Palmer teen wins Mount Marathon junior race

The Marvin family has another Mount Marathon title.

Coby Marvin, an incoming sophomore at Colony, defeated Ali Papillon of Boulder, Colorado, in the junior boys Mount Marathon race Monday in Seward. Marvin’s 25:27 and Papillon’s 25:43 were the second and third fastest times in race history, behind the 24:30 of Bill Spencer in 1973.

Papillon had relegated Marvin to second place last year.

“Kind of as he put it, as long as we’re running fast, I’m happy,” Marvin said when asked to describe the rivalry. “Friendly competition.”

Marvin now has two years to try and chase down Spencer’s record time.

Marvin is a member of a prominent Palmer mountain running family. His mom, Christy, a two-time winner, finished third in the women’s race with a time of 52:45 and tied with Nancy Pease for top-three finishes in the race with nine. Only Patti Foldager and Cedar Bourgeois (10) and Nina Kemppel (11) have more.

His dad, Ben, was ninth in the men’s race with a time of 48:14.

Palmer resident Meg Inokuma was fourth in the women’s race at 52:51. Inokuma, 42, lived on the central peninsula in the summers of 2014 through 2016, but had only done the Mount Marathon trail twice until two weeks ago. In the last couple weeks, she did it three more times to cram for her race debut. She still got to the top in fourth place.

At the bottom, Inokuma sprinted to pass Marvin at the starting line, not realizing the finish was farther down the street.

“She passed me back,” Inokuma said. “I knew she was coming but I did my best. I don’t have any regrets.”

Lyon Kopsack, of Palmer, was the top Valley runner in the men’s race, finishing fourth with a time of 45:37. Talkeetna’s Roman Gross was right behind him in fifth at 45:45.

Former Palmer High School standout Sophie Wright, who now attends Western Washington University and lives in Bellingham, was 10th in the women’s race, with a time of 56:38.

Palmer’s Denali Strabel (12th) and Rya Berrigan (18th) and Wasilla’s Elizabeth Ruimveld (19th) also scored top-20 finishes in the women’s race. Wasilla’s Joshua Taylor was 12th in the men’s race.

Palmer’s Corbin Wilson (sixth) and Raven Spangler (seventh), and Wasilla’s Blaze Rubeo (ninth) finished in the top 10 of the junior boys race. Aubrey Virgin led the Valley in the girls race, finishing seventh, Palmer’s Wren Spangler (11th), Isela Austin (15th) and Clara Sensabaugh (16th) placed int the top 20 of the girls race.

Allie McLaughlin of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Max King of Bend, Oregon, won the 94th running of the Mount Marathon Race. The race returned to its traditional July 4 date for the first time since 2019 after the 2020 event was canceled due to the pandemic and the 2021 event was moved to July 7 to keep the crowds small.

The masses were back to see non-Alaskans sweep the race of about 5 kilometers up and down the mountain of about 3,000 feet for the first time since Spain’s Kilian Jornet and Sweden’s Emelie Forsberg won in 2015.

On that day, Forsberg smashed Nancy Pease’s 1990 record of 50 minutes, 30 seconds, by running a 47:48.

It was such a steep drop in the record, accomplished by an international star of trail running, that many wondered when that record would finally fall.

The answer is 2022, when McLaughlin, a 31-year-old film producer and runner for On, would drop the record all the way to 47:09.

If her reaction to the race is any indication, plenty more runners from around the country and the globe will continue to seek the event out.

“It’s my absolute favorite right now,” she said. “I feel like it’s the most honest race ever. To be a true, gritty mountain runner, you’ve kind of got to do Mount Marathon.”

King, 42, agrees. He runs for Salomon. As a runner with a long record of success on the track, in short trail races and ultramarathons, he was asked why with so many choices for races, he chose Mount Marathon for the third time since 2018.

“This is the best one,” he said. “I love this race. It’s now like one of my favorite races of the year. And I love coming back.”

What got King up here to lower the 40- to 49-year-old age group record to 43:37 from Trond Flagstad’s 44:26 and take the record of oldest winner from Todd Boonstra’s 41-year-old triumph in 2003?

“If it didn’t have this community aspect, with all of Alaska kind of with their sights set on this weekend, it wouldn’t be what it is,” he said. “It wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”