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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: Mount Marathon

  • A Side Quest to Broken Arrow Put Kendall Kramer on Another Team USA

    A Side Quest to Broken Arrow Put Kendall Kramer on Another Team USA

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    Cross-country skiers rarely travel light. For the Broken Arrow Skyrace, however, Kendall Kramer’s entire racing kit amounted to one pair of shoes and one outfit, both tucked into a carry-on. But after a winter ruled by equipment and logistics, simplicity was part of the point.

    The self-funded trip to California with her mother was supposed to be, in Kramer’s words, “a fun little side quest.” She had watched Jessie Diggins race at Broken Arrow in previous summers and submitted an elite application in February, when the event was already sold out. If the organizers accepted her, Kramer decided, she would take it as a sign to go. They did, and four months later the side quest sent her home with a place on another U.S. national team.

    Kramer completed the June 19 Ascent in 48 minutes, 14 seconds, finishing 11th among women in an international field and fourth in the separate USATF Uphill Mountain Running Championships. The latter result earned the 2026 Olympian one of four women’s spots on the U.S. team headed to the World Mountain Running Association (WMRA) World Cup Finale in Quebec this October.

    Kendall Kramer running uphill on a rocky mountain course wearing race bib 361.
    Kramer climbing at the Cirque Series race at Alta, Utah, in 2025. Summer mountain races have been part of her calendar for years. (Photo: Austin Elliott Photography)

    A Race Within the Race

    The Broken Arrow Ascent rises 2,840 feet over 3.61 miles at Palisades Tahoe, ending near 9,000 feet on Washeshu Peak. The course offered Kramer a familiar kind of discomfort. Skiers spend plenty of summer training sessions running uphill, and she has raced mountains throughout her life in Alaska. She was also drawn to an uphill-only event, where she could attack the climb without risking the pounding, falls and injuries that can accompany a technical descent.

    The altitude complicated the effort. An ascent race can feel like a sprint, Kramer said, because its short length allows runners to push rather than settle into prolonged power hiking. Near 9,000 feet, that approach requires more restraint. Still, years of ski racing and training at elevation gave her a sense of how to manage those obstacles.

    Kramer had entered with a tangible goal: finish in the top 10 and earn prize money. The field was strong enough that doing so, she felt, would also establish her among other serious mountain runners.

    She started picking off competitors as the course climbed and found another surge near the end, when a cluster of women remained within reach. Kramer lost track of her exact position amid the passes but knew she was close. She crossed two seconds behind 10th place.

    “I was like, ‘Oh darn,’” Kramer said. “At least it was a good effort race.”

    Weeks earlier, the elite runners had been told that the Ascent would double as the USATF uphill championship and a qualifier for the World Cup Finale. Kramer bought a USATF membership and entered that competition, too, mostly because there was no reason not to. She skimmed the qualification information without giving it much thought.

    “This field is crazy,” she remembered thinking. “That’s not really going to be me.”

    After the race, Kramer and her mother began walking from the summit toward the tram. She checked the overall results first. Then she noticed a separate view for the USATF championship, which removed athletes who were not entered in the national race. Kramer had nearly forgotten about the competition within the competition.

    Her name was listed in fourth, and the top four qualified.

    “I totally didn’t factor myself into that,” Kramer said. “It was definitely a surprise. I was really proud that I could make a team like that.”

    Kramer may not have expected the qualification, but it drew on years spent building the aerobic engine and uphill strength that mountain racing rewards. She simply had not imagined that an ability maintained partly for balance and enjoyment would carry her onto another international team.

    A young Kendall Kramer running a road race alongside an adult runner wearing a race bib.
    Kramer came to athletics through running before she found skiing. Both of her parents are runners. (Courtesy photo)

    A Runner First

    Running has never felt like a secondary sport to Kramer, even as skiing became her profession.

    “Running was always my main sport, in the sense that that’s what I got into when I got into athletics,” she said.

    Both of her parents are runners, and running shaped the athletic culture of her family in Fairbanks. She tried soccer and baseball, but she liked the directness of a sport in which her work and her result felt closely connected. Skiing came later because, as she put it, it was “what all the cool kids did.”

    The two sports eventually became inseparable. At the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Kramer competed in both throughout college. She won three straight Great Northwest Athletic Conference cross-country titles and finished second at the 2024 NCAA Division II Cross-Country Championships. Four months later, in the final ski race of her collegiate career, she won the 20-kilometer freestyle at the NCAA Skiing Championships.

    Kramer’s skiing has since reached a new level. She made her Olympic debut in Italy in February and placed ninth in the World Cup skiathlon in Falun in March, her first top-10 World Cup result. Yet running still supplies something that skiing cannot.

    “If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t be able to handle all of the skiing that I do,” Kramer said. “I like feeling like I have another athletic outlet to keep me happy, because skiing can be fleeting and have all sorts of disappointments with equipment and stuff. Running feels more in control.”

    That control is physical, but it is also logistical. A ski race can hinge on wax, snow, weather and the work of moving equipment from one place to another. Running asks much less before the gun goes off. On a running trip, Kramer said, there is more space to enjoy the people and the place around the competition.

    “It feels like it adds to your life,” she said. “It’s so manageable.”

    The harder question came when her college cross-country career ended. Kramer loved the sport’s courses, team culture and changing terrain, but there is no obvious post-collegiate version of NCAA cross-country. Track and road racing did not offer the same pull, and she was not ready to build her running life around marathons on pavement.

    Mountain racing offered another route. In Alaska, it had never felt like a separate niche so much as part of the local calendar. Races such as Mount Marathon and the Cirque Series became summer traditions, with familiar faces returning to familiar mountains each year. Two weeks after Broken Arrow, Kramer placed seventh at Mount Marathon in 52:53.

    “I loved running cross-country and being in the woods and going along a course that has different aspects,” Kramer said. “You have an uphill and downhill, and you have to change, just like skiing.”

    Mountain racing preserved the parts of running Kramer loved and opened a path to international competition she never expected to enter.

    Kendall Kramer racing the World Cup skiathlon at Falun, Sweden.
    Kramer on her way to a career-best ninth in the World Cup skiathlon in Falun, Sweden, in March. She argues that summer racing is part of what makes winter results like that possible. (Photo: Authamayou/NordicFocus)

    Keeping a Pulse on Racing

    For Kramer, racing in the summer is not a diversion from ski training. It is one of the ways she makes that training more useful.

    An occasional race does interrupt a perfectly planned week. She may back off for a few days beforehand, then need time to recover afterward. Some skiers see that as lost volume. Kramer believes the costs are outweighed by the chance to revisit sensations that ordinary training cannot reproduce.

    “Racing is very different from training,” she said. “At least I think so, and I think it should be different from training.”

    Kramer likes to race roughly once a month during the offseason. Each start provides a checkpoint on her fitness, pacing and ability to summon focus when a result matters. Those reminders make the first ski races of winter feel less abrupt; she arrives with recent evidence of how her body and mind respond in competition.

    Races also make weaknesses harder to ignore. A disappointing moment can become the direction for the next training block rather than a problem discovered after the ski season begins.

    “Sometimes you don’t get an idea of where you’re lacking and where your strengths are if you don’t tap into that throughout the summer,” Kramer said.

    At Broken Arrow, the crossover was all around her. Olympic ski mountaineer Anna Gibson won the Ascent and the U.S. uphill title in 43:15. Diggins completed all three races, a total of 75 kilometers with more than 16,000 feet of climbing, and finished fourth in the Triple Crown standings. Sophia Laukli has built an elite trail-running career alongside cross-country skiing, winning the 2023 Golden Trail World Series. In August, Gibson placed sixth among women at Switzerland’s Sierre-Zinal, while the recently retired Diggins finished 37th.

    Those examples helped Kramer recognize that mountain running can be more than incidental cross-training. The sport has international races, sponsors and prize money, particularly in Europe. Its U.S. elite pool remains relatively small, and a skier who already possesses a strong aerobic base can become competitive quickly. That does not make the crossover effortless.

    “I’m not going to act like I’m couch-to-mountain-running,” she said. “I’m definitely trying, and I’m also not downplaying the girls who do train for it. But I am saying that ski training works for it, and getting fit in general works for it.”

    The larger benefit may be less measurable than fitness. Elite skiers live by periodized plans: intervals on one day, over-distance training on another, each block designed to build toward winter. Kramer believes athletes can become so protective of that structure that they miss the value of occasionally disrupting it.

    “People are really scared to break away from that,” she said. “But I think you can be a really adaptable athlete and build skills that a regimented training plan can never get you.”

    Her confidence in that approach has been earned over years of combining running and skiing without sacrificing results in either. That history has also built trust with her coaches. An unplanned race or an imperfect training week does not look like recklessness when the larger pattern shows that she understands how to make the two sports work together.

    The mental return matters as much as the physiological one. A summer race provides the competitive charge that long weeks of training can lack and asks an athlete to solve problems in real time: exactly what winter racing eventually demands.

    Kendall Kramer in a running vest above an alpine lake in the Alaska mountains.
    Kramer on a run in the Alaska mountains. Her next start comes Oct. 10 at Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec. (Courtesy photo)

    The Next Side Quest

    Kramer’s next test comes Oct. 10 at Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec, where the circuit will make its first visit to Canada. The current course listing calls for five kilometers and roughly 800 meters of climbing. It will begin far below the altitude Kramer encountered at Broken Arrow, removing one variable while preserving a steep uphill challenge.

    She wants to finish in the top 10. Broken Arrow showed that she can stay close to that range in a deep international field, and the chance to race without a near-9,000-foot finish has left her curious about what more she can do.

    Beyond Quebec, Kramer would consider mountain races in Europe if a sponsor or U.S. team opportunity made the travel possible. She is not mapping out a second full professional calendar yet. The appeal lies partly in leaving room for opportunities to appear, then being fit and adaptable enough to take them.

    “I would love to look back and see that I took those opportunities,” Kramer said. “Running has never hurt me in the past. I’ve always been able to juggle both.”

    Kramer does not argue that every skier should copy her schedule. She wants more athletes to leave room for the experiences that may not fit perfectly into a training plan but help them handle everything racing asks of them.

    “It can make you a better skier in ways that maybe aren’t the best training on paper,” Kramer said. “But it makes you a good athlete, which comes in handy when you least expect it.”

    At Broken Arrow, that lesson was waiting in a second set of results she had nearly forgotten to check.

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    Kendall Kramer racing cross-country in an Alaska Fairbanks singlet, number 24, past a course flag line.
    Kramer racing cross-country for Alaska Fairbanks. She won three straight GNAC titles and finished second at the 2024 NCAA Division II championships. (Courtesy photo)
  • Skiers Take on Mount Marathon, and other Running Race Roundups (Updated)

    Skiers Take on Mount Marathon, and other Running Race Roundups (Updated)

    Thomas O’Harra (APU) approaches the turnaround point in the 2022 Mt. Marathon race above Seward, Alaska. (photo: Anna Engel)

    Occurring annually on the 4th of July, and touted as the toughest 5 k on the planet, the 94th edition of the Mount Marathon race took place this past Monday in Seward, AK. Needless to say, the race is a storied tradition, beginning with its first “official” running in 1915. Over the years, participation has increased to such an extent that these days there are a number of complex ways for race entrants to register, including selection through a lottery system, petition for a race spot, or even buying a bib at a last-minute live auction. 

    There is no set course up the mountain itself. Racers start on city streets, at sea level, and run through town for half a mile before starting the climb and heading straight up the mountain. During the climb, athletes cover roughly 2,675 vertical feet of climbing in less than a mile (0.9 to be exact). Once they’ve crossed the timing mat around the false summit at Race Point, they turn around and descend that same steep slope via a slightly different route. A junior boys and girls race is also run, in which the participants only ascend partway up the mountain before turning around.

    Runners bomb down scree back towards Seward and Resurrection Bay after turning around at Race Point. (Photo: Walker Hall)

    This steep and challenging course has seen a number of nordic skiers succeed, including current men’s record holder, David Norris (41:26). Norris has won the race all three times he entered and took the record from mountain master, Kílian Jornet (41:48). Four-time Olympian, Nina Kemppel, holds the record for most race wins at an impressive nine victories. And until this year, three-time Olympian, Todd Boonstra was the oldest victor at age 41. However, at the conclusion of the 2022 edition of Mount Marathon, that crown went to a new champion. 

    The men set off at 11 a.m. local time and Max King of Bend, Oregon, took this year’s victory in a time of 43:37. At the age of 42, he became the oldest winner in the race’s long history. 

    Behind King, APU skier Thomas O’Harra placed second in his Mount Marathon debut. “I really didn’t expect to do as well as I did,” shared O’Harra. “It’s such a strong field, even without David [Norris] racing this year.” 

    Just a few weeks before O’Harra took top spot in the Bird Ridge Hill Climb, so he had confidence heading into the uphill section of Mount Marathon. “I knew that I was in good shape for the climb at least, after Bird Ridge, so I figured that I could be in the top three to the top and then the downhill was a total unknown to me. I practiced it once, a week before the race, but I’ve never raced a downhill like that before so I had no idea what to expect.”

