FERGUS FALLS, Minn. — Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’d like to try running a marathon”? Maybe.

Have you ever thought you’d like to run one while carrying a canoe over your head? Probably not.

“And you just pull your canoe up here and do a flip, just like that, and up and onto your shoulders,” said Paul Shol of Fergus Falls, an avid outdoorsman and accomplished runner.

Shol runs 50-mile and 100-mile trail races, so when a friend told him about the Ely (Minn.) Marathon’s canoe portaging division, he decided to give it a try.

“I looked into it, and I thought, I’ll add it to my race schedule this year. And it was a good race,” Shol said.

Yes, it was good. He won and set a world record.

Shol now holds the unofficial record as the first man to break the four-hour mark.

“Nobody’s ev

See Full Page