New women’s record in muddy Mat Peak Challenge

LAZY MOUNTAIN – Come hell or high water, it’s hard to believe anything can stop Christy Marvin in a mountain race.

A drizzly start to Saturday’s Matanuska Peak Challenge might not have struck fear into any mountain runners heart, but lots of rain in the last couple weeks turned the beginning and end of the 14-mile course on Lazy Mountain into a slippery slope. Marvin said the middle-of-the-pack racers saw the worst of it, but she expected the mud to slow her as well, going in.

“Because of the weather forecast, I thought it was gonna be too nasty out there to get a record,” she said in the Lazy Mountain parking lot after the race.

Knowing the splits she would have to achieve to beat her 2014 record of 3 hours, 31 minutes, 45 seconds, Marvin was doubtful she could pull it off. Then she was hitting her marks and, soon enough, passing them.

“I was right on for the first couple and then I started to pick up a minute or two here, so I was like, ‘well, huh … I guess we’ll have one today,’” she said.

Marvin finished the race in 3:26:32, breaking her own record by more than 5 minutes. Since she started running the race in 2012, she’s dropped more than 18 minutes – which is why her husband Ben wasn’t surprised by her record-breaking win.

“I kind of expected it ‘cause that’s all she does, (get faster)” he said.

Mr. Marvin also had a respectable finish, taking second behind mountain running extraordinaire Eric Strabel with a time of 3:03:20, 3 minutes and 40 seconds ahead of third-place finisher Matias Saari, another big name in Alaska mountain running.

“That is the first time I’ve ever beat Matias in a race longer than 4 miles, I am so proud,” Ben Marvin said.

Marvin said he was sitting between Strabel and Saari for most of the race, a position that had him worried he’d get torched by Strabel and “eaten alive” by Saari coming back up Lazy after descending Mat Peak.

“He almost caught me,” Marvin said, of Saari.

The gap between Marvin and Strabel was greater – about 5 ½ minutes, for a winning time of 2:57:56.

Strabel was the only racer to finish in under 3 hours, and was off his 2012 record by about 2 minutes.

“I’m really happy with it actually, considering how the trail was,” Strabel said. “It was a little slower on the way up, kinda slower coming down this last half of Lazy. … You couldn’t really charge.”

Still, Strabel said he had at least a 90-second lead for most of the race.

Strabel said the Mat Peak Challenge is one of his favorite races in the Alaska Mountain Runners Grand Prix series, which includes runs up Alyeska, Bird Ridge, Government Peak, Knoya Ridge and Mount Marathon.

“This is kinda the granddaddy,” Strabel said, of the race up and down Lazy Mountain, up Mat Peak and back.

He said the challenge is “pretty much three times Mount Marathon,” with just as much risk, if not more.

“If you fall at Mount Marathon, you’re never farther than a mile from the hospital. If you fall from the summit of Mat Peak, you’re hours away,” Strabel said.

The Marvins agreed that Mat Peak is the bigger beast.

“Everybody wants to make a big deal about Mount Marathon, but I have never been more sore in my life than after Mat Peak,” Christy Marvin said. “You get a little taste of everything in this race.”

“All the transitions, from climbing to descending and climbing to descending over and over, it plays with you mentally and physically,” Ben Marvin said. “It’s the hardest race by far.”

Neither of the Marvins would have thought to race it though, if not for Christy’s dad, Dan Virgin.

“He’s the reason we do mountain races,” Ben Marvin said.

For Grand Prix point totals and more results, check www.alaskamountainrunners.org.

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

Matanuska Peak Challenge

Results

Women

1 Christy Marvin 3:26:32

2 Clare Cook 3:57:40

3 Ann Spencer 4:02:23

4 Gyongyver Schilling 4:14:22

5 Christie Haupert 4:20:10

6 Alyson Kopsack 4:27:19

7 April Mcanly 4:27:47

8 Sarah Johanson 4:40:49

9 Paige Brady 4:41:34

10 Jill Aho 4:44:09

11 Kate Fitzgerald 4:47:47

12 Kaytlyn Gerbin 5:07:33

13 Ivy Ivanoff 5:09:30

14 Andrea Fountain 5:12:29

15 Tamra Kornfield 5:19:00

16 Ellyn Brown 5:37:08

17 Kate Arnold 5:38:20

18 Jennifer Loofbourrow 6:06:58

19 Linda Rao 6:13:43

20 Karen Looney 6:16:39

21 Irene Bembenek 6:35:46

22 Julie Estey 6:45:04

23 Joleen Corlis 7:39:55

24 Ali Tremaine 7:54:49

Men

1 Eric Strabel 2:57:56

2 Ben Marvin 3:03:20

3 Matias Saari 3:06:40

4 Michael Versteeg 3:16:31

5 Cody Priest 3:17:49

6 Nick Treinen 3:25:34

7 Alex Alonso 3:29:23

8 Mike Monterusso 3:29:50

9 Russell Johanson 3:34:09

10 Craig Taylor 3:35:29

11 Christopher Kirk 3:39:19

12 Peter Mamrol 3:48:19

13 Lance Kopsack 3:50:08

14 Jerome Ross 3:51:51

15 Tony Slatonbarker 3:52:21

16 Michael Connelly 3:53:57

17 Bodhi Gross 3:54:07

18 Ali Papillon 3:54:08

19 Kristian Pettyjohn 3:59:33

20 Conor Deal 4:00:58

21 Daniel Glatz 4:04:09

22 Derek Nottingham 4:07:03

23 Jay Mullen 4:19:12

24 Keegan Crow 4:20:32

25 David Apperson 4:25:44

26 Greg Michalson 4:26:35

27 Dorian Gross 4:27:38

28 Roman Gross 4:36:45

29 Dan Brokaw 4:40:27

30 Steve Gilles 4:49:19

31 Wes Hoskins 4:52:36

32 Mark Turner 5:01:08

33 Scott Williams 5:01:09

34 Dan Virgin 5:07:00

35 Stephen Mayer 5:07:28

36 Ely Gerbin 5:07:33

37 James Miller 5:09:52

38 Brandon Goentzel 5:26:11

39 Jake Gano 5:28:22

40 John Clark 5:31:52

41 Ted Paprocki 5:32:52

42 Marek Kolendo 5:37:20

43 Erik Keskula 5:45:05

44 Jonny Hughes 5:57:52

45 Mitchel Beres 6:04:32

46 Rhyss Vivian 6:06:29

47 Tom Saltmer 6:23:08

48 Dane Crowley 6:27:15

49 Evan Steinhauser 6:47:58

50 Matthew Link 7:16:22

51 Jacob Smith 7:29:02

52 Jake Boothby 7:37:09