    Thomas O’Harra (APU) rounds Race Point in second place in the 2022 edition of Mount Marathon (Photo: Anna Engel)

    Plummeting down the scree slope, O’Harra said his main goal was to stay on his feet and not get hurt. “I was shocked that I was still in second coming off the mountain and suffered my way down the road to the finish, where I managed to sneak under 45 minutes, which was a kind of secondary, if-it-goes-well goal,” said O’Harra. “[It was a] super fun time though, the closest running race I’ve ever done to the Birkie, and I’m stoked to come back and race again next year!”

    Canadian skier and current Ute (athlete at the University of Utah), Sam Hendry, finished second behind Norris in 2021. This year, Hendry placed 7th with a time of 47:39. Hendry shared that this year’s Mount Marathon “was a bit of a disappointment.” He continued, “I finished second last year and was really hoping for a strong result again. With some busy travel getting up to Alaska, I didn’t have the best preparation and my legs were just a little off.” Hendry raced both the Vertical Kilometer (VK) and 26 k at the Broken Arrow Skyrace mid-June and placed fourth in both, besting King by nearly a minute in the 26 k. Hendry said, “I had some good results there, and plan to add some more running competitions to the calendar for later in the summer. I really enjoy getting some competitions in during the summer and getting to feel stressed and nervous.” 

    Michael Earnhart descends a dusty slope towards Seward (Photo: Jim Jager)

    New U.S. D-Team member and APU skier, Micheal Earnhart, finished his day in 15th (49:45). He wrote to FasterSkier, “I wasn’t stoked with my results by any means but I am happy that I’m at a point in my career where top-15 at Mount Marathon can be a bad day.” Earnhart was quick to praise his teammate’s success saying, “My main takeaway was how impressive it was to see my APU teammate, and race rookie, Thomas O’Harra get second place. Definitely a strong day for APU and skiers in general which is always fun to see.”

    Fellow U.S. Ski Team athlete Luke Jager was shortly behind Earnhart in 18th.

    With the men’s race concluded, the focus turned to the women, who started at 2 p.m. local time. (The men and women now race in the flagship afternoon slot in alternate years.) Breaking the seven-year-old women’s record, Allie McLaughlin of Colorado earned the victory in a time of 47:09. Previously held by Swedish runner, Emelie Forsberg, with a time of 47:48, McLaughlin created a margin of 39 seconds in her favor. 

    Rosie Frankowski, who finished 4th in 2021, and is perhaps one of the fastest climbers out there, came in sixth this year (53:19). Racing Mount Marathon for the first time, newly named U.S. Ski Team A-Team member, Novie McCabe placed 8th (56:27). About her race, McCabe shared, “Mount Marathon was crazy! So hard, but a very cool experience for sure. I’m pretty happy with it. I was nervous about the downhill and was honestly pretty happy with myself for just doing something a bit out of my comfort zone.” 

    After racing the junior girls event, Dashe McCabe waters her sister, Novie (bib #7), on the climb (Photo: Jim Jager)

    Kendall Kramer of UAF finished just outside the top-ten in 11th position (57:12). Kramer finished 9th last year (56:50) and was the junior girl’s race champion in 2018 (34:05). 

    Full race results of all the Mount Marathon events can be found here. 

    In other racing news, U.S.A. Track and Field Mountain Running Championships (USATF) in Wilmington, NY at the beginning of June saw two 2022 Beijing Olympians competing. Sophia Laukli finished third in a time of 1:29:03., and Caitlin Patterson came in sixth (1:35:52.3). Results for that event can be found here. 

    The Loon Mountain Race hosted Vertical U.S. Mountain Championships on July 10th, which a number of nordic and biathlon athletes attended. Alex Lawson representing Craftsbury Green Racing Project finished third, and posted the second fastest time on the “Upper Walking Boss,” a 40% grade ski hill for a half-mile at the end of the race.

    Jake Brown (also of CGRP) had the second fastest time on the “Upper Walking Boss” and finished 9th overall. Full results for the event can be found here.

    The Cirque Series mountain race circuit kicks off this coming Saturday (July 16th) at Brighton, UT. With a schedule of six U.S. based races taking place over the next few months nordic ski fans should keep an eye out for familiar names near the top of the results sheet.

  • David Norris Wins Third Mt. Marathon, Canada’s Sam Hendry Second; Rosie Frankowski Fourth

    David Norris Wins Third Mt. Marathon, Canada’s Sam Hendry Second; Rosie Frankowski Fourth

    A composed David Norris talks with local media moments after winning the 2021 Mount Marathon race in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Twitter screenshot from Alaska’s News Source)

    Men’s race

    Most athletes pay their dues as they work their way up the results list for Mount Marathon, the grueling 5-kilometer, 3,000-foot-gain out-and-back race in Seward, Alaska, that dates to 1915. There is no substitute for experience on the technical course, and most people need to get their rookie run out of the way before they can even think of challenging for the overall victory in subsequent times on the mountain.

    David Norris is not most athletes.

    Racing on an overcast Wednesday afternoon, Norris lodged his third-ever start in what is believed to be the country’s oldest mountain race. Roughly 43 minutes later, he had claimed his third-ever victory, continuing his winning ways as he ran down Fourth Avenue in downtown Seward before a crowd of thousands.

    Norris’s time of 43:27, though well off his course record of 41:26, was still just outside the all-time top-10 list for a race that has was first held in World War I. He probably would have cracked the top 10 if he hadn’t slowed to high five children lining the final few blocks.

    Norris’s aerobic fitness, even for a world-class cross-country skier, is superb. In June he lowered his own course record on the uphill-only Bird Ridge hill climb (3 miles, 3,400 vertical feet) to a frankly staggering 35:40, well over a minute ahead of anyone not named David Norris on a course that has been covered by virtually every Alaska-based nordic athlete in the past three decades.

    On Wednesday, Norris used these skills to hit the halfway point of the climb in 18:25, already well ahead of Canadian skier Sam Hendry (second at this year’s NCAA Championships for University of Utah) in 18:59 and pro trail runner Darren Thomas in 19:21. By the turnaround, at 2,974 feet at a false summit midway up the mountain, the gap had grown to nearly two minutes: Norris in 31:54, Thomas in 33:48, and Hendry in 34:27.

    David Norris descends a near-vertical shale field approaching the end of the 2021 Mount Marathon race in Seward, Alaska. (photo: Twitter screenshot from Alaska’s News Source)

    Hendry overtook Thomas on the descent to move back into second, as the athletes plummeted nearly 3,000 feet in less than three kilometers, but Norris padded his lead as he ran alone to the finish. The final podium was David Norris, 43:27; Sam Hendry, 46:00; and Darren Thomas, 46:09, according to unofficial live results. Fourth went to Michael Connelly, a bronze medalist at 2019 Youth World Skyrunning Championships, and sixth to Lars Arneson, who holds the unsupported Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim FKT, reflecting the depth of the Alaska mountain running community. (Another Salomon-sponsored athlete from Outside was seventh.)

    “It feels good. I’m stoked to be back” at this race, a composed Norris told local television broadcasters after taking the time to put on a dry shirt and drink some water, looking barely winded and conducting his post-race interview while the rest of the podium was still on the course.

    “I felt good,” he continued. “The mud [on the first part of the ascent] was super-slick, so I was just being patient till we got out of the trees. Then I figured, use the fitness where the footing’s good.”

    “It’s great to see that we’re able to pull this off” again, Norris said, after the 2020 race was cancelled due to Covid and the 2019 race was marred by poor air quality due to wildfire smoke. “It’s fun to be out here with so many good friends, and the Alaskans who are psyched to run up a mountain.”

    So what’s next, Norris was asked. “Now it’s just rollerski time trial time,” he said, as he looks ahead to this winter’s Olympics.

    Norris holds the all-time course record for Mt. Marathon, 41:26, as well as the third-fastest time. Second place on the all-time list is held by Kílian Jornet (yes, that Kílian Jornet), from 2015. Other notable skiers in the all-time top-10 include former UAA and APU skier Eric Strabel, and 1988 Winter Olympian Bill Spencer.

    Women’s race

    Rosie Frankowski’s race began a lot like Norris’s: she was first by nearly a minute at the halfway point of the climb, and first by nearly two minutes at the top. Unfortunately for the APU skier and Olympic hopeful, the finish line is back down at sea level – and no one else in the top five needed to hold back a little on the descent to avoid incurring an injury in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. Frankowski would ultimately finish fourth this year, after taking a notably non-aggressive line on the descent in 2018 to slip from first to seventh.

    In this file photo, Rosie Frankowski races the first stage of the FIS Ski Tour 2020. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    The uphill, however, was all Frankowski. She already had a gap of several meters by the base of the cliffs roughly a half-kilometer into the race, which she consistently stretched on the near-vertical climb through densely humid undergrowth. She emerged onto the stark shale slopes of the upper mountain to reach the halfway point of the climb in 20:19, substantially ahead of Ruby Lundquist (21:17), Hannah Lafleur (21:44), and Christy Marvin (21:45). It was more of the same at the turnaround point: Frankowski first in 37:06, then a gap of nearly two minutes to Lindquist (38:57) and three minutes to Marvin and Lafleur (39:38 and 39:40).

    Frankowski’s ascent tied her 2018 effort for the third-fastest uphill since at least 2006, according to available records.

    “The uphill was great,” Frankowski emailed. “It was definitely a bit slippery in the first half from recent rain and the top half was quite a bit softer than in 2018. I had quite a few slips where I had to catch myself with my hands, but I never did a total belly slide. Fog rolled in right when I was near the top and inexperience on the mountain made me think I had a lot further to go than I did, so I was surprised to see the American flag at the top and kind of bummed out that I didn’t put in a last uphill surge which I was waiting to do to run under 37 minutes.”

    The descent, however, is not Frankowski’s forte, and she may have wished to exercise additional caution as a non-U.S. Ski Team athlete going into an Olympic year. Lafleur unleashed the day’s fastest downhill by a substantial margin, 11:44, to overtake all three athletes in front of her and win in 51:24. Lindquist was close behind in 51:38. Marvin, a 40-year-old mother of three, rounded out the podium in 52:21. Frankowski reached the finish, apparently uninjured, in 52:56.

    “I have been focusing more on ski training than running this year since it’s an Olympic year and I want to put my best foot forward in trying to make that team,” noted Frankowski. “Nonetheless, I was still hoping to run a good uphill time and then just enjoy the downhill and not get injured. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the hype of the downhill, but in order to hold off fantastic downhills like my friend Hannah (who won), I’d have to be so ballsy and sendy, and I am not willing to do that yet with skiing on the line (maybe someday or then again, maybe not haha!).”

    In 2018, Frankowski notched the day’s 92nd-fastest time on the descent. She improved considerably this year, taking off nearly four minutes on the downhill to rank a healthy 24th among downhillers, out of roughly 230 women total, helping her to a fourth-place finish.

    Other nordic skiers in this year’s top 10 included former Dartmouth skier (and current Salomon-sponsored pro trail runner) Taryn Hunt-Smith in eighth and current USST D-Team athlete Kendall Kramer in ninth. Nordic skiers in the all-time top 10 include Morgan Arritola in seventh and Jessica Yeaton in ninth.

    Results: Men | Women | Girls | Boys

    From the archives: Here’s some additional background on this only-in-Alaska race from FasterSkier’s article on the 2018 race won by Norris and Yeaton:

    Here’s the race’s origin story, according to the official website:

    “According to folklore, the tradition of the Mount Marathon Race began when two sourdoughs argued about the possibility of climbing and descending the mountain in less than an hour. ‘Impossible’ one said. To settle the argument, and the resulting wager, a race was held, with the loser to furnish drinks for the crowd. At the same time, enterprising merchants put up a suit of clothes and other attractions for the winner and proposed the race take place on a holiday – why not the 4th of July? The optimistic sourdough lost his bet. The winning racer took one hour and two minutes.”

    The race was first formally contested in 1915, with a winning time of 1:02:02. There were no races held in the early 1920s, the mid-1930s, and for one year during World War II. The race has been held every year since 1943, always on the fourth of July. 2018 marks the 91st running of the race. [The 2019 juniors race would be cancelled due to poor air quality, and the 2020 race cancelled due to Covid.]

    The first official women finishers were in 1963, nine years before women were officially allowed in the Boston Marathon and 21 years before women were allowed to race distances over 1,500 meters at the Summer Olympics.

    Notable past Mount Marathon champions who were also skiers include, in reverse chronological order, Holly Brooks, Kikkan Randall, Nina Kemppel, Lynn Galanes, and Betsy Haines (Randall’s aunt). Notable male Mount Marathon champions who were also skiers include Scott Patterson, David Norris, Eric Strabel, Trond Flagstad, Toby Schwörer, Todd Boonstra, Bill Spencer, Jim Renkert, Tom Besh, and Sven Johanson. Kílian Jornet, who won in 2015 and held the course record before David Norris happened, may merit honorable mention as a ski mountaineer.

    About that steepness: Elevation profile of Mount Marathon course, from an athlete (Jeff Levin) who finished 58th out of 306 men in 2017. Note the 35- to 45-minute pace per mile for much of the climb. (photo: Strava screenshot)

    The race’s course description page reassures racers, “Mount Marathon is not quite as steep as has been previously reported. The true steepness – from the base of the mountain to the lip of the mountain just before the turnaround rock – averages 34 degrees. That figure was calculated using GPS data from several racers. Excluding the road approach, the vertical gain is about 2,675 feet in 0.9 miles.”

