Fortune and D3 Glory in Berlin
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This monthly series will follow the training of four D3 alumni from four Midwestern states, somewhere between sub-elite and elite, as they train to place within the top 25 at the Berlin Marathon: Lars Dewall, Elliot Kadrofske, Sam Forstner, and Christopher Brenk.
On September 27, four D3 alumni have the opportunity to do something rare and potentially novel: put multiple D3 runners in the top 25 of a world marathon major. (25th place at the Berlin Marathon last year was 2:17:35.) This opportunity has not arrived out of serendipity. To be successful at this point, X years from graduating, is to be continually driven. To be continually driven is to still find joy, camaraderie, and meaning in the ever-familiar process. For the four of us, meaning is partially sourced from the sense of a certain knocking on our doorstep. Something feels right around the corner; it dances in our peripheral vision. As we venture into the drudgery of summer running, whether still in college or a decade graduated, it’s important to have a narrative. A real sense of why. After the results are posted, what is your story to tell?
Name: Lars Dewall
School: College of St. Scholastica
Hometown: Stillwater, Minnesota
Current Residence: San Diego, California
Occupation: Teacher
Current Affiliation: Lane Zero Athletics / Coach: Chad Salmela
PR: 2:12:30
My name is Lars Dewall. I am a 2024 graduate from The College of St. Scholastica. I’m coming up on my first year in San Diego, California where I work as a middle school teacher and run for Lane Zero Athletics Club. I recently just completed my first year teaching and have been enjoying the first week of summer training. Coming up on a year in San Diego I have enjoyed my time teaching, meeting new athletes, and putting a meaningful intention into my racing career. Upon moving to California I’ve ramped up my marathon training running California International Marathon & The Boston Marathon in 2:14 & 2:12 respectively. Next up for me I will be racing the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon before heading back to CA to begin my Berlin Marathon structured build with my team. (update: Lars ran 1:04:06 for 7th place OA.)
Looking towards Berlin in September I have some overarching goals with deliberate focus points in preparation. Following my result at Boston and taking some time to reflect on where I am and where I want to go, the next barrier is the sub-2:10 mark. The direct steps and goals I have will be primarily centered around my preparation and recovery. The biggest goal I have to be able to attain this is to get better at fueling. In my experience at Boston in the professional field I was able to learn a lot on how I can fuel better not only in the marathon but in my training as well. I’ve begun implementing different fueling strategies and increasing my carb intake in training. Another goal I have is to improve my half marathon and leg speed to be able to realistically justify a sub 2:10 attempt, and continue to refine doing the little things even better - recovery, fueling and strength being the main ones that come to mind. Having a summer off work to continue to refine these will be a major bonus heading into Berlin 2026. The last goal I have for myself is to simply not get complacent and continue to learn from the amazing athletes I have the opportunity to train and race with regularly. Having them as well as my friends and family makes this project worth every drip of my time and energy.
Name: Elliot Kadrofske
School: St. Olaf College, Class of 2020
Hometown: Okemos, Michigan
Current Residence: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Occupation: Chef at Red Bench Bakery
Current Affiliation: Collegeville Track Club / Self-Coached
PR: 2:21:46
Hi, folks! I’m Elliot Kadrofske, a runner in the Twin Cities who went to school down in Northfield, Minnesota, at St. Olaf College. Originally from Okemos, Michigan, I found myself up in Minnesota in the fall of 2016 ready to kick off my college running career and have stayed in the state since. I’ve come to find a home in Minneapolis and it’s hard to imagine myself anywhere else. The running scene here is elite. The urban infrastructure is top tier, the local race circuit is super competitive and well organized, and most importantly, I’ve found a team to further support my running and social life post college. I meet up with Collegeville Track Club every Wednesday evening and Saturday morning for miles. Outside of that, I run and bike solo as a self-coached, post-collegiate marathoner. Job wise, I’ve spent the last six years baking and cooking, exploring both the sweet and savory side of the culinary world. Crafting ice cream flavors, putting together sandwich menus, and developing tons of soup recipes has allowed me to flex my creativity muscle in a way I never could’ve imagined coming out of college with a degree in biology.
As I look towards September 27th, an immense amount of excitement bubbles up inside of me. I’m absolutely stoked to have the opportunity to run one of the premier international marathons and return to a city I spent a month in during the winter of 2017 (through a January-term program at St. Olaf). I’ve got my eyes set on 2:19:00, with going a little under being ideal. The name of the game is continuing to grow my confidence in my ability to take a big swing at an OTQ in 2027. I’m still a ways off, but also, just close enough where I’d forever regret not taking a shot. About a year ago, I was pretty gutted to hear the time drop from 2:18 to 2:16, but the 10% chance I give myself of still achieving that goal gets me out the door every day. To lay down a time within 3 minutes of that barrier would be a big confidence booster.
As has been the case since I started up my marathoning career in mid-2023, my goal is to stay healthy and keep running fun. I’ve been nursing hip issues (thanks to some seriously weak hip flexors) the last couple of years, which has me incorporating a decent bit of stationary biking into my training. I’ve found the reduced running workload to really help those guys out. My right achilles tendon also started acting up the final 3 weeks of my Garry Bjorklund half marathon build (1:08:45 on June 20th). Alongside adjusting training for my injuries, it’s been refreshing to develop a new and healthier relationship with the sport post-college, as I work to not be so anal about the nitty gritty of training and have a more flexible and dynamic approach to my running. It’s a challenge, but an incredibly rewarding one, to find and achieve the injury-minimizing, brain-benefitting, PR-maximizing training that works for me. I plan to stick to that mindset for this upcoming cycle and see what I can drop on the streets of Berlin.
