ELY— Hudson Kingston was hoping for second place in this past weekend’s Ely Marathon— he had to settle for first.
Kingston, a wiry redhead who lives outside Ely in Fall Lake Township, finished in a time of 2:55.51, nearly five minutes ahead of second-place finisher Henry Carlson and more than three minutes faster than his previous best, set when he won the Ely Marathon in 2017 with a time of 2:59.01.
He finished in third place last year, and fourth in 2019. “So, you know, first is good but I was really going for second because then I would have had the matched set,” he joked in an interview shortly after last Saturday’s race.
Kingston, who works as an environmental attorney, was only the second person to win the Ely marathon twice, after Andrew McNamara who won in 2019 and 2021. He did so on a day that included showers, strong winds, and temperatures in the 60s.
Kingston, now 40, said he began his running career as a kid, when he started tagging along with his mother, Sarah, who was also a runner. He ran cross country and two-mile races in high school and, later, ran for Carleton College, in Northfield, until he graduated in 2005.
“For a hot second I tried to be a decathlete but throwing a discus and javelin is a lot harder than it looks. I was pretty good at the triple jump but that was about it.”
He ran his first marathon a little over a decade ago. He’s competed in the Boston Marathon as well as twice in the Twin Cities Marathon among others.
“This race is similar to Boston in that it’s a very well-run marathon,” he said, referring to the Ely race. “It’s different from Boston because there aren’t 50,000 people running in it.”
For now, Kingston isn’t going to rest on his laurels. He’ll be back, shooting for second place next year…