    Max King, a professional runner who has raced all over the world for nearly twenty years, told Clint McCool that he “had never raced anything so steep, and had never come down anything so fast,” according to McCool’s comments on the broadcast.

    Outside magazine has called Mount Marathon “the toughest 5k on the planet.” It is undeniably the most famous footrace in Alaska, and the second most famous athletic event anywhere in the state, behind only the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. It has grown from its humble origins to a yearly spectacle that is sometimes covered by helicopter and drone and broadcast live on local network television, as well as online.

  • Yeaton, Norris Take Dramatic Mt. Marathon Wins

    Yeaton, Norris Take Dramatic Mt. Marathon Wins

    The 91st annual Mount Marathon Race, one of the oldest footraces in the country, once more descended on the small town of Seward, Alaska, on July 4. Crowds estimated at up to 30,000 perennially throng to the waterfront community, population less than 3,000, to watch racers push themselves up a steep mountain and hurl themselves back down. At the end of the day, a pair of Alaska Pacific University (APU) skiers, Jessica Yeaton and David Norris, had picked up victories in the quintessentially Alaskan race.

    Women’s Race: Jessica Yeaton Wins After Frankowski Backs Off on Downhill

    (Photo: KTVA 11 News/Instagram)

    The couple that trains together, wins together. Yeaton and Norris have dated for some time. They traveled down to the race together, they went out fishing the day before together, and they previewed the course together. And they’ll be going back to Anchorage with a pair of trophies together.

    After Norris took a dramatic victory in the men’s race Wednesday morning (see below for men’s race recap), Yeaton matched him in the women’s race in the afternoon. Racing in the marquee afternoon time slot, Yeaton led a field of roughly 270 women off the starting line at 2 p.m. The women’s reward for racing in the afternoon this year (the men’s and women’s race alternate the prime-time afternoon slot) was temperatures even warmer than this morning, although thankfully a light breeze had picked up.

    After roughly four minutes of gradual uphill through the streets of Seward, Yeaton, 26, was among the five-person lead pack to the base of the climb. By shortly into the climb, APU teammate Rosie Frankowski, also 26, was first, with Yeaton close behind. At the mid-point uphill time check, it was Frankowski, then Yeaton (+16 seconds), with Najeeby Quinn third over a minute back.

    Frankowski and Yeaton continued to stretch their lead as the race climbed out of a humidity choked tunnel of vegetation and onto the stark shale rocks of the mountain’s upper half.

    The two APU skiers and race rookies (Frankowski earned her entry spot by winning the Government Peak hill climb in early June, Yeaton by winning the Bird Ridge hill climb in mid-June) were both climbing fast and moving well, although they were a study in contrasts on the live television broadcast. The compact Frankowski climbed the hill the way Marit Bjørgen had skied the Olympic 30 k, attacking the hill with each step as she leaned into the steep climb. “You can almost hear her feet hitting the ground with each stride,” veteran Mount Marathon racer-turned-color commentator Clint McCool marveled on the broadcast, praising the redoubtable power of Frankowski’s lower body.

    (Photo: KTVA 11 News/Instagram)

    Behind her, the more lithe Yeaton seemed to float upward with an ease that belied the effort of climbing the 47-degree slope. While Frankowski’s high turnover remained the same throughout the climb, Yeaton even broke into a few brief running strides on the “flats.”

    Frankowski crossed the timing mat at the turnaround in a (staggeringly fast) unofficial time of 37:06. Yeaton was 29 seconds back in 37:35. The time back to Quinn in third (39:13), let alone Christy Marvin in fourth (39:56) or Denali Foldager-Strabel (40:33) in fifth, seemed significant if not insurmountable.

    But that’s why you run the race. Frankowski then took a meandering and suboptimal line onto the snowfield that begins the precipitous descent. In fact, she bypassed the snowfield entirely, running around its rocky edge for several hundred vertical feet.

    “I train with Rosie every day and she was not stoked about the downhill,” Yeaton said in a post-race interview with the Anchorage Daily News (ADN). “So she was like, ‘I’m gonna take this [other] route.”

    Frankowski told the ADN she wanted to didn’t want to risk getting injured on the downhill.

    “This is fun, but my primary sport — I’m not going to ruin it,” Frankowski said.

    By the time Frankowski reached the bottom of the snowfield, Yeaton had come flying past her, opening up a lead she would not relinquish. Quinn had passed her as well.

    Yeaton ran smoothly all the way to the bottom, going from the turnaround point to the finish line in under 14 minutes. (Her pre-race preview with Norris may have been helpful: “You just do a front flip here,” Norris calmly advises the camera in one of Yeaton’s recent Instagram videos as he demonstrates a flip down a small cliff approaching the bottom of the climb. “It’s easier in the race with the adrenaline.”) Despite the effort, Yeaton looked calm and in control running down Main Street, ultimately taking the victory in an unofficial time of 51:30.

    Yeaton’s overall time ranks ninth all-time in a race first contested by women in 1963.

    Frankowski’s unofficial uphill split of 37:06 ranks third all-time among uphill marks, behind only pro runner Emelie Forsberg and two-time NCAA steeplechase champion Allie Ostrander, who has a track 5 k PR of 15:22 and finished eighth in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in this event. Yeaton’s 37:35 uphill would be sixth among Mount Marathon climbs.

    About that uphill: Elevation profile of Mount Marathon course, from an athlete (Jeff Levin) who finished 58th out of 306 men in 2017. Note the 35- to 45-minute pace per mile for much of the climb. (Photo: Strava screenshot)

    Behind Yeaton, there was ample movement in the standings. Frankowski would ultimately post the day’s 91st-ranked downhill, alongside the fastest uphill, to finish seventh overall. Foldager-Strabel, fifth at the turnaround, would drop an all-time record 11:27 downhill (prior record: 11:31, Forsberg, in 2015) en route to finishing second overall in 52:00, barely ahead of a charging Marvin who took third in 52:04. Fourth overall was Quinn, who had been as high as second during parts of the downhill but was either injured or cramped up severely during the latter half of the descent. And fifth overall was Boulder resident Hannah LaFleur, who had been in sixth at the halfway point.

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    Also of note, former FasterSkier contributor Aubrey Smith was 11th. And former champion Holly Brooks, less than one year removed from giving birth to twins, was 19th, while wearing a microphone and providing live commentary to the broadcast team along the way. (“Can I sneak by on the left? Thanks,” she was at one point heard to exclaim on air.)

    An ebullient Yeaton spoke with KTVA Channel 11 at the finish. “I was just, like, trying to hold them off the whole way” down, she said of her race strategy for the descent in reference to her pursuers.

    “The heat was horrible,” Yeaton said of the day’s conditions. “But there were so many people out there with water, I probably got 30 different things of ice and water on my head. It made it so much better. I couldn’t do it without all the people on the mountain.”

    Men’s Race: David Norris Holds Off Max King

    Norris did it again.

    The 27-year-old APU skier came into Wednesday’s race, the 91st running of an event first held in 1915 that is among the oldest footraces in this country, as the course record holder at Mount Marathon. He had set a course record at the uphill-only Bird Ridge hill climb last month. Meanwhile, defending champion and APU teammate Scott Patterson was out of this race with a toe injury. Previous Mount Marathon course record-holder Eric Strabel was out with a stress fracture. As the ADN wrote in its preview of the men’s race, Norris had “a target on his back.”

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk0qm_PBiLa/

    Despite the pressure that comes with being the widely acclaimed favorite in a race variously described as “Alaska’s Olympics” or “Alaska’s Super Bowl,” Norris delivered.

    He set a torrid pace off the starting line following the 11 a.m. start, charging toward the base of the peak that rises immediately above the seaside town of Seward, Alaska. Close behind was Max King, 38, a professional runner from Bend, Oregon.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk0wF3OlmHS/

    King has been described as “the most versatile runner in the country,” with a race résumé that ranges from two top-20s at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials (where he ran a 2:14 and a 2:17) to sixth in the steeplechase at the U.S. trials to strong finishes while racing around the world as a sponsored athlete, in distances ranging from a vertical kilometer to 100-mile ultramarathons.

    Norris hit the base of the climb first, with King not far behind. Norris went through the mid-mountain uphill split in 21:01, with King 34 seconds back. Adam Jensen, 37, an Anchorage dentist, was at that point third in 22:08. Fifth (22:32) was 18-year-old Luke Jager, another APU skier, making his debut in the senior race this year after winning the junior race three times in a row from 2015–2017.

    Norris reached the turnaround point in 31:37, according to this reporter’s unofficial split, with King roughly 30 seconds behind him.

    Norris was still in the lead, but he looked rough. He climbed up the steep shale face of the upper mountain with a ragged tempo. He was hunched over, with his hands on his quads, unable to run or even power hike with with the upright posture that he prefers. (“Hiking is fine and maybe even better on certain pitches, but forcing yourself back into a running stride as soon as the terrain allows is crucial,” Norris previously told FasterSkier about his approach to climbing.) He stumbled repeatedly, and took the turns wide. He accepted water from everyone who offered it. He was covering the climb roughly 1 minute slower than he had when he set the course record in 2016, and he looked far worse doing it.

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    Behind him, King looked fresh and smooth. He was running where Norris was walking. He was upright where Norris was hunched over. He was moving hands-free where Norris was dabbing the rock. He was eschewing water where Norris had guzzled it. On the live broadcast, color commentator Clint McCool surmised that King had pushed Norris fast off the line in an attempt to blunt some of Norris’s climbing prowess, and that it had largely succeeded.

    But then the two men started going downhill. Norris took a better line onto and off of the steeply pitched snowfield that begins the precipitous descent. He looked rough running down the mountain below that, but so did King. By the time Norris hit the sweeping expanses of shale down the mountain’s flank, he was flying. He cleared multiple technical stretches (“the three problems,” three small waterfalls) with ease.

    When Norris came off the mountain and within sight of tens of thousands of fans in town, his lead was still around 30 seconds, according to unofficial splits taken off the broadcast. He gave back some of that on the remaining 0.6 miles of pavement running down to the finish line, as he slowed slightly to high-five the assembled hordes and King put his 2:14 marathon speed to work. Indeed, King’s downhill split was 12 seconds faster than Norris’s.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk0oo0th0H7/

    But Norris had a gap, and he kept it to the finish to close out a gutsy race. When he crossed the finish line – which is itself outside of a bar, commemorating the race’s bar-bet origins – he was the most famous athlete in Alaska for the second time in three years.

    Third in this year’s race was Adam Jensen, over three minutes out of second. Matt Shryock was fourth. Benjamin Marvin edged Jager by three seconds for fifth.

    Norris “pushed the early part of the race, like way harder than last year,” he told local television station KTVA Channel 11 in a live interview after the race, “trying to put pressure on Max.”

    “Coming down,” Norris continued, “my legs were way more tired than two years ago,” largely proving McCool’s surmise correct.

    Looking to the future, Norris promised to keep coming back. “I would love to mainly keep getting my own uphill record,” Norris said of his future race strategy, “and then just survive the downhill.”

    Norris’s uphill record of 30:35 remains safe for another year. (Behind him on that list: pro runner Rickey Gates (31:26), pro runner Kílian Jornet (31:27), Anchorage attorney and father Jim Shine (31:29), and APU teammate and Olympian Scott Patterson (31:40).)

    Norris’s overall time of an unofficial 42:13 for 2018 places him third on the all-time list, behind only his course-record 41:26 from 2016 and Jornet’s 41:48 from 2017.

    King, who finished in an unofficial 42:33, now ranks fourth on that all-time list. Competing in his first Mount Marathon, he had nothing but praise for the Alaska tradition and spectacle.

    “It is unbelievable up there,” King told KTVA at the finish. “I got here, I’ve been intimidated and scared the entire week of this mountain. … This race, it was awesome to be able to experience that.”

    He will “absolutely” be back, King said. “This is awesome; I love it here. The mountains are fantastic, there’s tons of things to run.”

    For his victory, Norris collected a small trophy and large bragging rights. Other than free lifetime entry into future races, there is no cash prize associated with Mount Marathon. The race has one of the deepest fields in the country on the merits (consider that Gates was only 12th in this year’s race, and Jornet and pro runner Emelie Forsberg are believed to be the only non-Alaskans to ever win the race), certainly one of the deepest anywhere for a bragging rights-only event.

    Juniors Race: Michael Connelly, Kendall Kramer Prevail

    (Photo: KTVA 11 News/Instagram)

    In the day’s first race, junior boys and girls raced together, starting at 9 a.m. under humanely still relatively cool conditions. First place went to Michael Connelly, 16, a rising star from Chugiak who had finished in the top-10 overall of every mountain race he had done this year. Connelly was sixth last year in the junior race. This was his first boys title; APU skier Luke Jager, now 18 and aged out of the junior race, had won the race the last three years.

    Second place was Ali Papillon, 13, who had spent much of the first part of the summer in Colorado. Papillon was described by the ADN as 4-foot-5 and 70 pounds following his third-place finish in 2017, and appeared only slightly taller this year. Third place was claimed by Gavin Block, 16, of Palmer, who was second among junior boys last year. Block runs and skis for Colony High School.

