Mt. Marathon: A Race of Extremes

Every 4th of July the land of extremes gets crystallized into a singular bull-headed race.

(Race point and the trails up and down the upper half)

The second oldest footrace in the U.S., Mt. Marathon begins and ends on 4th Ave in downtown Seward, and includes scaling cliffs, careening down rock and snow slides, climbing over waterfalls, and running the gauntlet of cheering, rowdy crowds.

Our town of 3,000 blows up to 30,000 as RV.'s and trucks and families descend on every campground, hotel and hostel, prepared to line the streets with their festive red white and blue.

A race that begins with a road run, a half-a-mile up hill, starting at First National Bank, past the teen and senior centers, the laundromat and hospital, to the base of "the mountain". A cliff base with roots like a ladder to climb, or a crack in the shale to traverse, a rock face that changes every year as more loose stones fall.

"Rock!" we are trained to yell if we knock a small boulder lose. If you hear the call, don't look up.

After the cliff, its a trail that rises 3,022 feet, without switch backs, just straight up through the mud, the Devil's Club, along the ridge line that brings competitors to Race Point and the snow slide down, the scree, the stream bed and waterfalls, and then back to the street, where the crowds cheer as racers run the half-mile down hill to the finish line by the Yukon bar, where a race bib earns you a free beer.

That is if you are 21. And not 8.

Like Olive, running in the Junior Race that pits seven to seventeen- year-olds against each other in a mass start of 300 kids who race to the half-way point, known as break out, where the trail finally gets out of the Salmon-berry bushes and Alders to the wide open air, where a breeze is possible on a hot summer day.

And this year, man, was it hot, 74 degrees with a recorded temperature  in the afternoon during the women's race of 94 in the sweltering humidity of the bushes.

94 degrees! In Alaska!

Thank goodness spectators lined the trail with water bottles to share. "Water to drink, water for your head," they'd say. One woman even hauled a sled to the upper half of the mountain, filled it with snow and offered to press a handful against the back of our necks as we passed.

Saints of the trail, I tell ya, full-on saints.

The day began with the Junior Race, a 9:00 a.m. start, with me realizing Olive didn't need me by her side-- the moment she found her friends to warm up with she gave me a quick hug and jogged away.

When the gun sounded, off she went, and for the first time ascended the mountain without an adult to guide her, only her own muscle memory, stamina, and fearlessness as she made her way up and down faster than we expected, crossing the finish line in the top half of all the girls, 8th in her 7-11 age group, and as the first 7-9 year-old girl to finish.

 

Can I be done now? I thought, as I watched her run down 4th Ave, her face calm, body relaxed, barely dirty.

Next came the men's race which I watched from the shade of my cousin Liz's front yard; looking through Nick's scope, I watched the first two men summit. They were actually running!  The winner completed the entire route in 46 minutes, not a record but damn good considering the heat.

By the time I needed to warm up, the sun pounded the pavement, and I felt nauseous just jogging slowly on the street. This would not be a year to beat my time, I thought, as I adjusted my goal from doing better than last year to just making it up and down the mountain without passing out or throwing up.

I quickly fell to the back of the first wave on the street (the men and women start in two waves of about 150 racers each), not running but trudging along, wondering how I was going to climb a mountain with the way I felt.

I chose the roots instead of the rocks, the way I've gone up in the past, and got stuck in a line of women not moving, so I cut up on a route I had never practiced, steeper than the line I usually travel, and had a moment where I thought this could be an unrecoverable mistake.

Don't look down, I reminded myself as I searched for another foot or hand-hold.

Luckily, I made it to the top of the cliff, and promptly confused a spectator as I ran the opposite direction as the rest of the racers. "Aren't you going up?" he asked. I nodded and pointed to a new trail, recently created by a Seward mountain legend as an alternative route up a section of the lower half. I knew it was a little slower but the reprieve from the pressure of the line of women racers helped me out mentally when all I wanted to do was fold.

I even took a moment to stop trudging, to turn around and look at the view of town and to think: I'm lucky I get to do this. My body can do this, how lucky is that?

(Photo taken June 1st before all the vegetation grew)

I didn't feel so lucky during the second half of the climb, when I'm usually at my strongest, and instead felt dizzy and fell over multiple times, tripping on air, on heat exhaustion, and repeated: Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other...

My other mantra: I never have to do this stupid race again. I'm done. Three times a charm. I'm done. Never again.

Until I made it to Race Point, rounded the rock and climbed down the first few feet to the snow-slide, longer than in previous years, and careened down the mountain sitting on my ass, my feet and hands as brakes when I needed them, going faster than the women around me, making my own line through the snow: "Wahoooooo!" I yelled, when I reached the bottom where snow turns to loose scree.

I love this! I thought: This is a great fuckin' race!

And down I flew, gracefully almost, until the bottom, where the mass of spectators cheered, where the slope mellowed out, and I lost my footing as the grade changed, and almost wiped out in front of the crowd, but caught myself, hands outstretched, smile wide, to the applause of hundreds.

All along the road, I heard: "Good job ladies!" I heard my name called and the name of the woman on my heals. I can't go any faster, I thought, as I rounded Jefferson and turned to the final stretch down 4th. The other racer passed me and I waved her on, knowing I couldn't sustain a speed more than my legs currently traveled.

That is, until the finish line stood a hundred yards away, and I thought: Maybe I can dig a little deeper.

And so I dug.  

And sprinted past the racer who passed me, only to be caught by four volunteers on the other side of the line and led to an over-turned bucket, where they brought me water and sprayed me down with a hose.

I did it. Its over.

I finished slower than my previous two years--coming in 94th with a time of an hour and seventeen minutes-- but fast enough to get invited back.

And the crazy thing is, I just might do this race of extremes again next year despite swearing the whole way up I would never ever ever ever do it again.

"I didn't want to sign up for Mt. Marathon," Elias likes telling people.

Which means part of him does want to do it.

And though this is one race he can't negotiate, I told him I'd take him as far up the mountain as he felt comfortable.

So one calm day in June, Elias and I parked at the base and started up the trail to the roots. "Wow, this is steep," he said, before it even turns to a ladder. "I don't want to go any further than this."

So down we went, him holding onto my shoulders, or the branches of Alders, a smile on his face as if he just scaled Everest, a smile I pictured, along with Olive's grace as she ran towards the finish line, when all I wanted to do was stop, but somehow put one foot in front of the other, and slowly, steadily, made my way up hill.

Comments

[Kate]

That sounds like a crazy race! Good for you for doing it again and even considering doing it next year. Congrats to Olive on her amazing race as well!

[Christy]

It is a CRAZY race and now that its over I think I want to do it again but every year while climbing up I hate it!