newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — This year’s Equinox Marathon will be remembered by the masses as the Year of the Wasp.

Scores of runners were stung near the mile 7 marker while a smaller number were swarmed around mile 5. The fastest runners emerged unscathed but the wasps showed little mercy on the middle and back-of-the-pack.

“As you saw from the raise of hands at the Saturday night awards, there must have been close to a hundred folks that got stung ... and all with more than one wasp sting,” race director Steve Bainbridge said.

Many more, of course, got stung but didn’t attend the awards ceremony and share their war stories. One unfortunate woman was even encountered by another runner with her shorts pulled down as she frantically smacked her bare rump with both hands.

Not even Corky Hebard, who collected his record 38th Equinox patch on Saturday, remembers a wasp episode remotely resembling Saturday’s.

Hebard, incidentally, has spent more than 170 hours of his life running the Equinox. He persevered through his 36th consecutive event on Saturday in 6:38:58, his slowest mark since 1974. Bob Baker (30 races) and Tom Wickwire (28) are next on the longevity list.

By the numbers

In addition to recording the fourth-fastest women’s time ever, Laura Brosius’ run of 3 hours, 20 minutes and 40 seconds was remarkable for other reasons. It was the quickest debut ever and, coming on her 24th birthday, crowned her as the youngest winner since 23-year-old Sue Chapman in 1985. Brosius’ 20:50 margin of victory was the sixth greatest in women’s history.

Brosius also ran the exact same time of 1:04:16 from the chute checkpoint at Mile 17.1 to the finish that Susan Faulkner did in 2002 en route to her record 3:18:16. (By the way, Faulkner, in her first full Equinox since 2002, stuck to her “training run” plan on Saturday and coasted to 22nd place in 4:24:01.)

Assuming Brosius, a UAF graduate student, runs next year, she is no doubt a candidate to challenge Faulkner’s mark. Brosius came close as a rookie and got no help from competition to push her along or from the blustery weather on Ester Dome and slick trail conditions in places.

Meanwhile, men’s champion Harald Aas broke the race open on Ester Dome’s 4.5-mile out-and-back portion, which he began just seconds ahead of Mike Kramer and yours truly and completed with a more than two-minute advantage. He then cruised from the chute to the Patty Center in 54:04 to win going away. Whether Aas returns to defend next year is uncertain, as he will be done with graduate studies at UAF and possibly no longer living in Fairbanks.

Party time

Aas also demonstrated he can knock back a few shots of Austrian plum brandy at a party hosted off College Road by Bill and Heini McDonnell that lasted well into Sunday morning. The gathering — which included activities such as a weigh-in and an attempted removal of a dead toe nail — was just one of many Equinox spots of revelry. Others included the all-day affair at the unofficial aid station at mile 21.7 (with the aptly named band Yellowjackets in the Outhouse providing entertainment), the annual rally at Tina Devine’s place on Birch Hill and the Swingle’s hilltop shindig in Goldstream Valley.

The Blue Loon also reportedly had an Equinox party (more for the celestial event than the race) but The Marlin was, unfortunately, music-free. That’s because marathoner and musician Willis Fireball missed his first Equinox in a decade. Many months in advance, Fireball signed up for a gig at The Marlin on Equinox night, but landed a teaching job on remote Little Diomede Island that made coming back impractical.

Fireball planned to mark the Equinox by running to the top of the island on Saturday. “I wish KUAC did some kind of live broadcast (of the Equinox),” he said via e-mail.

Relay records fall

The relay team Aas-Beaters — with Chris Eversman, Marius Korthauer and Einar Often — crushed the previous relay record by more than 9 minutes in 2:42:54. The current and former Alaska Nanooks runners came up less than 90 seconds shy of Stan Justice’s 1984 individual mark and may have extra incentive to try again in 2009 after Bainbridge raised the cash prize for doing so to $600.

The top four relay teams Saturday all broke 3 hours, matching the number who had done so since the relay started in 1990.

The runner-up team, Skinny Raven: Take No Prisoners, from Anchorage, had a bit of bad luck and still ran 2:48:55. First their planned middle runner Sam Hill, the top running climber in Alaska, didn’t show up because his flight from Anchorage on Saturday morning was canceled. Then Jerry Ross, the leadoff runner and top marathoner in the state, got lost between miles 2 and 3, a mishap that cost him several minutes. Ross, who was already 37 seconds ahead of Eversman after just more than 2 miles of running, arrived at the Miller Hill/Yankovic checkpoint 47 seconds behind him following 5.5 miles. Ross still managed to pass Eversman late in the first leg and despite all that only missed the leg 1 record by 25 seconds.

Korthauer’s time of 1:00:21 for the middle leg eclipsed Moses Waweru’s record by 3 seconds, while Often annihilated the leg 3 record by more than 3 minutes in 51:35. A total of 108 relay teams entered, a new record and 18 more than in 2007. That contributed greatly to 851 total entrants (324 relay and 527 individuals) and 755 finishers. Those numbers make this the largest Equinox since 940 people (240 runners and 700 hikers) started the 1970 race.

Age records

Three new age-class records were established. Jim Madonna ran 4:55:36 for a new standard in the 70-74 division (breaking Lou Joline’s mark by 2:45); Roger Sayre cruised to a 3:09:44 finish to better Wayde Leder’s time in the 50-54 group by 4:45; and Mark Lindberg ran 3:02:37 to take 2:49 off Leder’s mark in the 45-49 age group.

There were also a bevy of new year-by-year age records, the youngest being 10-year-old Gracen Loveless of Salcha, who ran 5:04:56. Brosius (24), Heather Best (31), Mary Barrett (54), Kathi Stevens (57), Elaine Nelson (62), Monte Jordan (64) and Phyllis Church (73) set new women’s age records while Mike Kramer (40), Lindberg (45), Sayre (50), Leder (51), Jeff Arndt (55), Eric Skidmore (61), Jon Nauman (69) and Madonna (70) set new records for the men.

Soothsayer

Sayre also showed he’s adept at handicapping the Equinox, as he predicted on his blog that Aas would win in 2:49 and Brosius would win easily in sub-3:24.

Spirit of the Equinox

Bob Hildebrandt, after a run of just more than 7 hours, was surprised and honored to receive the Spirit of the Equinox award Saturday night. He has completed more than 100 marathons over the past 15 years and is the first Alaskan to do a marathon in all 50 states plus Washington, D.C. The Equinox, he says, is still his favorite.