Local running greats prepare for Mount Marathon race

WASILLA — With Fourth of July festivities fast approaching, mountain runners from around the world are amping up for another longstanding tradition: racing Mount Marathon.

Nearly 100 runners with ties to the Mat-Su Valley signed up for this year’s event, a grueling 5-kilometer race up and down Seward’s iconic 3,022-foot mountain. Among those 100 are former Mount Marathon champions Christy Marvin and Eric Strabel, who claim Palmer as their hometowns.

Working women

Marvin, who won the race in 2013, is about to tackle her fourth consecutive Mount Marathon Race with husband Ben Marvin, who is on his third.

“I’m excited but honestly I haven’t had a whole lot of time to think or worry or be nervous about it,” Christy Marvin said.

With her family and in-laws in town this week — and three young sons on summer vacation — Marvin said she hasn’t focused as much on race preparation as she might have otherwise, but that her relatives have been “a good distraction.”

Marvin may also be feeling a bit less pressure before the 2016 race with last year’s champion and runner-up out of the competition.

Swedish Salomon athlete Emelie Forsberg — who smashed Nancy Pease’s 25-year record with a time of 47 minutes, 48 seconds in 2015 — counted herself out for the 2016 Mount Marathon Race after injuring her knee in a downhill skiing accident on Feb. 5, according to her blog. Though she’s past the 12-week, post-surgery rehabilitation period, Forsberg is not expected to appear in Seward this Fourth of July.

Last year’s second-place finisher, 19-year-old Allie Ostrander of Soldotna, also is sitting this one out, but not due to injury. The tiny teenager soon to be a sophomore at Boise State University announced in a March 9 Newsweek article that she would be spending the first week of July at the Olympic Trials, competing for a spot on the U.S. Track and Field team in the 5,000-meter race.

U.S. Olympic skier Holly Brooks, who has two Mount Marathon titles to her name, also has decided not to race this year. On Wednesday she told her Twitter and Facebook followers that she would be trading her bib for a microphone this weekend, calling the race live for a local television news outlet.

Potentially filling the void left by Brooks, Ostrander and Forsberg, though, are other professional athletes like Yngvild Kaspersen from Norway, whom Marvin expected to make a run for the win at Mount Marathon on Monday.

“They’re in a different position because this is what they do for a living,” Marvin said. “I’m the stay-at-home mom who does it for fun.”

Keeping that in mind, Marvin said her main goal is for a personal record, besting her 2015 time of 52:29. Though coming back for a second win would be “like a dream come true,” she said, she’s focused simply on doing her best on race day.

“I don’t want to be concerned with where everybody else is at on the mountain,” she said. “At the end of day, as long I’ve done my best, I’ll be happy no matter what place I am.”

Mountain men

As in the 2016 women’s race, the men’s competition will be lacking its 2015 champion, Forsberg’s boyfriend, Kilian Jornet Burgada. The Spanish Salomon athlete will instead be spending the month running, climbing and skiing in the Swiss Alps and Colorado, according to a Wednesday tweet.

Meanwhile, Strabel will be the top Valley contender on Mount Marathon this weekend, vying for first place with returning Salomon athlete Ricky Gates and Anchorage runner Jim Shine, who took second and third, respectively, ahead of Strabel last year. The three men were 30 seconds apart in the 2015 race.

Strabel said he would be shooting for a fourth win this year, but that the race “should be fun, regardless.”

“I’m just gonna try to do the best I can on race day with whatever I have,” he said.

Coming in fresh this year are Anchorage runners David Norris and Scott Patterson, who won slots for Mount Marathon when they took first and second place in the Robert Spur Memorial Hill Climb up Bird Ridge a few weeks ago. Strabel said he expected the two young men would easily make the top 10 this weekend.

“They’re definitely a force to be reckoned with,” he said.

Then again, so is the mountain. Given the variability of conditions up and down the “roots,” the “gut,” the “chute” and the “skree” — all terms for the various trails and terrain on Mount Marathon — as well as the weather, runners recognize that the race is different every year.

This year a new race tradition begins which may or may not affect future Mount Marathon performances, Strabel said. Men will now race before the women on even years, which Strabel said might make the descent slightly more challenging.

“The first race has to break in the trail, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a little tougher and slower for the men this year, but I don’t think we’ll see a huge difference,” he said.

Either way, Strabel said he’s looking forward to at least five more years on the mountain, which would gain him the 20-year participation plaque — an honor only 16 women and 52 men have received since 1988.

Rarer yet is the 30-year award — presented to just three women and nine men as of 2015 — and the 40-year award, which has only been achieved by 76-year-old Fred Moore, who will begin his 47th consecutive race on Monday.

“Once anyone does anything for a while, it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. It’s hard to have a reason to quit,” Strabel said.

The 89th Mount Marathon Race begins with the junior, half-mountain race at 9 a.m., followed by the men’s race at 11 a.m. and the women’s at 2:30 p.m.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.