    The junior women’s 7.5 k classic podium on Monday at SuperTour Finals in Fairbanks, Alaska, in March 2017, with Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy/USST D-team) in first and Kendall Kramer (Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks/FXC) in third. (Photo: Reader submission)

    A few minutes behind Block in the co-ed mass start race, Fairbanks skier and runner Kendall Kramer, 16, was the first girl across the finish line. Kramer was third in the 5-kilometer classic mass start race at 2018 U.S. nationals in Anchorage. It was Kramer’s first Mount Marathon title.

    Aubrey LeClair, 17, of Anchorage and Katey Houser, 14, of Palmer, also both skiers, rounded out the junior girls podium in second and third. LeClair skis and runs for West High School, and trains with the APU junior team. She was the women’s winner in the season-opening Race to the Outhouse ski race in early November 2017. Houser earned multiple medals in cross-country ski events at the 2018 Arctic Winter Games in Northwest Territories.

    The Race and Its History

    Here’s some background on the race’s origin story, according to the official website:

    “According to folklore, the tradition of the Mount Marathon Race began when two sourdoughs argued about the possibility of climbing and descending the mountain in less than an hour. ‘Impossible’ one said. To settle the argument, and the resulting wager, a race was held, with the loser to furnish drinks for the crowd. At the same time, enterprising merchants put up a suit of clothes and other attractions for the winner and proposed the race take place on a holiday – why not the 4th of July? The optimistic sourdough lost his bet. The winning racer took one hour and two minutes.”

    The race was first formally contested in 1915, with a winning time of 1:02:02. There were no races held in the early 1920s, the mid-1930s, and for one year during World War II. The race has been held every year since 1943, always on the fourth of July. 2018 marks the 91st running of the race.

    The first official women finishers were in 1963, nine years before women were officially allowed in the Boston Marathon and 21 years before women were allowed to race distances over 1,500 meters at the Summer Olympics.

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    Notable past Mount Marathon champions who were also skiers include, in reverse chronological order, Holly Brooks, Kikkan Randall, Nina Kemppel, Lynn Galanes, and Betsy Haines (Randall’s aunt). Notable male Mount Marathon champions who were also skiers include Scott Patterson, David Norris, Eric Strabel, Trond Flagstad, Toby Schwörer, Todd Boonstra, Bill Spencer, Jim Renkert, Tom Besh, and Sven Johanson. Kílian Jornet, who won in 2015 and held the course record before David Norris happened, may merit honorable mention as a ski mountaineer.

    The race’s course description page reassures racers, “Mount Marathon is not quite as steep as has been previously reported. The true steepness – from the base of the mountain to the lip of the mountain just before the turnaround rock – averages 34 degrees. That figure was calculated using GPS data from several racers. Excluding the road approach, the vertical gain is about 2,675 feet in 0.9 miles.”

    King, a professional runner who has raced all over the world for nearly twenty years, told McCool that he “had never raced anything so steep, and had never come down anything so fast,” according to McCool’s comments on the broadcast.

    Outside magazine has called Mount Marathon “the toughest 5k on the planet.” It is undeniably the most famous footrace in Alaska, and the second most famous athletic event anywhere in the state, behind only the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. It has grown from its humble origins to a yearly spectacle that is covered by helicopter and drone and broadcast live on local network television, as well as online (tune in to ktva.com next July 4 for the 2019 race, or this week for an archived replay of 2018).

    (Video screenshot: The Alaska Life/Instagram)
  • Caitlin Patterson Races to 23rd at Mountain Running Worlds

    Caitlin Patterson Races to 23rd at Mountain Running Worlds

    Caitlin Patterson, who skis for the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, representing the U.S. at 2017 World Mountain Running Championships last month in Premana, Italy. (Photo: Richard Bolt)

    Note: This article has been updated to correct Caitlin Patterson’s birthplace. She was born in McCall, Idaho.

    ***

    The clang of a cowbell is a sound Caitlin Patterson has heard plenty of times during a ski race — but never while running — at least until she raced the 33rd edition of the World Mountain Running Championships (WMRC) July 30 in Premana, Italy.

    In her debut WMRC, which she qualified for in June, the 27-year-old Patterson discovered that for the mountain running fans of Italy, spectating is almost a sport in itself. Crowds of people cheering lined much of the 13-kilometer, two-lap course, and to Patterson’s surprise, within close range to the racers.

    “It definitely felt like there were a few cowbells being rung that were about the size of my head, and then a few being rung almost into my head,” Patterson said during a recent phone interview from Craftsbury, Vt. “But it was really neat to see how enthusiastic the Italians were about the race. … I have certainly never seen that many people with cowbells and cheering.”

    Caitlin Patterson, who skis for the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, representing the U.S. at the 2017 World Mountain Running Championships this July in Premana, Italy. (Photo: Richard Bolt)

    The race started in the city’s center and wove through Premana’s cobblestone streets for almost a kilometer before transitioning to trails. Unlike the rock- and dirt-covered mountain courses Patterson has run in the U.S., this race incorporated close to 3 k of pavement.

    “We started in the town itself and wound through these really narrow city streets, some of them so narrow I probably could have reached out and touched the walls with my hand,” Patterson said. “That first section of manmade mountain course was different than I might have expected. … Probably three of the race’s 13 k was on pavement, which not exactly anything I had prepared for.”

    What she had prepared for was a fast start. Prior to heading to Premana, Patterson, who skis for the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) based out of Craftsbury, planned a couple distance runs with Vermont native and 2011 WMRC champion Kasie Enman (Enman also competed for the U.S. women’s team at this year’s WMRC).

    Though neither of the runs the two went on involved intensity or hill workouts, they did involve conversation about what to expect and how to tactically attack the race. While finding a competitor to race behind is often helpful in a mass-start ski race, Patterson learned the opposite is true for mountain running.

    “In skiing, you want to find someone that you can follow and draft off of. That’s a good tactic in a skiing mass start,” Patterson said. “But in running, especially on the downhills, when you’re just sending it over obstacles, it’s actually not a good idea to be right behind someone because then you can’t see what’s on the trail. Kasie said, ‘If you can, get around people so you have clear visibility of what’s ahead.’ ”

    Patterson spent most of her race in company of racers from other nations, runners she had never met before.

    “I didn’t know who I was racing with…,” Patterson said. “The first time up the climb went fairly well for me … but it was kind of humid and we were in the full sun almost the whole time and I don’t handle heat very well. So I was really struggling with the heat for most of the race.”

    Despite not being a heat-thriving racer, Patterson raced to 23rd overall (out of 64 finishers), with a time of 1:12:14. Allie McLaughlin led the U.S. women’s team in fifth with a time of 1:06:06. Her teammate Addie Bracy followed in eighth (1:07:46), and Kasie Enman placed 13th (1:09:11).

    Caitlin Patterson, who skis for the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, representing the U.S. at the 2017 World Mountain Running Championships this July in Premana, Italy. (Photo: Richard Bolt)

    Kenya’s Lucy Wambui Murigi won the race in 1:01:26, while Austria’s Andrea Mayr placed second (+1:17) and Germany’s Sarah Tunstall finished third (+2:49).

    The three-top scoring American women (McLaughlin, Bracy and Enman) lifted the U.S. to the overall team title, six points ahead of home-team Italy in second. The Czech Republic was another nine points back in third.

    “It was cool to have this opportunity to race and feel like I could put myself out there and see what I could do, but not have any pressure from myself or anyone else,” Patterson said.

    Patterson is not the first nordic skier to find success in mountain running, nor is she the only one in her family. Her brother, Scott Patterson, a member of Alaska Pacific University’s elite nordic team and the U.S. Ski Team B-team,  won this year’s Mount Marathon in Seward, Alaska.

    “We, as skiers, seek out adventure,” said Patterson, who was born in McCall, Idaho. “We’ll be like ‘Huh, I want to go run up this mountain for my training,’ and then that ends up translating well [to mountain running]. … I think there are a lot of skiers out there who, if they wanted to do some mountain running, they probably could do it well.”

    Though her current focus is on qualifying for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, she also indicated that setting her sights beyond snow sports is not out of the question. She flew to Europe more than a week before the WMRC to watch this year’s Dolomites Skyrace, 23.5 k mountain climb and descent in northern Italy that’s part of the Skyrunner World Series.

    “I could really see myself doing some of those longer races at some point,” Patterson said. “My focus is very much on skiing, especially now that this is over, this has been a little adventure, but then we’ll see.”

    WMRC results: Senior Women | Women’s Team

    https://www.instagram.com/p/BXKxsXwFS7h/?taken-by=usmtrunningteam

  • ‘Why Not Go Again?’ Patterson Makes Mt. Marathon His Own One Year Later

    ‘Why Not Go Again?’ Patterson Makes Mt. Marathon His Own One Year Later

    U.S. Ski Team B-team member and Alaska Pacific University skier Scott Patterson scaling his way to the top of Mt. Marathon in Seward, Alaska on July 4, 2017. (Photo: Rob Whitney)

    As with other epic modern-day adventure race series, the fabled origin of Seward, Alaska’s annual Mount Marathon — held every July 4 — began with beer and a bet: who among us can run from the streets of downtown to the top of the 3,022-foot mountain crowding Seward’s skyline, then back to the bottom the fastest? What about within the hour?

    While the footrace race has evolved massively since the port town’s pioneer miners took on the challenge, clambering up its craggy course in woolen pants and workman’s boots nearly 90 years ago, it holds no less prestige for the millennial athletes or spectators who partake nowadays. To many Last Frontier residents, it is their Olympics. An estimated 30,000 outsiders annually inundate the town’s (population 2,500) sidewalks just to watch the event.

    “It’s Mount Marathon. It’s Alaska. It’s my Fourth of July,” Allie Ostrander, the 2017 women’s overall race winner and a Soldotna, Alask. native, told Alaska Dispatch News reporter (and former FasterSkier editor) Nat Herz after the competition. “Fourth of July feels empty without Mount Marathon.”

    Scott Patterson on his way to winning the 2017 Mt. Marathon running race on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Holly Brooks)

    Despite the obvious risks associated with careening down a mountain at top speed, stories of close encounters with kidney failure, brain-damaging falls, and disappearance deterred a few from re-entering this year’s version of the event.

    The upcoming 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics was reason enough for the current Mt. Marathon course-record holder and last year’s overall male champion, David Norris, to watch from the sidelines. His Alaska Pacific University (APU) teammate, Scott Patterson, who also recently earned a U.S. Ski Team (USST) nomination, however, did not.

    “It’s a big deal up here. I just figured why not go again?” Patterson, an Anchorage native, explained on the phone.

    In his debut Mt. Marathon race, Patterson had twisted his ankle and ultimately finished fourth last year. This year, as he weighed out his risk in racing, he arrived at a far less insidious calculation.

    “There’s definitely always a risk, that downhill is tricky,” Patterson said. “But I think looking at the competition beforehand, I knew that I could probably have a pretty good lead at the top and stake the downhill at my own speed; not really have to duke it out with someone down the hill.”

    With that, Patterson entered the 2017 event aiming for the win, but not the record. Norris was not on the start list, nor Kilian Jornet, the 2015 record holder and a professional ski mountaineer and ultramarathon  runner, not to mention Patterson had recently returned from the men’s USST training camp in Park City, Utah, which ran from June 26-July 5. Patterson departed the camp early to return for the race. 

    “Everyone was saying going into it that it was my race to lose,” the 25-year-old Patterson said. “The other guys who could really challenge me on the uphills this year skipped it, so it was kind of just me just out there on my own.”

    Patterson completed the 5-kilometer race in a time of 44:30 for the win, just over three minutes off the course record. The closest male finishers behind Patterson were Erik Johnson in second place just under a minute back (+0:52), and Kenneth Brewer in third, a little over two minutes behind (+2:23). Patterson’s first-place finish at Mt. Marathon is nothing unheard of among cross-country skiers. A number of other nordic athletes have been crowned the overall champion, including current USST A-team member Kikkan Randall, former USST athlete and Olympian Holly Brooks, APU nordic coach Eric Strabel, and Norris.  

    Morgan Arritola scaling her way to the top of Mt. Marathon in Seward, Alaska on July 4, 2017. (Photo: Rob Whitney)

    The runner-up in this year’s women’s event, Morgan Arritola, was also a member of the 2010 Vancouver nordic Olympic squad and skied competitively for over six years before she made the switch to mountain running in 2012. In her debut Mt. Marathon race, Arritola, 31, finished second in a time of 51:09, a minute and fifty seconds behind the 20-year-old Ostrander, who won in 49:19.

    While Arritola did preview the course once, she also indicated that she didn’t hold a whole lot over herself in terms of expectations and outcome going into race. Ultimately her goal coming into her first Mt. Marathon event was to “take it all in.” In discussions with her former teammates and champions, Randall and Brooks, the advice remained fairly simple: enjoy the atmosphere.

    “I didn’t really pre-race research. That’s not really my style,” Arritola, of Ketchum, Idaho, wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “Everyone has their own way of handling racing and I tend not to overthink.

    “I would love to come back next year,” she continued. “If there was a race-specific goal it would be to know the route I’m taking better. I asked for directions a few times 🙂 and be more confident on the downhill. I haven’t raced that kind of downhill and I just never got into a good rhythm.”

    While Arritola has three U.S. Mountain Running Championship titles to her name and a World Mountain Running bronze medal, mountain running is not where she is indelibly focused. She is currently going back to school for a degree in respiratory therapy and working various jobs to help fund her racing, such as The Rut 50 k in Big Sky, Mont., which she is registered to race in September.

