By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Mountain distance racers are known for finishing races in a “foggy” state of mind but on Saturday the fog and mild temperatures proved to be perfect conditions for the 26th running of the 7-mile Alpine Adventure Run, a race that’s become the community sporting event of the season.
David Wilcox, 2017 Sitka High graduate, topped the men’s field in a time of 1 hour, 11 minutes, 57 seconds, and Esther Kennedy defended her win last year with a time of 1:20:41.
Both were part of a pack that broke away with eight-time winner Sam Scotchmer from the start at St. Gregory’s Catholic Church, along Baranof Street to the Gavin Ridge trailhead for what’s considered the hardest section of the race, the stairs.
Wilcox took the lead starting at the stair trails, with Scotchmer, Kennedy, and the eventual men’s and women’s runnersup, Devon Calvin and Tansy Brown, both from Oregon, at his hip.
“I’ve been up the course a couple times,” Wilcox said. “It’s a fun run, a fun hike, but those stairs ...”
Wilcox just completed his second year of running at the College of Southern Idaho and will be running at Fort Lewis College (Colorado) in the fall. This was his second Alpine Adventure Run. Last summer he reached the ridge in third place but was completely shredded, and worn out.
David Wilcox races through the fog along Harbor Mountain ridgeline during Saturday’s Alpine Adventure Run on his way to the men’s first place finish. (Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)
“I remember one of these guys just flew by me on the downhill,” Wilcox said. “I just wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. I was a little bit more conservative going up so I could just blow the rest of the course. I also just wanted to have fun. I just made sure to open up on the flats and try to bring it down to a hard tempo pace or something around there. I just let myself roll down the hills.”
Wilcox rolled fast enough to improve his time from last year by nearly 5 minutes, and survived the first climb.
“Just those stairs, definitely the stairs,” Wilcox said. “Once you get up to the top you got to transition between letting yourself fly down the hills and maintain on the flats, and then switch back into whatever gear you have going up the hills; sometimes that’s power hiking, sometimes that’s walking.”
Kennedy placed sixth overall and improved her time from last year by nearly 2 minutes.
“It was perfect, the temperature,” Kennedy said. “The trail was a little bit slippery which can make downhills slow, but clouds are way better than the sun for races like this. I’m definitely not a big uphill runner, but at this point and time I have made my peace with being bad at the stairs and so I take them intentionally a little bit easier and that makes them not so hard. I honestly think the hardest part for me is the section right after the rock slide where you’re just slowly climbing again, and you’re really tired, and you just want it to be downhill. My general strategy is that there’s no steep part that’s too short to walk, and there is no ‘not steep’ part that’s too short to run, but every year is different and I mostly focus on having a good time and being smooth and then hopefully that translates to fast.”
Esther Kennedy races along a rock and tall grass trail along the Harbor Mountain ridgeline during Saturday’s Alpine Adventure Run on her way to the women’s first place finish for the second year in a row. (Sentinel Photo by Klas Stolpe)
Kennedy raced her first ultra in June, the Kesugi Ridge 30-miler, near Anchorage. She placed 8th overall and first for women in 6:04:13.
“Yeah, that went really well,” she said. “For the Alpine this year I had been kind of focusing on Kesugi and did some backpacking to see how that would work out. It worked out fine.”
The women’s record of 1:18:11, set by Sitka’s Tasha Folsom on July 19, 2014, is safe for another year.
“The record is really fast,” Kennedy said. “I don’t know if the record is going to fall any time soon – Tasha is amazing.”
Kennedy battled back and forth with Juneau’s Matt Callahan who nabbed the fifth overall spot 6 seconds faster, with 1:20:35.
Callahan trailed Wilcox and Scotchmer early and was passed by Kennedy and Lee House on the stairs, but said his strategy is pretty simple.
“Don’t blow up in the first mile, do the stairs as fast as you can,” Callahan said. “Walk when it’s more efficient to walk. Run when you can but not so much that you have to hobble off the rocks, and then just go all out on the downhill without tripping or tumbling. It was fun. My glasses kept fogging up. I saw the shelter this year though. Last year I couldn’t even see the shelter going by. It’s a good race, you suffer on the stairs and you make yourself suffer through the rest of it too, but then it’s over.”
The men’s record of 1:04:03 set by Scotchmer July 21, 2013, is safe for another season as well.
