles at the half marathon.

“This one was way harder than last year,” said Frisbie. “I feel like winning last year I put more pressure on myself, to come back and defend my title. With the humid conditions the pace felt about 10 times harder than it did last year and we went out just as fast.”

Just eight seconds behind her was Dakotah Popehn, the Olympian and more importantly, Frisbie’s close friend. The two were neck and neck until Frisbie pulled ahead, claiming her second half marathon win.

Luis Francisco Sanclemente and Vanessa Cristina de Souza wheeled their way to the finish line ahead of the pack. Sanclemente finished with a time of 1:26:02 and became the eighth men’s wheeler to have won multiple titles in Duluth. De Souza posted a new personal record of 1:39:55 to win her first Grandma’s Marathon – she was scheduled to race back in 2021 but was denied entry that year to the United States.

As half marathoners started to pile in, it was Minnesota’s own Joel Reichow who crossed as the first marathon finisher, making history as the first runner in the races history to win both the half and full marathon – doing it before his friend, Dakotah Popehn.

“That was a huge target,” said Reichow. “It was kind of fun that Dakotah and I both had that goal so we were kind of racing each other to be the first one to do that. It would have been fun if she got it too and we both would have had the men’s and women’s but it’s also super cool to be the first person overall to achieve that.”

With his time of 2:11:58, Reichow became the first American and Minnesota native to win Grandma’s Marathon since Chris Raabe did so in 2009.

Another first – Lilian Chebii of Kenya, who to the tune of 2:25:14, crossed the finish line as the fourth fastest woman to do so.

“The race was very good, she was able to enjoy it, there was some heat but then when she looked she didn’t see much competition, so she decided to take off.”

Take off she did, as did the largest Grandma’s Marathon weekend crowd ever with 18,317 finishers.