    “I’m not running full time like with skiing,” Arritola wrote. “I am in my last year of school and running just keeps me sane. I don’t overthink it, I do what I want with it, and I enjoy it.”

    Finishing behind Arritola to round out the women’s top three was mother of three and three-time Mt. Marathon champion, Christy Marvin, in third place with a time of 52:22.

    In the junior race division of the event — in which racers run approximately halfway up the mountain before turning around for the descent — APU’s Luke Jager won the boys’ race in a time of 29:09, marking Jager’s second junior title in a row. Jager was followed by Gavin Block in second in a time of 29:32 and Ali Papillon in third in a time of 30 flat. The junior girls title went to Molly Gellert (Alaska Winter Stars) in a time of 32:53, also for the second year in a row. Behind Gellert in second was Ruby Lindquist finishing in a time of 33:55. Kendall Kramer (FXC) came in third, finishing in a time of 35:06 for the girls race.

    Results

  • Mt. Marathon Rookie, Norris Blasts Course Record

    Mt. Marathon Rookie, Norris Blasts Course Record

    Fairbanks resident David Norris, who skis for Alaska Pacific University (APU), won Monday’s Mount Marathon Race outside Seward, Alaska, in record time.  The 5-kilometer race — which takes racers from the shores of Resurrection Bay up 3,022 feet to the summit of Mt. Marathon and back down again, on slopes as steep as 60 degrees — was first held in 1915 and is among the country’s oldest footraces. A crowd estimated at 30,000 people crams into Seward (pop. 2,500) each July 4 to watch a race that has been described as the “Olympics of Alaska.”

    The former men’s course record was 41:48, set last year by Killian Jornet, a man widely acknowledged as the world’s best mountain runner.

    On Monday, at the 89th edition of the race, Norris took 22 seconds off that time. Running alone for most of the race, Norris was first to the halfway mark of the ascent, first to the turnaround at Race Point (elevation 3,022′), and first across the finish line (elevation approximately 20′, depending on how high the tide is).  He finished in 41:26.

    Jornet tweeted his congratulations to Norris within minutes of the race’s conclusion.  His Twitter feed made it apparent that he had been watching the live feed of the race.

    Three-time champion Eric Strabel, a former APU skier and current APU coach, was third in 44:19.  Scott Patterson, Norris’s teammate on the APU Elite Team, finished fourth in 44:43 after reaching the turnaround point in second.

    In the days leading up to the race, Norris and his teammate Patterson, both race rookies at Mt. Marathon, were marked by the local mountain running community as strong climbers but unproven downhill runners. There was also a suspicion that they might hold back slightly on the descent, in deference to their professional ski careers and out of a desire to avoid injury.

    APU's David Norris ascends Mt. Marathon en route to a course-record time, above Seward, Alaska, on Monday. (Photo: Rob Whitney)
    APU’s David Norris ascends Mt. Marathon en route to a course-record time, above Seward, Alaska, on Monday. (Photo: Rob Whitney)

    Speaking on live television soon after the finish, Norris acknowledged that this was his race strategy.

    “I had enough of a lead that I knew I could take it easy [on the descent] and not hurt myself,” Norris said in his interview with Anchorage’s KTVA Channel 11.

    Describing his descent, in which he lost 3,000 vertical feet in roughly 10 1/2 minutes, Norris recounted sliding down a snowfield for roughly 250 meters near the top: “The snow was totally out of control, the scree was fine,” he said.

    Norris admitted that he had not come in expecting to break the record.  “I thought that my down would be so slow,” he said, “that even if I had a good up, it wouldn’t even matter.”

    But as things turned out, Norris said, “I felt awesome.”

    So was there anything that marred his performance on a day in which Norris set a course record in a century-old footrace?  “I crashed into the willows right in front of the crowd at the bottom,” Norris recalled.  “Other than that it was a perfect race.”

    Other nordic skiers in top ten in the men’s race included former University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) skier Kenneth Brewer in ninth. Sixth-place finisher Lyon Kopsack, a current member of the UAF cross-country running team, has also competed in local ski races.

    Women’s race

    Christy Marvin, a stay-at-home mother of three from Palmer, Alaska, won the women’s race in similarly dominant fashion. Competing in the prime-time afternoon spot for the first time – the men’s and women’s races began alternating their positions this year, after decades’ worth of the men getting the most prestigious last race of the day – Marvin ran away from pre-race favorite Yngvlid Kaspersen, a Salomon-sponsored professional mountain runner who flew over from Norway just for the race, early on and never looked back.

    Much like Norris before her, Marvin was first to reach halfway on the uphill, first to the turnaround point, and first to the finish. She collected her second Mt. Marathon victory, and first since 2013, in a personal record time of 51:02. Kaspersen finished over two minutes back in 53:22, followed by Denali Strabel in 53:40, giving Eric and Denali a pair of third-place finishes on the day.

    Notable skiers in the top 10 included Anchorage’s Ann Spencer (daughter of former Olympian and long-time Mt. Marathon course record holder Bill Spencer), who currently skis for Middlebury, in fifth and Seward native and former FasterSkier reporter Aubrey Smith in seventh.

    Junior race

    Nordic skiers dominated the podium in the first race of the day, the junior race that goes roughly halfway up the mountain before turning around and returning to downtown Seward. Luke Jager, an APU junior skier from Anchorage who won the U16 10 k skate race at this year’s Junior Nationals, won the boys’ race for the second year in a row, this time in 27:29. He was followed by fellow APU junior skier and Anchorage resident Hamish Wolfe in 28:01. Anchorage’s Trent Fritzel, who skis with Alaska Winter Stars, was third in 28:49.

    Both genders race together in the junior race; in 2014, Allie Ostrander beat the boys to finish first overall.  This year, Molly Gellert was first in the girls’ race in 31:55, good for 10th overall. Gellert, of Anchorage, skis with Alaska Winter Stars and has podium finishes at both Junior Nationals and Alaska’s Besh Cup to her name. Second place went to Riana Boonstra of Ninilchik, last year’s junior girls’ champion, in 33:11.  (Riana Boonstra’s father, former Olympic skier Todd Boonstra, is a four-time champion of the men’s race.)  Local Ruby Lindquist, who runs and skis for Seward High School, was third in 34:02.

    Results

  • Photos from Mount Marathon 2015

    Photos from Mount Marathon 2015

    The Mount Marathon Race is one of the oldest continuously run races in North America and is known as the Super Bowl of Alaska. Though only five kilometers long, the course climbs a grueling and treacherous seaside mountain for 3,022-feet, before turning around and plunging back down to the start line in town. After professional mountain runner Rickey Gates told his friend and teammate Kilian Jornet that he couldn’t beat the locals on their home turf, Jornet, who holds countless speed records throughout the world, showed up to turn up the heat.

    Though Mount Marathon is famous in Alaska, its home in Seward is far from my home in Fairbanks, and I had never been to watch. This year I promised my friend Nick Elson that if he got in, I would go to support him. I knew it would be fun. It was.

    The race results are available on FasterSkier, but here are some photos.

  • Records Shattered in 2015 Mount Marathon by Jornet, Forsberg

    Records Shattered in 2015 Mount Marathon by Jornet, Forsberg

    The 3,022-foot Mount Marathon rises above above Seward, Alaska.
    The 3,022-foot Mount Marathon rises above above Seward, Alaska.

    Records were destroyed this Fourth of July in Seward, Alaska at the 88th edition of the annual Mount Marathon. In impressive fashion three runners bested previous course records, with international running stars Kilian Jornet and Emelie Forsberg claiming the men’s and women’s titles, respectively.

    Jornet notched a time of 41:48 on the 5-kilometer course, that climbs and descends roughly 3,000 feet, to take the men’s victory. The Spaniard beat Eric Strabel’s 2013 course record by 67 seconds. Forsberg took first in the women’s race with a time of 47:48, breaking Nancy Pease’s 25-year-old record by 2:42. Forsberg wasn’t the only woman to surpass Pease’s record, with 18-year-old high school running sensation Allie Ostrander crossing the line in 50:28 to take second place in her senior class debut. Prior to 2015, Ostrander competed in the junior category of the race and is the only junior woman to claim the overall junior title.

    https://instagram.com/p/4xNdDDlnsV/?taken-by=kilianjornet

    It came as no surprise that Jornet crossed the line in first. Considered the best mountain runner in the world, he has six-time Skyrunner World Series championships to his name along with countless course records across the globe. After his record-breaking performance in Alaska, Jornet remarked to Alaska Dispatch News that the run reminded him of some European races due to the thousands of fans that lined the finish.

    “That’s crazy,’’ Jornet said to the news organization. “Some races in Europe are like that. Here in the U.S., it’s unique.”

    Rounding out the podium were Rickey Gates (42:56) and Jim Shine (43:11).

    On the women’s side, Forsberg said she was surprised by the win given the strong competition. The Swede is a three-time Skyrunner World Series champion.

    “I’m super surprised and so, so happy,” Forsberg said to Alaska Dispatch News. “I had a really good day.”

    In second, Ostrander said to Alaska Dispatch News that while she was please with her senior debut she still hoped to claim the record time in the future. “I kinda wish the record was mine but I have a lot more years in me,” Ostrander said. “Some people are racing at 70 so I’ve got, oh, 50 more shots at it.”

    The final woman on the podium was Chrissy Marvin (52:28).

    Missing from the women’s race was two-time Mount Marathon champion Holly Brooks, who decided to sit out the race in order to rest after the long 2014/2015 FIS Marathon ski season.

    2015 Mount Marathon Results

  • Brooks Earns Second Mount Marathon Title in Close Race

    Brooks Earns Second Mount Marathon Title in Close Race

    Brooks nears the top of Mount Marathon with Resurrection Bay in the background (Photo: Todd List)
    Holly Brooks nears the top of the 2014 Mount Marathon race course with Resurrection Bay in the background. Brooks won the 5 k race by two seconds to claim her second win. (Photo: Todd List)

    Holly Brooks understands the hazards of the acclaimed Mount Marathon. Having previously run the race six times the Olympian knew winning her second title wouldn’t be easy. Despite a brutal course, high temperatures, and challenging field of women Brooks was able to claim the 2014 Mount Marathon victory with a time of 52:49.

    The 5 k race which tests participants with a 3,000 foot climb and decent on the slopes of Mount Marathon in Seward, Alaska is often referred to as the “Olympics of Alaska.”  The race has claimed many causalities over the years ranging from severe injuries to the tragic and mysterious disappearance of Michael LeMatire from the course in 2012.

    Brooks races down scree in the 2014 Mount Marathon. (Photo: Free Frame Photography)
    Brooks races down scree in the 2014 Mount Marathon. (Photo: Free Frame Photography)

    Mount Marathon is also one of the most esteemed races in the state. The annual Fourth of July competition draws roughly 35,000 to 45,000 spectators to the small town, demonstrating the popularity and the importance of the race.

    “Mount Marathon is to Alaska what the Birkie is to Minnesota, only with the additional element of extreme danger,” Brooks wrote via email.

    Brooks, who won the Mount Marathon in 2012, sat out last year’s race to focus on training for the 2014 Olympics. While the former U.S. Ski Team member has big plans for international marathon racing this year, she decided to enter the race in 2014 despite its physical costs.

    Brooks was wary of the weather on race day as warm temperatures and intense sun greeted racers prior to the competition. It was a situation Brooks knew all too well. In 2009, the APU Skier was forced to drop out of the race due to extreme dehydration. According to Brooks, her recovery required four to five bags of IV fluid.

    Not only did she have to worry about the heat, she also faced a strong women’s field including 2013 champion Christy Marvin who was hungry for a back-to-back win.

    When the race began Brooks took an early lead, and by the top of the epic climb she was roughly two minutes ahead of the next competitor.

    From there, however, it was all downhill.

    As Brooks descended the peak she began to feel as if she had no control over her legs. She later joked to NPR that she felt like a “marionette running down a mountain.”

    Coming into the finish, Brooks struggled to maintain her speed. In addition, Marvin had decimated Brooks’ two minute lead and was rapidly approaching the finish.

    Fortunately for Brooks there wasn’t enough pavement for Marvin to catch her and she was able to claim the win by only two seconds.

    “The home stretch down Fourth Avenue was possibly the longest two minutes of my life and the finish line couldn’t have come sooner. Had the race been 10 yards more she would have passed me as she was charging hard,” wrote Brooks. “She had a great kick and I was described looking like ‘a race walker that wasn’t racing.’”

    Despite some embarrassment in regards to her condition in the finishing stretch of the race, Brooks was ecstatic to garner her second Mount Marathon win.

    Brooks falls to the ground after barely holding on to her win over Marvin. (Photo: Max Romey productions)
    Brooks falls to the ground after barely holding on to her win over Marvin in the 2014 Mount Marathon. (Photo: Max Romey productions)

    “I love to race and this is without a doubt, the biggest race in Alaska,” Brooks said.  “It’s good for people to see skiers excelling in non-ski events and I think it adds to our legitimacy as the good, all-around, tough athletes that we are.  I always told my kids when I was coaching that ‘skiers can do anything!’  I think that having a good result in Mt. Marathon proves that.”