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Name: Sam Forstner
School: Ripon College, Class of 2023
Hometown: Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin
Current Residence: Stevens Point, Wisconsin
Occupation: Underwriter (Transportation Dept.) - Sentry Insurance
Current Affiliation: North Coast Running / Coach: Tyler Morey
PR: 2:16:58
My name is Sam Forstner, and I am a diehard Wisconsinite who will always consider the place many view as a drunken, cheese-filled, iced-over wasteland as my beloved home. Although I was born and raised off the virtues of the Midwest, life is now presenting me with the incredible opportunity to travel around the world and pursue what I love. To provide some context as to how this journey unfolded, a little background knowledge may be helpful. I am a graduate from Wisconsin Rapids Lincoln High School. I attended Ripon College, where I studied finance, economics, and philosophy while I began to dabble in the world of competitive running. Growing up, the value of chipping away at a goal until the work is complete was deeply instilled within me. I never excelled at conventional stick & ball sports, so coming from a lineage of racers lended itself to exposing me to a completely different sporting environment from an early age: the ultra-competitive world of motocross and snowmobile racing. I grew up competing every weekend in this ragged environment up until college, when my passion for running (and strong influence from my coach to stop racing) took over. Running created a new outlet for me to see tangible growth from putting in the work, albeit with a little less concern for ending up with a crippling hospital bill. Shortly after coming oh so close to the national stage in college, I took my passion to the roads immediately, as I felt I had more to prove to myself. Today, I’m living in Stevens Point, Wisconsin and working as an underwriter for Sentry Insurance, a home and job of which I am beyond grateful to have as parts of my life. The past two years since moving to the roads have been filled with incredible experiences, including races in Tokyo, Chicago, and Boston, where I saw my marathon time chip down by 9 minutes over a 15 month span, lowering to a 2:16:58 in the fall of 2025. Those performances have reinforced something I’ve believed for a while now: there’s still another level waiting to be unlocked.
This brings me to Berlin. More than just another race on the calendar, the Berlin Marathon represents an opportunity unlike any I’ve had before. It will be my second international racing experience, and is a golden opportunity to compete on one of the fastest marathon courses in the world. For the first time, the idea of chasing an Olympic Trials qualifying standard feels tangible rather than theoretical. The road to this point hasn’t been straightforward. Much of the past year has been spent rebuilding from a lingering tendinitis issue that resulted in what felt like one setback after another. Months of physical therapy, cross-training, and gym rehabilitation were incorporated to try and realign after the injury. Now, coming off a strong half marathon training block, the focus shifts toward converting fitness into marathon-specific strength, speed, and durability. The plan is simple: stay healthy, trust the process, and continue stacking consistent weeks. If everything comes together, Berlin could be the race where preparation, opportunity, and performance finally meet.
Name: Christopher Brenk
School: St. Olaf College, Class of 2020
Hometown: Clarendon Hills, Illinois
Current Residence: Laramie, Wyoming
Occupation: Registrar at the University of Wyoming
Current Affiliation: Unaffiliated / Self-Coached
PR: 2:17:34
The wind appears to have never contemplated the possibility of stopping. It batters me and 20 pronghorn far off on the horizon relentlessly - the lot of us running on the high plains outside of town in the early evening light. How I find myself in southeast Wyoming is the result of a few minute decisions that had an enormous butterfly effect, that I can first trace back to a peculiar disease diagnosis in 2020 and many hours holed up at the Mayo Clinic. Snow fell silently outside my patient window that winter, and I remember fixating on that snow while being poked and prodded.
Contrary to what some of my friends misremember, I was not a very good college runner; I never even managed all-conference in the MIAC. Something always seemed off with my body’s ability to push the envelope. But I had the best of friends as teammates and had way too much fun. I didn’t hold particular ambitions for post-collegiate running and I looked forward to becoming a public high school English teacher and coach. And so it suddenly was that as the wind began to kick up the snow outside my window, and the thought of awaiting a pension I may or may not be around to claim grew sillier by the day, a conviction slowly festered for something new, something far away. This defibrillator of curiosity has not coincidentally resulted in my getting a lot faster, as I’ve finally gained some strength under my legs while on the move, as I’ve learned how to navigate symptoms, and as I’ve realized that as much as I desire having a group and teammates again, the motivation to train is intrinsic and can be done alone.
A lot of people have prodded me with something like, “So, OTQ at Berlin?” after I ran 2:17:34 at the Eugene Marathon in April. That was a surprise in its own right. I talk down my own expectations enough when hashing race goals, but it really is impossible to gauge one’s true fitness at this altitude. One reason I have gotten faster is by detaching from certain outcomes. In hyperfixating on a particular pace or time, cortisol spikes with discrepancies good and bad, and the mindset regresses from playing to win to being afraid to lose. (In a previous marathon, I ran the first 18 miles with a fellow whose watch beeped at him if he was 1) ahead of pace, 2) behind pace, and 3) on pace. He dropped out at 22.) I don’t need to think about the exact split to OTQ and focusing on it won’t make me faster. By upping the training ante just another 5-10% like I have the last several marathons, which has had me knock 2-4 minutes off consistently each time, I can perhaps anticipate a similar step on a good day.
I am lucky to be able to still strive for personal bests, feel good at least partly doing so, and move my body every day, which some of us cannot like we used to or wish to anymore. And I have lots of friends and old teammates still getting after it to take inspiration from.
The glory days can be left basked in the rose tinted memories of undergrad, or they can be scratched and clawed and pursued to unknown greater heights with continued diligence. Part of the thrill is then that high risk, the moonshot. September 27 is less than three months away; stay tuned as we divulge our preparation for that big swing.