Maybe last Friday's thick blankets of fog were just typical summertime
coastal Bering Sea conditions. Or, perhaps the weather was influenced by
the spirit of former Anvil Mountain Run champion Mark Rodgers responding
to the whisperings of another attempt on his 26-year-old course record.
Leo Rasmussen helped establish the event in 1979 and has overseen
Alaska's second oldest running race for 36 years. He has heard talk of
record-breaking before.
Rasmussen stated that in 1988 Rogers completed the annual 4th of July
course up and down Nome's signature mountain in 1 hour, 11 minutes, and
23 seconds, breaking his own mark for the second time. That will establish "a record that
will probably stand the test of time," thought Rasmussen after Roger's race.
It was indeed a performance that no one has gotten close to
breaking said Rasmussen. Only five runners have ever completed the 12.5-mile,
1,116-foot elevation race in under 15-minutes.
Enter local runner, and high school cross-country coach, Jeff
Collins, who brought a lengthy long-distance running resume -
including qualifying for the United States Marathon National
Championships in 2000 - to his first attempt at the race on the
mountain.
Collins was the first to emerge from the arctic haze, posting a
time of 1 hour, 21 minutes, 50 seconds, and although he fell short
of the record, the 42 Anvil Mountain Run entrants did set a new
participation mark.
"Rogers record is super impressive," said Collins after the
race, "but last year somebody broke the Mount Marathon record that
stood for 32 years. Rogers set a precedent (for this race), and
its time to step up the challenge he set so many years ago."
For the duration of the race, the entire mountain was shrouded in
a fog that allowed less than 30 yards of visibility. So,
when Collins got a few steps off his intended course on the steepest
uphill section, it may have been a sign that the record would live another year.
Collins would later thank one of his proteges, 15-year-old Wilson Hoogendorn,
for getting him back on track at that point. He then returned the favor by yelling
out in the fog on the steep descent to aid Hoogendorn as he blindly negotiated
his way down the mist-soaked, slippery, and rocky slope.
Hoogendorn ran the race in 1 hour, 23 minutes, 30 seconds. He kept his coach,
and training partner, within visual distance until Anvil Rock at the mountain's summit,
and would be the first runner under 18 to complete the race. Hoogendorn was able
to hold off Nome's Nils Hahn, a veteran of five Anvil Mountain runs, by two minutes
for second place.
Hahn will have to run the race another 25 years to catch Nome's
David Olson, who, making his best Cal Ripkin Jr. ironman impression, completed his 30th Anvil Mountain Run, consecutively no less. Olson broke the two-hour mark by 21 seconds.
Olson was impressed that there were so many people joining the
race this year. "One year only seven people ran the race (After
that race) I thought that if I kept coming, some year nobody will
show up, and I will win," joked Olson after the race.
The Anvil Mountain Run regular, however, has often been joined in
the race by his family members. This year daughter Annie Kate Olson, who
first followed her dad in the race as a 12-year-old, had only two
women cross the line before her.
Californian Elaina Cromer, who was fresh off a 2014 victory in the five-kilometer
(3.1-mile) Gold Dust Dash, was the first female to cross the line. Veteran Nome distance
runner Crystal Tobuk, who completed the Boston Marathon in April, placed second.
Cromer, a trained short distance athlete in college was running her first long
event. She was unsure how to run a race of this length. "I kept telling myself
not to stop on the hill," she said. Cromer completed the course in a time of 1 hour, 31
minutes, 58 seconds.
That strategy proved successful as Cromer was able to make up the sizable
advantage Tobuk had established before the 759 foot, 1.6-mile long climb that the
Anvil Mountain Road offered. By the top of the mountain, Cromer had a lead
that she would not give up.
University of Alaska -Fairbanks professor Greg Finstad won the award
for the first runner over 50, finishing in fifth place overall with a time of 1 hour,
25 minutes, 18 seconds, one spot behind under-20 runner Nick Morgan of Nome.
Morgan said the weather-induced navigational challenges were terrible at the
top of the mountain. "You can barely tell (where the trail down is) even when
it's clear out," he said.
Rasmussen stated that some years runners have been greeted with rain,
sleet, or even fresh snow at the summit, further making Rogers record hard top.
Olson thought the 42-degree, no-wind weather at race time
provided the perfect conditions, and was "much better than it being hot."
The mention of foggy weather, however, took second place at the pre-race meeting
to the warning of bears. Rasmussen said many had been sighted this year on the mountain.
"Don't play with 'em," he emphasized.
The two five-foot inflatable "scare bears" placed just north of the city by local game,
officials did not discourage a herd of 40 plus musk oxen from spectating within
20 yards of the road during the first half-mile of the race. Runners were better
protected by Anvil Rock checkpoint person John Handeland, a 35-year
Anvil Mountain Run volunteer, who toted a sidearm at the summit.
Despite the challenging weather conditions on the mountain portion of the race,
(which caused nearly every runner to lose the trail at some point), all participants
were able to complete the course before the Fourth of July festivities.
"I usually come in when the parade is going on," said smiling Anvil Mountain Run
veteran Dora Hughes after the race, "so this is a PR (personal record) for me."