“A great race, nice weather, and it was fun to run with David Wilcox,” Scotchmer said. “It’s nice to see a younger generation coming up. It’s fun to watch the Sitka track and cross country alumni get better and better. This year wasn’t my year for training really strong but it’s a great course and so well organized, plus the community supports it. My goal usually is to go out hard, push the uphill, and hope that I don’t get passed. This year I was pretty close to David on the uphill but he was ahead of me by 15 seconds and when we hit the top of the ridge I didn’t have much speed on the ridgeline.”
Scotchmer was passed by a former Sisters High School (Oregon) and St. Lawrence University (New York) and University of Montana runner Calvin as they crested the ridgeline. Calvin then continued in hot pursuit of Wilcox, occasionally seeing him through the fog but unable to close the gap; he placed second in 1:12:48. Scotchmer was third in 1:14:11 and House fourth with 1:19:05.
“I’ve been spending summers here for the past 23 years,” Calvin said. “I just like Sitka. I’ve run this course a number of times and I love it. I sort of forgot the race was this morning, I thought it was Sunday for some reason. I did,’t have a plan and wasn’t mentally prepared, but no one here is extensively training for this race, and that’s what I like about this race is it’s more about the community, camaraderie, and less about the competition.”
Second-place women’s finisher Tansy Brown traveled from Bend, Oregon, for the race and hit 1:27:14 for 12th overall.
“I always work hard to the top and was right with Esther,” Brown said. “But I know that I’m more cautious on anything rocky or slippery. This race, as with all my races, is one where I run my hardest and best for that day and my place isn’t as important to me as my effort. I knew Esther would run the ridgeline, downhills, and rock field like a true, well trained local.”
Brown was in the thick of the front pack on the climb and was working on a top 10 finish approaching the rock field when she was passed by Ivan Grutter who placed 11th (1:26:07).
“He literally flew by me like a mountain goat,” Brown said. “Esther ran an awesome race and I was thankful to have her company to the top and happy to see her fly even faster after the top.”
Rounding out the top 10 were Chris McGraw in seventh (1:21:57) who is rehabbing from injury and has the September 100-mile The Bear race scheduled in Utah; Stephen Bethune in eighth (1:22:49), Eagle River’s Alex Alonso ninth (1:23:09), and Logan Evans (1:24:22).
Speaking of bears, Matthew Breckel completed the race in brown bear costume and was overheard saying he was working off hibernation calories.
All runners knew what the course had in store.
Nellie Ballou traveled from Fairbanks to race and visit friends. She knew of the hard part of the course.
“The stairs for sure,” she said. “I was looking forward to them too, but there were more stairs than I could imagine. But, even in the fog, the course was beautiful.”
Dave Licari, 1978 Sitka High grad, who was a star cross country, track, and basketball player for the Wolves and now coaches high school cross-country and basketball in Nebraska, never trained on the route in his youth. He has been on the mountain only four times, each in the Alpine Adventure Run as an adult.
“And I was born and raised here,” Licari laughed. “We always just ran out to Sandy Beach or to the ferry terminal or inside totem park.”
Red lantern finisher Shasta Fenwick, who took the 85th and final position with a 2:41:59, proved that winning isn’t always about coming in first but in establishing a healthful goal.
“It kicked my butt but it felt amazing,” Fenwick said. “The highlight was seeing all my friends along the way, cheering me on; everyone was encouraging me from the time I thought about entering to the finish line right here. I’m so excited to have the opportunity to do this and I’m going to work on getting faster for next year.”
And there will be a next year.
Just as there have been 25 next years after Josh Horan organized the first race as an Eagle Scout Project and 15 hearty souls took the challenge.
“We thought we were done with it after that,” father Charles Horan, who ran a 1:47:36 on Saturday, said. “Yay, he did his project.”
Instead, after that initial race, Don Lehmann handed them a check, saying it was his entry for the following year.
“We were like, what do you mean next year?” Horan said. “Needless to say it went on again. Josh did it a couple more years then went to college and my wife Chris is really the organizer. I think this is so popular because it takes just the right amount of effort. It’s sort of a half marathon, so it’s within the reach of a lot of normal people. I watched in amazement the first couple years of people running over this really beautiful trail and then thought I could do it. I was in my mid-40’s. This race is just enough where it’s reachable but it’s a challenge, so that’s the sweet spot. And it has always been a community project, not primarily a run, but a community spirit, and with the picnic at the end it becomes a true merging of the social and physical level.”
Added Chris Horan, “It’s good for Sitka, the people want to run it and they’re enthusiastic about it. I think it’s good for the town and it doesn’t take that much from me.”
At the finish line on Saturday the Horans cheered on the finishers, along with Lehmann, who had just finished in 2:15:18 and was, reportedly, reaching again for his checkbook. The 2020 race is tentatively set July 18.