    After proving her strength and toughness, Brooks did what any skier would have done; she continued to train. With the start of the U.S. Ski Team Women’s Camp in Anchorage on July 7, Brooks is now in preparing for the winter.

    However, even champions like Brooks have to take it easy sometimes.

    “While I’m participating I’m having to moderate workouts,” Brooks said. “It’s kind of a bummer but since the race went well this year it is worth it, I’m hoping by next week’s trip to Eagle Glacier that I’ll be 100% and can ski all the workouts with the girls.”

    In the men’s race, 2013 champion and APU coach, Eric Strabel, won the men’s race with a time of 44:46.

    Results for the 2014 Mount Marathon can be found here.

  • Wednesday Workout: Sustained Level 3 Efforts with The Man, The Myth, Eric Strabel

    Wednesday Workout: Sustained Level 3 Efforts with The Man, The Myth, Eric Strabel

    Eric Strabel keeping it under control while pushing his limits in the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. An APU nordic coach, Strabel set a course record for the first time in 32 years. (Photo: Dave Blanchet)
    Eric Strabel keeping it under control while pushing his limits in the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. An APU nordic coach, Strabel set a course record for the first time in 32 years. (Photo: Dave Blanchet)

    Editor’s Note: On July 4, Alaska Pacific University (APU) coach Eric Strabel shocked Alaska in officially clocking the fastest time up and down the 3,022-foot Mount Marathon. He finished 26 seconds faster than Olympic nordic skier Bill Spencer, who set the previous best 32 years ago. Strabel’s course record was no fluke; the 31-year-old APU university-team coach and elite-team assistant has been working at this for the last 12 months. His secret? Sustained hour-long Level 3 efforts. How does this relate to skiing? He thinks it’s how World Cup races are won.

    “There are many promising young skiers talented with enough speed and power to be competitive at sprinting, but if they train assertively for longer efforts, they can eventually become the best in the world in distance races.” — Eric Strabel, in an email to FasterSkier

    ***

    This is the approach that I used to design the workout that I used often months before I wanted to be at my best racing-fitness level.

    The most important consideration, and criteria for designing this workout (and any workout), was that it had to suit a particular need, much like a mechanic has specialized tools to fit a certain job. The need was to correct a significant weakness, which was that my muscular strength would breakdown too soon at race pace.

    In previous years’ races, I’d hit a certain point mid-ascent and my muscles would be broken down so much that I couldn’t drive my aerobic capacity at the same rate. My breathing would slow down and my heart rate would come down, but I certainly could not continue at the same speed. Sometimes I could dig down and reach into more fast-twitch fibers towards the very end of races and finish strong, but I had lost far too much over the middle portion for any closing speed to overcome.

    Strabel’s 2013 Races
    (part of the Alaska Mountain Runners Grand Prix):

    • 1st: Kal’s Knoya Ridge Run (5.6 k, 2900-ft elevation gain), May 23
    • 2nd: Government Peak Climb (2.75 miles, 3500′ vertical), June 1
    • 2nd: Robert Spurr Memorial Hill Climb (3 miles, 3300′ vertical), June 12
    • 1st: Mount Marathon Race (3 miles, 3,022′ vertical), July 4
    • Next up: Matanuska Peak Challenge (14 miles, 9100′ vertical) Aug. 3

    You can call it endurance strength, muscle durability, slow-twitch fiber resistance to fatigue, or whatever, I knew it was a muscular endurance limitation and I just had to get it to not breakdown so quickly.

    This is similar to cross country ski racing, and especially on FIS homologated courses with lots of sustained climbing. The ability to be strong and powerful for dozens of minutes — and not breakdown muscularly — is extremely important. It would not matter how high of a VO2max an athlete has if the muscles cannot continue to develop high tension for the entire length of the race.

    So now that I knew what the limiting factor was, I had to design a challenge to target that specific weakness, get the most bang for the buck, and not compromise other things too much. The activity and technique was easy: as similar to the race as possible — Steep.

    If I had a mountain ascent long enough with good footing conditions, I would use that but more often, I used a Nordic Track X7i Incline Trainer (just a steep treadmill) that went up to 40% grade. The intensity was not as obvious though. It had to be fast enough to move similarly to race type movements but easy enough that the work could be performed very aerobically so that I could push the muscles beyond the right endurance limit. So I settled on a range that is similar to what we skiers call Level 3, or between marathon and 15k race pace, or roughly 80-88% of max heart rate.

    For the format of the workout, I could not think of a good enough reason to use intervals. I thought, if I’m working under that theoretical level called ‘threshold’, why should I need to pause the work to come back down, and especially if I wouldn’t be able to rest during the competition? Note: you could make a good argument to use short rest intervals to accomplish the same goal. And I would not worry if it takes 10 minutes to roller ski back down to the bottom of a 15 minute climb. And really, it does not need to be up a climb at all — simply over the terrain that you are wishing to improve on.

    With those considerations, the workout that I found to challenge my body in the right way was as follows:

    The workout: Sustained Level 3 efforts

    • Warm up: To make a low L3 effort semi-comfortable, I found 20-30 minutes of warming up, progressing from very easy L1 up to L2, to be adequate.
    • First 5-10 minutes: The beginning of the L3 effort is a conservative pace to allow a progressive effort.
    • After 10-20 minutes, an assessment can be made from body’s feedback of what pace it can be ‘talked into’ being comfortable. This requires knowing your body well. One question that I could ask myself was, “how fast can you go easily?” I used a heart rate monitor and I became familiar enough with it to know that if I was in the low 80’s % of max heart rate at 10-15 minutes in, I could hold the same pace for about an hour without going over about 88% of max heart rate. I found that if I pushed close to or above 90%, it wasn’t long before I would need to stop.
    • Judge a good finishing point.  For me, it was about 60 minutes after starting the conservative L3 pace. I judged this to be a good point because that was just about 5-10 minutes longer than my comfort zone allowed, which was challenging but still ‘kept me wanting’ and so I’d come back and do it again 3-4 days later.

    I could feel the benefits of this type of workout almost immediately. Most notably, the point in time that it became challenging to maintain the pace was delayed, and if I didn’t account for this by using a very slightly better pace by halfway, I’d get over an hour before reaching that point. And it was after about 10 of these workouts (~5 weeks) that I noticed that my pace for this 60 minute effort was right about what I had used for L4 intervals the previous year. So it was obvious that I was delaying that point of breaking down at the old race pace if I could breeze through it for an hour.

    And when it came time to focus on higher intensities in the last couple of months before important races, I was pleasantly surprised that I had built a huge reserve to train at race intensity. I could perform more hard 6 minute L4 intervals than previously and I could perform the next L4 interval workout sooner. My body was strong enough that I could get a lot more out of the aerobic capacity training for cross-country skin. The sustained hour-long Level 3 efforts certainly was the right tool for the job.

  • APU Coach Strabel Makes Mount Marathon His Own, Tops 32-Year-Old Record (Updated)

    APU Coach Strabel Makes Mount Marathon His Own, Tops 32-Year-Old Record (Updated)

    Eric Strabel chasing down 2013 Mount Marathon Race (Photo: Dave Blanchet)
    Eric Strabel chasing down Wylie Mangelsdorf, a college senior, and Rickey Gates (front) at the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Dave Blanchet)

    Note: This race recap has been updated to include comments from Ann Spencer, the third woman and Alaska Winter Stars skier.

    Mount Marathon isn’t one of those races you can wake up the morning before and decide you’re going to do. People spend years trying to get into the fabled Fourth of July hill climb, a 3,022-foot ascent up and terrifying trek back down to the town of Seward, Alaska.

    In 86 years, the grueling 3.5-mile race has grown to selectively award 350 senior entries to senior men and women, and another 250 juniors, evenly divided by gender. If you finish 10 Mount Marathons, you’re considered a veteran, which is one way to get in. Junior races don’t count toward that. Win it the year before or make the top 10 in your age group, you’re also in. Try your luck with a lottery some people have spent more than a decade trying to get registered through, or pay at least a grand for one of 10 auctioned entries.

    Eric Strabel, who coaches the APU university and junior nordic teams and assists with the elite team, coming off the mountain to win the 2013 Mount Marathon on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. It was his second victory in three years and he broke a 32-year-old course record by 26 seconds. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)
    Eric Strabel, who coaches the APU university and junior nordic teams and assists with the elite team, coming off the mountain to win the 2013 Mount Marathon on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. It was his second victory in three years and he broke a 32-year-old course record by 26 seconds. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)

    Two years ago, Alaska Pacific University (APU) nordic coach Eric Strabel won Mount Marathon. It was a goal he had more or less been working toward since he was 11, and in 2011, he achieved it.

    Last year, he finished eighth – not what he was hoping for. APU’s university coach and elite-team assistant, Strabel decided to recommit to the race he grew up doing and spent the next 12 months getting ready for his 20th consecutive Mount Marathon.

    “For the first time, I was ready to commit to 12 months of specific training for the extreme demands of the race,” Strabel, 31, wrote in an email.

    He reasoned climbing was his problem and increased his uphill training while decreasing the distance covered in each workout.

    “I have a higher disposition of fast twitch muscle fiber than what is ideal for mountain running so I needed to build up a monstrous aerobic engine before I started to do anything close to race pace for longer than 30 seconds,” he explained. “Looking back, one of the biggest keys of the training was having more than twenty 1 hour sustained low to mid level 3 efforts on steep grades before ever letting myself push my heart rate over 90% of max. … Sustained assertive steep hiking and running really works wonders for building hip and leg strength and endurance for skiing!”

    Sounds pretty technical for a guy who placed third in this year’s 50-kilometer Tour of Anchorage ski marathon without doing much ski training beyond coaching, or someone trying to break the Mount Marathon course record without a watch.

    “Wearing a watch distracts me. And it should be unnecessary,” Strabel explained. “I should already know by race day what I need to be doing and how I should be moving to have my best speed. Nevertheless, I did ask a couple people how the time was looking at landmarks to know what was possible.”

    Strabel’s speed came from within on July 4 in the 86th annual Mount Marathon Race – and with the help of a commentator’s words before the start. The announcer said the morning rain and lack of snow (for traction) would make for slower conditions, ultimately eliminating a shot at the 32-year-old course record (43 minutes, 21 seconds) set by Olympic nordic skier Bill Spencer.

    “[That] gave me kind of a chip on my shoulder and added more fuel to the fire,” Strabel wrote. “The record has been such a legend, that even the thought of breaking it has been presumptuous, but with the growing level of competition and preparation, a handful of us were starting to believe it was possible over the last couple of years.”

    Rickey Gates leads the men's race up Mount Marathon on July 4 high above Seward, Alaska, while Wylie Mangelsdorf (r) and Eric Strabel keep him in sight. (Photo: Dave Blanchet)
    Rickey Gates leads the men’s race up Mount Marathon on July 4 high above Seward, Alaska, while Wylie Mangelsdorf (r) and Eric Strabel keep him in sight. (Photo: Dave Blanchet)

    Last Thursday, amid drier conditions than the previous women’s race, Strabel did it, pushing himself to win it 42:55. Nine seconds later, runner-up Rickey Gates, a multiple-time member of the U.S. Mountain Running Team, crossed the line in record time as well.

    Both saw their times on the big clock, but neither wore a watch to confirm nor thought it was possible.

    “When I got to the finish line and saw the 42 minutes and change, I thought what Eric Strabel thought, that something went wrong with the timing,” Gates, 32, said on the phone Saturday after flying home to San Francisco.

    “For a few minutes after the race it felt like after a serious accident, everyone’s kind of quiet and a little bit confused, and you’re kind of piecing together information but you’re not quite sure what to believe,” he said. “It felt like that, but when we finally got information that the clock was right, then it finally settled in. Eric gave me a huge hug; he’s really a gentleman and a gracious competitor and said it wouldn’t have happened without the two of us battling it out like that.

    “I certainly wouldn’t have run that fast without him either,” Gates continued. “It’s one of those second-place finishes that I can imagine going any better.”

    This is coming from a man, albeit a Mount Marathon newcomer, who’s won trail races around the world, including one in Antarctica and the Canadian Death Race, and is headed to Europe for the 65 k Ice Trail race in Val d’Isère, France, on Sunday. After that, Gates will compete in back-to-back 32 k races in Italy and Switzerland, then return to his home state of Colorado in late September for the Ultra Race of Champions (UROC) 100 k in Vail.

    Six weeks ago, Gates rode his 2002 BMW F650 Dakar motorcycle from San Francisco to Alaska, flying to Colorado for a wedding before settling back in around Seward (he’s getting a friend to drive his bike back). There, Gates trained with local high-school runners on the slopes of Mount Marathon, getting to know the terrain and how locals tackle it.

    Racers navigate the cliffs along Mount Marathon, a 3,022-foot peak, during the 2010 edition of the race in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Lauren Fritz)
    Racers navigate the cliffs along Mount Marathon, a 3,022-foot peak, during the 2010 edition of the race in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Lauren Fritz)

    “It was cool to see a high school cross-country team out there on the course actually dialing in little five-five foot drops and maneuvering cliffs,” Gates said. “Of course they’re high schoolers and they don’t think anything of it.”

    Less than a week before the race, Gates did a time trial up the agonizing climb. He clocked in around 51 minutes. “Muscles hurt on me that have never hurt before,” he told the Anchorage Daily News. He later told FasterSkier it’s one of the shortest yet hardest races he’s ever done.

