History made in Mount Marathon men's race

One streak lived while another streak ended during a brilliantly sunny men’s race at the 97th running of the Mount Marathon Race in Seward.

On a day when David Norris, a 34-year-old who grew up in Fairbanks and now lives in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, was winning his sixth Mount Marathon title in six tries, Seward’s Fred Moore, 85, did not start the race.

That ended a string of 54 straight finishes in the race up and down to the 3,200-foot race point on the mountain overlooking Seward. Moore started the race in 1970 and never stopped until Friday, though he was still seen near the top cheering on racers.

“That’s a record that I’m confident will never be broken,” race director Matias Saari said earlier in the week. “Someone else might do 54 years, but no one else is going to do 54 in a row.”

Norris joined Ralph Hatch, Sven Johanson and Brad Precosky with six victories. Bill Spencer has eight.

“It’s crazy how many Spencer won,” Norris said. “I’m honored to do it six times and to keep showing up here and feeling good.”

On a day when temperatures blazed into the low 60s with perfect course conditions, Norris showcased why he hasn’t been beaten.

First, there’s his climbing ability. In 2015, when he smashed the race record, Killian Jornet got to the summit in 31:27.

Norris has now been to the top faster than that three times — in 29:47 last year when he set the record of 40:37, in 30:35 in 2016 when he originally broke Jornet’s record, and Friday on the way to his winning time of 42:30. That time gives Norris four of the fastest five times in race history.

He said the pace was hard right from the gun, with a runner bolting clear of the field.

“So that was kind of cool,” Norris said. “I was surprised. I felt really good climbing, but my time was behind previous years.”

When Norris got to the top with a minute and a half lead, he was able to show the other half of what makes him so good — his technical ability on downhill terrain.

Just below the summit, there was a snowfield this year. Norris thrilled the crowd watching the Jumbotron at the finish line by gliding down the snow on his feet and sticking the landing on the sharp scree unscathed.

“Probably just growing up a multisport athlete and always playing,” Norris said of his technical abilities. “I think that’s a big part of it.

“It’s keeping training and your workouts more like a game, and when it’s more like a game, you just end up jumping around in the mountains and doing fun stuff like sliding on the snow up there.”

Those workouts used to be solely focused on being a World Cup cross-country skier. When Norris first won Mount Marathon in 2016 and snapped Killian’s record, he began talking to pro runners like Rickey Gates and discovered all that racing trails could offer.

“By doing that, I was checking out new places and had an excuse to travel in the summer to run in beautiful places,” he said. “And it’s like a whole new world of amazing people to get to know.”

This past winter, Norris mixed in running intervals on the treadmill with skiing for the first time. He said it actually helped his skiing and he finished second at the American Birkebeiner 50K freestyle in February. He also has a running coach for the first time since high school cross-country.

He won the U.S. Mountain Running Championships in May in New Hampshire, qualifying for the World Trail Running Championships in Spain in September.

“I just kind of always know if I run hard all summer, it’ll make me fit for skiing,” Norris said. “If I get fit for skiing, it’ll help my running.

“It’s just kind of this endless cycle.”

The competitors at Mount Marathon know it all to well, particularly Max King of Bend, Oregon. King has won two titles, but finished second to Norris for the third time Friday with his time of 44:23. Take Norris and Jornet out of the picture, and King would have the top two times in race history.

In 2018, when the two competed for the first time, Norris won a tense duel. Since then, King had not been in close races at Mount Marathon.

“If David’s here, he’s out in front,” King said. “If he’s not, then I’ve taken the win.”

King said it was nice to battle with Anchorage runners Luke Jager, 25, and Lars Arneson, 36. Jager is a three-time junior boys champ and Olympic cross-country skier. He beat King to the summit by seven seconds.

“I caught him on the snowfield,” King said. “Then he and I went back and forth three times on the downhill. I finally broke away on the road, but it was really fun to have someone to run down.”

King was second at 44:23, while Jager was third at 44:47 and Arneson was fourth at 45:26. Arneson, a 2009 graduate of Cook Inlet Academy, added the fourth to a trio of top-three finishes and got within four seconds of his PR.

He said he didn’t know what to expect in the race after his wife, Heather, gave birth to son, Wout, 11 weeks ago.

“I’ve run this fast before,” he said. “It’s a lot more mellow walks than I normally do. Maybe I’m a little less overtrained.”

Arneson also said he didn’t start too fast, as he had the past two years, but added his wife gets all the credit.

“Shoutout to Heather for staying up all night with the kiddo so I could sleep,” he said.

The top Seward finisher for the second straight year was James Carlberg, 34, who was 28th in 51:33. Erik Johnson, 48, was 29th in 51:54.

The factor the heat played varied according to the racers. The fact that just three of the top 10 live in Alaska could explain differing opinions. Carlberg showed true Alaska colors by saying the heat was definitely a factor.

“Me and Pyper (Dixon) and a couple other friends were warming up and were dunking fully in the rivers,” he said. “The heat, personally, just got to me on the way up.”

Carlberg is in his fifth year of spending winters in Anchorage and summers in Seward. He said being a part of the Seward running community continues to be an honor and a privilege.

“I love Seward and what this race means to this community,” he said. “It brings out the best in this community and I can’t say enough about the volunteers that pull all this off.

“For anybody that hasn’t been to Seward, I strongly suggest they get here and volunteer and be a part of this community.”

The Golden Racer option is for racers 70 and over. It gives them the option of going to the halfway point of the mountain. Terry Hubler, 74, of Caldwell, Idaho, won at 1:04:30 to break Brian Mcmahon’s 2019 record of 1:18:04.

Chad Resari, 89, of Anchorage was trying to extend his oldest finisher record, but his time of 2:34:54 didn’t make the cutoff of 2:30.