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FAIRBANKS — For the next running of the Equinox Marathon, I have a suggestion.

Raise the entry fee by a few bucks, or whatever is necessary, and arrange for shuttle buses to travel up and down Ester Dome.

The traffic congestion Saturday morning was a mess, making it uncomfortable for runners and walkers, inconvenient for drivers and dangerous for the guys trying to keep the cars flowing.

The driver who honked at one of the men directing traffic didn’t help and neither did the drivers who were traveling too fast for conditions. With diagonal parking, the road was down to one lane, and there was no way to prevent a traffic jam.

With the relay segment of the race increasing in popularity, there were about 200 runners who had to get picked up at the top of the dome or start off there. In addition, there are spectators and race volunteers who want to do their part.

The need for crowd control more than justifies the expense of running shuttle buses, perhaps from the Patty Center and the parking lot on Sheep Creek Road.

The trip is not that far, so the buses could run regularly enough that people could get up or down the hill in a timely fashion.

I was one of those who needed to get to the top of the hill for the relay. The weather was windy, wet and cool topside, but the descent to the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus was beautiful, as it always is.

The others on my team, my sister Maureen and her husband Raymond, visiting from Cincinnati, enjoyed the course. My wife and two of my brothers made up a second team and we traveled at about the same pace.

My wife reported that Ted Fathauer, who finished the entire course in less than 10 hours, still had a spring in his step on Ester Dome, which I was glad to hear.

The next time I do this race, I will try to run more than once or twice in the preceding year. I have been riding a bike this summer, but it’s not the same as pounding the trails, as my feet informed me after the race.

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RELAY SEGMENT: There are varying opinions on which leg of the relay is the easiest, which is the most scenic, etc. I think there was no argument, with Melinda Gates in the first leg, about which segment featured the highest per capita net worth.

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HIS OWN TIME: The spirit of the race, for those with the stamina and determination to go the entire 26.2 miles, was best illustrated for me by the young man who showed up two hours late at the starting line. Long after everyone else had disappeared, he took off on his own. More than anything else, this is an enterprise in which people have their own measures of success.

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FIRST FREEZE: The temperature dipped to 31 degrees early Sunday at the airport, the first time this season it has dropped below freezing there. This is more than two weeks later than the average date of the first freeze, the National Weather Service said.

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HOTEL BOOM: The expansion on the Fairbanks hotel scene continues. The large structure along Airport Road near the Parks Highway is a Best Western that will hold 67 rooms. Add in the new North Pole hotel, the Hampton Inn and the recently completed Holiday Inn Express, and the total is a few hundred extra rooms.

They will be filled at the peak of the summer, but I wonder what this means for winter operations of existing facilities.

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STEVENS TRIAL: A reader of the Anchorage Daily News mentioned some time ago that since the judge in Sen. Ted Stevens’ trial is named Sullivan and so is Stevens’ attorney and one of the prosecutors, the logical place to hold the trial is the Sullivan Arena. But it will be in Washington, D.C.

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STUDIOUS: Jim Sampson, who will receive an award as a University of Alaska Fairbanks distinguished alumnus on Friday in a luncheon at the Princess Hotel, downplays his academic achievements.

Sampson said he suspects no one looked up his grade-point average for his UAF studies, which culminated in an associate’s degree in police administration in 1973. Sampson has yet to receive his award, but he has already been rewarded with considerable ribbing from his friends, who have long regarded him as distinguished.

I don’t know if he was joking, but he told me his highest grade may have been a C in a political science class taught by Richard Fineberg, who was a professor at the time. (To be fair, I think Fineberg had exceptionally high standards for his students.)

Sampson achieved many things throughout the years and has done much for our community and state. Among other things, he served as the state commissioner of labor, borough mayor and head of the Alaska AFL-CIO.

One incident that stands out in my mind was when a stranded motorist informed me that after a breakdown outside of town, a friendly man stopped to help and get the car back on the road, which he did without fanfare.

The motorist was surprised to learn later that the good Samaritan was the borough mayor, and he called me about it.

When I asked Sampson about the story, he said it was not worth printing in my column, but I disagreed.

The deadline for reserving lunch tickets is 5 p.m. today. Call 474-7081 for more information.

Other alumni to be honored with awards Friday include my older brother, Pat Cole, along with Lorena Hegdahl, Mike Sfraga, Merritt “Mitch” Mitchell, Marie Matsuno Nash, Tark Tarkianen, Don Jamieson and Scott Keyes.

If you have a comment or a column suggestion, contact me at cole@newsminer.com or 459-7530.