2019 Alpine Adventure Run Results:
1 - David Wilcox 1:11:57; 2 - Devon Calvin (Sisters, Oregon) 1:12:48; 3 - Sam Scotchmer 1:14:11; 4 - Lee House 1:19:05; 5 - Matt Callahan (Juneau) 1:20:35; 6 - Esther Kennedy 1:20:41; 7 - Chris McGraw 1:21:57; 8 - Stephen Bethune 1:22:49; 9 - Alex Alonso (Eagle River) 1:23:09; 10 - Logan Evans 1:24:22; 11 - Ivan Grutter 1:26:07; 12 - Tansy Brown (Bend, Oregon) 1:27:14; 13 - Abe Kanter 1:28:02; 14 - Irbert Vega 1:28:33; 15 - Evan O’Brien 1:29:35; 16 - Jack McNamee (Nevis, Minnesota) 1:29:39; 17 - April McAnly (Eagle River) 1:30:46; 18 - Tyler Sojka 1:31:13; 19 - Nellie Ballou (Fairbanks) 1:31:57; 20 - Aaron Eckstein 1:32:27; 21 - Peter Vu 1:33:40; 22 - Richard Lam (San Francisco, California) 1:35:04; 23 - Matt Catterson (Juneau) 1:36:09; 24 - James Taggart 1:36:59; 25 - Ryan Wood (Seattle, Washington) 1:37:47; 26 - Emily Pound 1:38:27; 27 - Kevan O’Hanlon 1:38:28; 28 - Mike Mullen 1:39:49; 29 - Doug Niebaum 1:40:39; 30 - Francois Bakkes 1:41:41; 31 - Andrea Colvin 1:41:42; 32 - Justine Webb 1:41:44; 33 - David Brown (Bend, Oregon) 1:41:55; 34 - Will Sirokman 1:43:28; 35 - Tyler Holt 1:43:30; 36 - Jason Maddux 1:43:40; 37 - Paul Feliciano 1:43:43; 38 - Nicole Duclos 1:43:48; 39 - Gary Perensovich 1:45:11; 40 - Kristina Tirman 1:45:55; 41 - Kristen Homer 1:46:19; 42 - Jennifer Klejka 1:47:05; 43 - Charles Horan 1:47:36; 44 - Mike Schinke 1:47:49; 45 - Eric Lamy 1:47:59; 46 - Becky Martello 1:51:20; 47 - James Madison 1:52:06; 48 - Jarrod Yelton 1:52:07; 49 - Chris Johnson 1:52:17; 50 - Justin Priest 1:52:23; 51 - Mary Barrett 1:52:27; 52 - Peter Apathy 1:52:36; 53 - Joshua Wynne 1:52:48; 54 - Daniel Carr 1:53:38; 55 - Lione Clare 1:54:23; 56 - Grace Denney 1:55:48; 57 - Neal Sieroslawski (Palatine, Illinois) 1:55:51; 58 - Dave Licari (Columbus, Nebraska) 1:56:12; 59 - Bohlman Pierce 2:00:51; 60 - Richard Forst 2:00:58; 61 - Simone Harvey 2:00:58; 62 - Brett Wilcox 2:02:50; 63 - Kris Wilcox 2:02:50; 64 - Geralyn Doskoch (Charlevoix, Michigan) 2:02:55; 65 - Melissa Henshaw 2:03:00; 66 - Amanda Chambers (Tetonia, Idaho) 2:04:56; 67 - Nicole Plotkin 2:05:30; 68 - Joseph Plunkett 2:05:43; 69 - Michael Frawley 2:06:06; 70 - Chris Blackman 2:08:34; 71 - Anna Jurken (Juneau) 2:09:08; 72 - Terri Kindness (San Francisco) 2:09:11; 73 - Ashley Matthews Saylor (Macon, Georgia) 2:10:00; 74 - Marissa Carson 2:10:48; 75 - Kayla Perensovich 2:13:57; 76 - Jessica Eldridge 2:14:05; 77 - Kari Lanphier 2:14:35; 78 - Don Lehmann 2:15:18; 79 - McKenzie Bovard 2:15:32; 80 - Lisa Hodges 2:18:33; 81 - Daniel Bovard 2:24:33; 82 - Kyla Krueger (Forestdale, Massachusetts) 2:24:44; 83 - Matthew Breckel 2:29:20; 84 - Jason Matthews (Macon) 2:36:23; 85 - Shasta Fenwick 2:41:59.