    On Thursday, Gates didn’t worry about time, just about winning – or coming as close to doing so as possible.  His mother, Trish Gates (formerly Schultz), finished second in the 1969 Mount Marathon, but was quick to point out there were only two women in the race. She had been working at a fish-packing plant at the time, had a week off and decided to give it a go.

    “It’s the only race that she’s ever run, she never run one before then and she’s never done one since then,” Gates said of his mom, who flew to Alaska to watch him last week. “Being a traveling hippy, they were offering free meals to whoever did the race. The salmon weren’t running yet so she had a week.”

    Racers ascent the 3,022-foot Mount Marathon above Seward, Alaska, at the 2011 edition of the hill climb. (Photo: Lauren Fritz)
    Racers ascent the 3,022-foot Mount Marathon above Seward, Alaska, at the 2011 edition of the hill climb. (Photo: Lauren Fritz)

    Knowing she did the race was cool, but when he heard how technical and gut-wrenching it was, Gates started to respect her even more. He spent the last five years dreaming of racing Mount Marathon, and tweaked his schedule to make it happen this year.

    Jetting toward the top of the three-thousand-foot peak, Gates was the first to the turnaround point just over 1 ½ miles in. The third man to the halfway mark (behind Wylie Mangelsdorf, a Principia College senior, in second), Strabel passed both Mangelsdorf and Gates on the descent.

    “I’m not the strongest downhiller,” Gates said. “I ran 11 minutes down that thing, which isn’t bad, but I knew I wasn’t going to run 10 minutes down it which Eric did.”

    At the base of the mountain before a half-mile stretch along a road to the finish, Gates in second place looked up to see where Strabel was. Then, he crashed, dislocating his shoulder and spending several seconds on the ground.

    2013 Mount Marathon runner-up Rickey Gates shortly after a crash dislocated his shoulder at the mountain base a half mile before the finish on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)
    2013 Mount Marathon runner-up Rickey Gates shortly after a crash dislocated his shoulder at the mountain base a half mile before the finish on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)

    “I just caught my foot on something or nothing at all and just went down really hard in front of 10,000 people,” Gates said. He stood up, popped it back in, and proceeded to cut an estimated 20-second deficit to finish 9 seconds behind Strabel.

    “There’s a lot to be said about adrenaline,” Gates said. “If I’d had not fallen I still don’t think I would’ve gotten him.”

    According to Strabel, catching Gates, which he did about two-thirds of the way down, wasn’t easy. He strategically attacked the final cliff section before the road, thinking Gates would be less familiar with it and thus not as fast.

    “As it turned out, a lot of the cushion that I built by the base of the mountain was due to Rickey stumbling, catching himself and dislocating a problem shoulder, and quickly resetting it himself,” Strabel explained. “I did look back twice early on the road to know that he was making up serious ground so I had to gather a sprint over the last 90 seconds whether my body was capable of it or not.

    “I was incredibly relieved at the finish,” he continued. “The only other thought I had over the final seconds of the race was of the large display clock that came into focus. I had completely set aside thoughts of a record for most of the race. I recall seeing it ticking through the 42:30’s and remember struggling to think if a time in the 42’s was faster than 43:21. That was how far down Rickey had pushed my brain function.”

    That night, Strabel, Gates and other finishers celebrated with a night out on the town, where Gates lost his rental-car keys. All in all, the trip went as well as Gates could’ve imagined, he said, except for a couple blips.

    “I’d appreciate it if my shoulder didn’t really hurt really bad right now and if I didn’t lose my rental-car keys at 4 o’clock in the morning,” Gates said.

    Other Top Skiers

    Longtime APU skier Brent Knight, 29, placed fifth in the men’s race – four years after he led the 2009 Mount Marathon then collapsed near the finish from dehydration. He was hospitalized in Seward, where he received five liters of IV fluid.

    Brent Knight, 29, en route to a fourth-place finish at the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)
    Brent Knight, 29, en route to a fourth-place finish at the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)

    Knight returned to the race in 2010 and took fourth, was second to Strabel in 2011, and placed sixth behind winner Matt Novakovich in 2012.

    “It’s hard to describe the feeling you get when you are surrounded by 30,000 people in what could be the gnarliest sub hour race out there,” Knight wrote in an email.

    The first time he watched the race as a kid, the air was hazy from nearby fires. Knight watched as the men’s leader turned the corner at the top of a long hill before the finish.

    “The sun combined with smoky haze created a dull orange backdrop to a lean mountain runner covered in blood and mud,” he wrote. “Eye of the Tiger was playing over the loud speakers and I think that memory of the whole scene was etched in as one of the most awesome events I’ve ever witnessed. Now years later and multiple Mt. Marathon finishes later, I still get this overwhelming feeling like I’ve just saved the world from devastation or something. The roar of the spectators makes you feel like you’re a gladiator in the ancient [Coliseum].”

    That’s why he calls the race “addicting.” This year, Knight lost some ground at the leaders along the ascent, and by the top, he realized how fast they were going.

    “I didn’t think it was record fast, but I thought it might be close,” he wrote. “Matias [Saari, who placed third] closed in and passed me a 1/4 way down the mountain and I decided to put comfort aside (if there was any) to hang on him.”

    Knight lost about 15 seconds to Saari after the “gut,” which he described as an extremely technical creek bed with multiple cliffs before the bottom of the mountain, but made up about 10 seconds on the road.

    “It’s hard to cover ground that fast when it feels like you’ve been run through a meat grinder,” Knight wrote. “Had I run a minute faster, I would have been competing for 3rd in a time that would have easily been a winning time any of the past 32 years. This race, this year, was the toughest field I’ve ever competed against.

    “I’m a skier that loves to be a mountain runner,” he added. “I’ll find my way to the front … Perhaps next year or the year after that or the next. Strabel set a new mark to fight for this year.”

    Alaska Winter Stars skier Ann Spencer, 18, racing to third place in her first year as a senior at the 2013 Mount Marathon on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)
    Alaska Winter Stars skier Ann Spencer, 18, racing to third place in her first year as a senior at the 2013 Mount Marathon on July 4 in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Ira Edwards/roosterskier.com)

    In the women’s race, Christy Marvin, a 32-year-old mother of three, won in 53:20. A race newcomer but well-known local runner, she was the first rookie to win since Toby Schwoerer took the men’s title in 2004.

    Allison Barnwell placed second just under two minutes later, and 18-year-old Ann Spencer of the Alaska Winter Stars placed third (56:15) in her first year as a senior.

    In an email, she explained it was her fourth Mount Marathon (after three junior races), but first time racing the whole mountain.

    “I was definitely not expecting to do so well,” Spencer wrote. “I was aiming for a top 20 finish with a time under 1:05. Hill climbs are definitely my strength.”

    Accepted at the University of Vermont, Spencer planned to defer a year to continue skiing and training in Anchorage to better prepare herself for college racing.

    Fresh off a training camp on Eagle Glacier, APU Elite Team skier Lauren Fritz, 25, placed fourth (57:57) among the senior women. Last year, she was second in Mount Marathon to teammate and 2010 Olympian Holly Books.

    “There was a lot of pressure going into this year’s race … which is tough because there isn’t a lot of room for improvement and a lot of room for disappointment,” Fritz wrote in an email. “I really wanted to win, of course, and I had as good of a shot as any, with Holly and Kikkan [Randall] both skipping this year’s race. There are always top contenders though, and this year was no different.”

    Lauren Fritz racing back down to Seward, Alaska, for fourth in the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4. (Photo: Cole Deal)
    Lauren Fritz racing back down to Seward, Alaska, for fourth place in the 2013 Mount Marathon Race on July 4. (Photo: Cole Deal)

    Meanwhile, Fritz has dealt with chronic tightness in her calf muscle for the last couple years. Skating in slush on Eagle Glacier last week didn’t help.

    “I knew going into the race that it would probably bother me, but there wasn’t much I could do about it,” she explained. “I tried to warm up well but it still flared up during the race. It was raining throughout the morning, including during the race a little bit, so it was a lot muddier than I’ve ever raced it, so there was a lot of slipping and grabbing for tree branches or plant roots or whatever you could hold onto to keep from sliding backwards. Really not ideal conditions for fast times, plus the slipping put more stress on my lower legs.”

    Just before tree line about halfway up, her calves got the best of her and she lost contact with Barnwell, Spencer and Sheryl Loan, who ended up seventh. Marvin led from the start, but was not too far in front of the chase pack at the top, according to Fritz.

    “I rounded the turn-around rock, I thought ‘OK, here we go, I’ll be done in less than 15 minutes,’” she wrote. “Just let the legs go on autopilot. It’s impossible to describe how your legs feel as you start the descent and it’s really just best not to think about how they feel and just go.

    “It is actually crazy, and unless you’ve put yourself through the torture you don’t realize how incredibly fun and satisfying it is to be able to accomplish something like this mountain,” she continued. “Still, it is an inherently dangerous race … I usually have one of the top descent times in the women’s race, but this year I did try to not let myself get too out of control on the downhill that would lead to me getting hurt. I LOVE this race, and always plan to come back, but there is a lot at stake this ski season and I recognized that. I wanted to win and I gave it my best effort, but this race isn’t the focus of my racing career right now.”

    In her seventh Mount Marathon, Fritz nabbed her fifth-consecutive top 10 and posted the sixth-fastest downhill time.

    “I’m still pretty happy,” she wrote. “Mt. Marathon is definitely the Olympics of Alaska and I’ll definitely be back to hunt down the coveted winner’s cup.”

    Results | Race video

    The scene from above at the 2010 Mount Marathon Race in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Lauren Fritz)
    The view from above at the 2010 Mount Marathon Race in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Lauren Fritz)
  • Reigning Champ Brooks Opts Out of Mt. Marathon; Recalls Memories Good and Bad

    Reigning Champ Brooks Opts Out of Mt. Marathon; Recalls Memories Good and Bad

    The fabled Mount Marathon, more than 4,000 feet above sea level, in Seward, Alaska.
    The fabled Mount Marathon, more than 4,000 feet above sea level, in Seward, Alaska. (Photo: Holly Brooks/hollyskis.blogspot.com)

    Editor’s note: The following was written by U.S. Ski Team member and 2010 Olympian Holly Brooks of Anchorage, Alaska. In her blog post, Hard Decisions, Obvious Decisions, the 31-year-old Washington native talks about the race she won last year — one which is widely considered the Olympics of Alaska. Despite all of Mount Marathon’s epic qualities, there are still some memories she’s forced to reckon with, which is why she decided to sit out the hill climb before an Olympic year.

    ***

    This upcoming July 4th will be spent entirely different than my last couple. For the past four years I’ve raced Mt. Marathon in Seward, Alaska. Mount Marathon – they claim, is the Nation’s second oldest foot race behind the Boston Marathon and this year will be the 86th running.

    Holly Brooks on the descent of the 2010 Mount Marathon Race. (Courtesy photo)
    Holly Brooks on the descent of the 2010 Mount Marathon Race. (Courtesy photo)

    It’s a tradition for Alaskans on Independence Day and the small town of Seward swells from 3,000 people to 30,000 thousand overnight. While only 500 or so people actually compete in the race, the rest crowd main street eating ice cream, socializing, and watching the race unfold. For those unfamiliar with the format, the race starts on main street, runs 3,022 feet directly up a mountain, rounds a rock at the top and descends 3,022 feet.

    To put it in perspective top female racers take approximately 38 minutes to get to the top and last year Eric Strabel (Friend and APU coach) set a new downhill record by getting from the top of the mountain to the finish line on main street in a stunning ten minutes and eight seconds!

    Last year’s race had a tragic twist in that one man, Michael LeMaitre, disappeared entirely while another well-known Alaskan Mountain Runner fell down a cliff and suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury. (Recent front-page article on Matt Kenney in the Anchorage Daily News can be read HERE.)

    Runner’s World took notice of the horrendous events and freelance journalist Christopher Salomon wrote an amazing piece titled, “The Last Man Up” which can be read HERE. If you have time I highly recommend taking the time to read this.

    Michael LeMaitre, who disappeared while competing in last year's Mount Marathon Race in Seward, Alaska. Another Alaskan, Matt Kenney, fell down a cliff and suffered a traumatic brain injury. (Photo: Holly Brooks)
    Michael LeMaitre, who disappeared while competing in last year’s Mount Marathon Race in Seward, Alaska. Another Alaskan, Matt Kenney, fell down a cliff and suffered a traumatic brain injury. (Photo: Holly Brooks)

    I don’t have a sparkling history with this race either. In 2009 I was leading at the top of the mountain and midway down what Alaskan’s call “the gut” when I slowed, everything became foggy, and I passed out in the arms of Erik Flora’s mom directly in front of the Seward Emergency Room (ironically located on the race course). My eventual diagnosis was that I suffered from a rare form of exertional rhabdomyolsis. In layman’s terms, severe muscle damage & potential kidney/renal failure.

    2009 saw near record temperatures and on the trip up the mountain I literally sweat out all the liquid in my body. The trip down features extreme eccentric loading on your body as parts of the course literally run down a waterfall…… some might describe it as a controlled fall and it’s all racers can do to descend as fast as possible without falling. Once the water from my body was dried up, the decent literally tore my muscles apart.

    Once in the Seward ER it took the medical staff literally an HOUR to start an IV in my arm. Funny enough, after the IV was started and my body soaked up a couple liters of fluid I checked myself out of the ER against the doctor’s orders to walk across the finish line and come back. (Because – if you don’t finish, you don’t have an automatic start the following year!)

    After reading this you might wonder, why in the heck would I even consider racing this race at all, let alone in an Olympic year? Well, the short of it is that Mount Marathon has signified some monumental moments in my life. Two days before my Mount Marathon debut in 2008 Rob and I got engaged – and then shared our happy news at the race with family and friends.

    Holly Brooks and Rob Whitney were engaged two days before Brooks' Mount Marathon debut in 2008. (Courtesy photo)
    Holly Brooks and Rob Whitney were engaged two days before Brooks’ Mount Marathon debut in 2008. They were married seven days after the race in 2009. (Courtesy photo)

    In 2009 I suffered my accident and then proceeded to get married seven days later. A blood blister covered the diameter of my entire heel and my opposite big toe was enlarged with pussy fluid that I couldn’t fit into my high heels. Ultimately I burned a hole in my toenail with a red-hot safety pin and relieved the pressure, fitting into my bridal shoes just in the nick of time! (Sorry, that was graphic, I know.)

    My 2009 accident also had another side effect – an epiphany that struck me while I was laying in the Seward Emergency Room. I’ve honestly never had an idea hit me so hard… it was like something that you read about it books….. but the clarity of the idea was something that I’ll always remember. Hopped up on adrenaline and a bit loopy from the overall experience I decided then and there that I would try and make the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, literally seven months away. I temporarily kept this thought to myself until late August (2009) when I was finally healed from my “rhabdo” (as I affectionately called it) and decided to share the news with my coach (then boss), family & friends.

    Holly Brooks at the Seward Emergency Hospital after passing out during the 2009 Mount Marathon Race when she suffered from exertional rhabdomyolsis, severe muscle damage & potential kidney/renal failure. (Courtesy photo)
    Holly Brooks at the Seward Emergency Hospital after passing out during the 2009 Mount Marathon Race when she suffered from exertional rhabdomyolsis, severe muscle damage & potential kidney/renal failure. (Courtesy photo)

    This episode was almost four years ago to the day and if you’re reading my blog, you probably know how much the decision to go after skiing full tilt has affected my life.

    Since my 2009 Mt. Marathon Injury I’ve raced in the Olympics, quit my job as a full time coach, and this year will be my second on the US Ski Team. While the Sochi Olympic team hasn’t been named yet (and won’t officially until Jan/2014) I’m putting all my energy towards racing there, peaking in February, and attempting to help make US Women’s Cross Country Skiing history. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m not in a position to take any chances….

    So, come July 4th 2013 you won’t find me in Seward. As much as it seems like racing Mt. Marathon would feel like completing a circle – and my Olympic cycle, it’s just too risky. I’ve worked too hard, made too many sacrifices, and dedicated too much of my time and energy to get injured on the Mountain and put my Sochi Olympic bid in jeopardy. This is the year for the Olympics and fortunately, every year is a year for Mount Marathon.

    Despite it’s risks, I love the race dearly and while I won’t have a bib on the fourth I’ll be thinking about everyone who is participating and wishing, hoping, for a safe trip up AND down the mountain for each and every participant. (First AND Last!) I will most likely be off in the mountains somewhere else – only in a different direction, enjoying the raw beauty that makes Alaska home.

    Good luck to all the participants! Be safe and I’ll see you next year – Mark my words!

    U.S. Ski Team and APU skier Holly Brooks winning her first Mount Marathon in 2012. (Courtesy photo)
    U.S. Ski Team and APU skier Holly Brooks winning her first Mount Marathon in 2012. (Courtesy photo)

    2013 Mount Marathon results will be posted here

  • Holly Brooks on Winning the ‘Olympics of Alaska’

    Holly Brooks on Winning the ‘Olympics of Alaska’

    U.S. Ski Team member Holly Brooks after winning her first Mount Marathon title on Wednesday. She also set a top-10 time in the hill climb’s 85-year history in 51:53. (Photo by Rob Whitney)

    In Anchorage, getting on the front page of the Alaska Daily News is a big deal. It doesn’t matter if you’re an Olympian and U.S. Ski Team member; Holly Brooks was still pumped to be featured in Thursday’s paper.

    The 30-year-old Alaska Pacific University skier did so by winning Mount Marathon, one of Alaska’s biggest athletic events and Fourth of July traditions.

    Brooks near the bottom of Wednesday’s grueling Mount Marathon trail run in Seward, Alaska. (Photo by Rob Whitney)

    Brooks ascended the 3,022-foot mountain, which averages a 38-percent incline, and completed the out-and-back course in Seward, Alaska, in a record time of 51:53. She not only won the race, she set one of the top-10 women’s times in the race’s 85-year history. And she wasn’t even wearing a watch.

    A three-time runner up, Brooks had finally sealed her first Mount Marathon win. Engaged the day before the 2008 race, in which she came in second, she had a special history with the event.

    She led it back in 2009 — a week before her wedding — until dehydration and heat exhaustion pulled her out and into the emergency room. She returned in 2010, where she was beaten by seconds by seven-time Mount Marathon champion Cedar Bourgeois. Last year, U.S. Ski Team veteran and APU teammate Kikkan Randall edged Brooks by 19 seconds for the win.

    “The Birkie and Mount Marathon have driven me crazy,’’ Brooks told the Daily News, referring to her photo-finish loss in the American Birkebeiner ski marathon in 2009. She redeemed the former by winning the 50 k skate race in February.

    “No one lets you forget it. ‘You gonna win this year?’ I no longer have to answer that question, because I did it,” Brooks said. “I can put the demons to rest.’’

    While Brooks did plenty of interviews on Wednesday, she shared some afterthoughts with FasterSkier via email on Friday.

    Brooks on her way up Mount Marathon on Wednesday. (Photo by Rob Whitney)

    FasterSkier: What was the race like this year? How did it compare to years past?

    Holly Brooks: The race had a different kind of pressure this year… while I knew that Kikkan wasn’t running, I didn’t know who else would be out there to race against. I came into the race just days after my biggest week of training ever – 30 plus hours of glacier skiing [with the North American Women’s Training Alliance on Eagle Glacier] and I had no idea how my body would react to a race effort. I’ve been really close to winning this race so many times that I really wanted to come away with a victory this year!

    I went out hard from the line and tried to establish a gap on the uphill such that I didn’t have to take any big risks on the decent. I had some friends that gave my splits 1/4 and 1/2 up the mtn. I knew I had a decent margin going into the downhill… it’s certainly different just racing by yourself out there – as compared to last year when Kikkan and I were two inches away from each other the entire race!

    I purposely didn’t wear a watch because it was wet and trail was slippery. I knew I was tired and didn’t think I would be capable of putting in a good time. I was shocked when I finally saw the race clock near the finish line – I ran faster this year than we ran last year! Had I known my splits I certainly could have run faster – but, it was really fun to enjoy the race instead of going for every second. Usually main street is extremely stressful – the race has come down to a couple of sprints for me – but this time I had a HUGE grin the entire way …. I stopped to pick up an American flag from one of the spectators, too! It was awesome and I was really able to savor the moment. Main street was so loud and everyone was cheering – it was fabulous!

    Mt Marathon is the Birkie of Alaska, that’s for sure! I’m totally psyched that I was able to cross both of those off my list this year. I got two gorillas off my back!

    FS: How did you approach it mentally?

    HB: The race was really hard to prepare for – in fact, I did virtually no preparation seeing that the NAWTA camp ended right before it. I drove down to Seward the day before and hiked up past the halfway point. It’s really important to inspect “the gut” (the down trail) for safety reasons… you basically run down a waterfall with snow bridges. It’s important to see it before race day. I didn’t want to expend the energy to run to the top of the mtn and it was tough not knowing what to expect when I encountered it in the race. There was a big snow patch and a huge glissade chute.

    Brooks bearing the American flag she ran with across the finish line to win the Mount Marathon trail run. She also earned a champagne shower. (Photo by Rob Whitney)

    It’s difficult when everyone tells you that it’s “your race to loose”… everyone expected me to win and I didn’t want to disappoint. I also didn’t want to be over confident. You can’t take anything for granted in this race. In 2009 I lead almost the entire race before passing out right in front of the emergency room four blocks from the finish line.

    I did my best to relax going into the race, and remember that it was “all for fun.” But, it was hard to avoid the pressure! Mt. Marathon is certainly the “Olympics of Alaska” and I can’t go anywhere in town without people asking me about the race.

    FS: How does it stack up against other races you’ve done?

    HB:  The visibility of the race in AK is much more so than any other races I compete in – the story made front page news July 5th and leading up to the race there were articles in the paper everyday. There is also a certain element of danger and risk in the race which makes for an additional level of stress. There is one man still MISSING from the race – two days after the event. My fingers are crossed for him but time is running out as race day was 50 degrees and raining. I really hope he turns up, alive. Ironically, the finisher race t-shirts read, “Survivor” on the sleeve this year. I’m not sure the race organizers anticipated a potential death (in the race) when designing the t-shirts.

    FS: What does it mean for you to finally win it?

    HB: Well, I can sleep at night now! Actually, it feels great to finally be able to “check the box” for Mt. Marathon. This race has been really monumental is my life the past couple of years – my rookie year I came in second and got engaged the day before the race, then 2009 I passed out (ER Trip) , decided I wanted to make the Olympics, and then was married a week later… 2010 was right after the Olympics, 2011 Kikkan and I battled it out. So far, 2012 has been great in that I was finally able to take a Birkie win and a Mt. Marathon win – two really fun, big races!

    Now that the race is over I can re-focus on my ski training and get ready for a second glacier trip, then our camp in Sweden!

    Brooks’ husband, Rob Whitney, with Gumby at the Mount Marathon trail run on Wednesday. “Gumby” did the entire 3.5-mile race in costume, which Brooks explained was no small feat considering how technical the course is.

    Complete results

  • How Did You Celebrate the 4th? Alaskans do it Right with Mount Marathon

    How Did You Celebrate the 4th? Alaskans do it Right with Mount Marathon

    For many of us, July 4th is a day to spend with friends and family, take in a parade, eat a lot of good food and maybe watch some stuff blow up, but in Alaska, Independence Day means one thing: Mount Marathon.  Sunday marked the 83rd annual running of the grueling competition in which runners climb almost 3,000 feet in elevation over 3.5 miles before turning around to run back down.

    The race ends on Main Street in Seward, Alaska, where ten thousand screaming Alaskans line the streets, waiting to cheer the finishers.  Mount Marathon attracts hundreds of athletes every year, usually including several pre-eminent Nordic skiers, and this year was no exception.

    Holly Brooks negotiates the treacherous descent. Photo: Holly Brooks

    “I feel like it epitomizes Alaska in many ways.  Our state is full of tough individualists who like to work hard and don’t mind getting dirty.  That is exactly what the race is – incredibly hard, with an element of danger and risk,” said Holly Brooks, a member of the 2010 US Olympic cross-country skiing squad who finished in second place just behind seven-time champion Cedar Bourgeois.

    “It’s an iconic Alaskan event,” agreed three-time Olympian Kikkan Randall, who finished third.  “In terms of atmosphere, it’s right up there with the Olympics and World Championships.”

    Brooks not only avoided a repeat of last year’s mid-race trip to the emergency room but held the lead from the twelve minute mark until Bourgeois passed her with only two blocks left in the race.  She also set a personal best by 3:31, while Randall, a four-time Mount Marathon runner-up, set a PR by 2:35.

    Hiking up the mountain early in the race Photo: Reese Hanneman

    Both Randall and Brooks hope to take home the gold sometime in the future.  “It probably goes without saying that next year I would like to win,” said Brooks.  Randall, whose mother won the race in 1975 and whose aunt is a three-time champion, is less concerned about next year’s race, reporting, “My goal going forward is just to continue to improve my PR times and make it down the mountain safely.  I would love to win someday but at this point my goal is to give my best.”

    The men’s podium was also graced with a strong Nordic skiing presence.  University of Alaska Anchorage ski coach Trond Flagstad took the title for the second time in three years and became one of only three men in history to finish in less than 45 minutes multiple times.

    With his wife Lindsey due to deliver their second child sometime this week, Flagstad almost decided not to race, but he was happy with his decision at the finish line.  “I had one of those rare days when you don’t get tired. I felt I could just push as hard as I wanted and even wished the climb wouldn’t have ended so soon,” he told FasterSkier after adding a new 40-49 age-group record to the 30-39 record he set in 2008.

    “Whether you are a runner trying to conquer the mountain or a spectator there to watch the carnage of the mud-covered and blood-crusted runners coming down on rubbery legs, it’s a nerve-wracking and exciting day,” said Randall. Mount Marathon is an essential Alaskan tradition, the perfect way to celebrate the country’s independence.  As Flagstad put it, “everyone finishing the races -winners down to last place- is hailed as a hero, a crazy person, a real Alaskan.”

    Some leaders in the men's field Photo: Reese Hanneman

    Complete results can be found here: http://www.adn.com/2010/07/04/1353880/mount-marathon-results.html

    You can read about Reese Hanneman’s experience of the event on his blog: http://blogs.fasterskier.com/reesehanneman/2010/07/05/mount-marathon/