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He ran the race, thought it was fun, and got a good sense of accomplishment from finishing. For the next several years, he ran two a year and then thought he could do more. In a phone interview from his office in San Antonio, Macon says there are three basic reasons he picked up the pace to such an extreme degree. First, it was fun to be outside and see so many new places. Second, it gave him a good sense of accomplishment which he considers somewhat rare and hard to do these days. Third and most importantly, it was the people. “Runners, but especially marathoners, are about the best people you’ll ever meet,” he said. “You can’t be a marathoner without being an optimist. No one in his right mind would ever run 26.2 miles,” says Macon with a laugh. Macon said he couldn’t wait to get to Montana to run the Madison. For the first time in a long time, he is taking this coming weekend off from running in order to be ready for the Madison. The Madison Marathon is in its fourth year only, but the race capped out nearly one month before race day. There are 200 runners coming from 26 states and Germany. One-third of the registered runners will be traveling from out of Montana for the race. The race is marketed as the Highest Road Marathon in America because it has an average elevation of over 9,000 feet and it is run entirely on a good quality gravel road in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest. It is not a trail run. The starting line is at 9,250 feet and there are just 13 states with mountain peaks higher than this point. The race peaks out at nearly 9,600 feet on Monument Ridge. “I was expecting a good turnout due to all the phone calls and emails I had been receiving from runners across the United States. This started in about November and they were worried about getting in. By race day, I hoped to have about 160 runners. I never dreamed we would cap out before the 4th of July,” said Sam Korsmoe, the executive director of the Madison County Economic Development Council and the Race Director for the Madison Marathon. Korsmoe added that although the race is sold out, there is a waiting list and several runners have been able to get into the race due to injury or work-related cancellations among the registered runners. The successful waiting list runners no doubt consider themselves lucky to get into the Madison Marathon, but they will probably feel even luckier when they meet some of the runners who are already signed up. Believe it or not, Macon is barely the most experienced marathoner signed up for the 4th Annual Madison Marathon. Henry Rueden of De Pere Wisconsin will have run 738 marathons, ultras included, in his 61 years of life by the time he gets to the Madison. Rueden’s running resume is equally impressive. He has completed the 50 state swing (a marathon in all 50 states) 10 times. However, Rueden’s running resume has some interesting twists such as completing all 50 states plus Washington D.C. just last year, completing an inaugural marathon in all 50 states, and completing a marathon based on starting location with every letter of the alphabet from A to Z. And by the way, he has also completed marathons on all seven continents and all the Canadian Provinces and Territories. His first marathon was in 1988. As to the big question of why, Reuden has an easy answer. “I started with local marathons that I could drive to and then went on to the 50 state club and wanted to see different areas of the country,” said Reuden in a phone interview. Reuden had to get creative with his running goals. For example, he had to research the means to finish his 50 state swings in a different state each time. He also had to work hard at getting a marathon in for all the letters of the alphabet. “That was a hard one to get out of the way. There’s only one ‘X’ that I know off. It’s Xenia Ohio,” said Reuden. “The race has actually been around a long time.” Reuden has run the Pike’s Peak race which is above 10,000 feet so he knows about high altitude trail runs, but he says that him and elevation do not get along. His plan is to start slow and then see if he can go faster. Not to be outdone by the men, Sheron Kerson has around 400 marathons to her credit. She and Reuden are running buddies and plan to carpool to the Madison Marathon from the Bozeman airport. The 69 year old runner from Culver City California is a member of the 100 Marathon Club of North America, has done 50 states four times, and is just 11 states shy of getting it done five times. Montana is one of the 11 states she needs to get 50 states for a fifth time. Inspired by the 1984 Olympic Games held in Los Angeles, Kerson had been a runner but never more than five miles distance. A friend convinced her to try a marathon and she did the inaugural Los Angeles Marathon 26 years ago. It was her first marathon. “I cried when I finished right outside the LA Coliseum,” said Kerson in a phone interview from Florida. She is a legacy member of the LA Marathon which means she is one of just 200 people who have run every race. When asked how many marathons she has run, Kerson just laughed. “I guess it’s close to 400, but I don’t keep an accurate count. When I started to run, it [counting the races] wasn’t important. I was not into math,” she said. Kerson doesn’t seem to worry about elevation either. When asked if she was worried about the high elevation of the Madison, she seemingly brushed it off. “I can walk. I don’t care.” When informed the race was, on average, over 9,000 feet in elevation. Kerson just laughed and said, “That’s okay. I’ll be doing a lot of walking.” There are at least six runners currently registered for the July 24 marathon that are members of the 100 Marathon Club. Collectively, just these six runners have over 2,300 marathons to their credit. Other runners are going for their own goals. Vincent Ma, a runner from California, contacted race director Korsmoe beginning in December 2010. He was carefully scheduling his races for 2011 because his goal is to complete all 50 states within the calendar year of 2011. Ma, a native of China who became a Naturalized US Citizen last year, had always been a runner but more along the lines of three or so miles per day just to stay fit. A co-worker encouraged him to try a marathon and he ran his first, the Big Sur Marathon in California, in April 2008 and has been hooked ever since. “I ran the first half no problem,” says Ma about the Big Sur marathon, “but I totally collapsed over the second half. It took me two weeks to recover, but it got me hooked.” Ma learned about the 50 state idea (running a marathon in all 50 states), joined the Marathon Maniacs, and has not looked back since. He completed his first 50 state swing in December of last year. He ran his 100th marathon in Argentina just two weeks ago. The Madison Marathon will be his 46th marathon of this year and his 32nd state for this year. He is on track to finish all 50 states, for a second time, within the calendar year of 2011. In fact, for the Madison weekend, he will be doing back to back marathons with the Madison Marathon on Sunday and then driving 6.5 hours to do the Dessert News Marathon in Salt Lake City on Monday. “I’m running double marathons each weekend for most of the fall and then I’ll finish the year with a marathon in Thailand and Taipei City, Taiwan,” said Ma in a phone interview from his home office in California. When asked how he can manage travel, work, and running schedules to do so many marathons, Ma explains in detail the race research process, use of airline miles, and the ability to do a lot of work from airports and laptops. “It feels a bit surreal that I’ve been to every state. The second time I’m doing this I look forward to the course, atmosphere, and the people that I meet. I just take it all in,” he says. Local runner Sunni Knapton from Ennis is in a league of her own as well. She will be the only runner to have run in all four Madison Marathons. Her husband, John Knapton, has run in two of the three and would have run all three except for a broken foot in year two. “What it comes down to is that we need to support our local opportunities and this is one heck of a run to support,” said Knapton from her home in Ennis. “The run itself is in a league of its own,” she added. For at least a few weeks, the Madison Marathon was entirely up in the air on whether it would be held or not. This year’s massive snow pack, at least 200% above normal on the Gravelly Range where the event is held, was melting very slowly. The road to the staging area and finish line for the race was supposed to open on July 2. It did not due to snow. It finally did open on July 12, but there are sections of the road still closed down due to snow. The road, however, is in excellent condition and easily drivable in a standard automobile. “I’ve had more than a few sleepless nights worrying about all this,” said Korsmoe who is developing some alternate routes on the Gravelly Range Road in the event that part of the original route is still under snow. The snow that remains is in large, north-facing drifts that covers the road in a few sections. “Thinking that I would have to develop a snow strategy for an event in late July did not even occur to me, but that’s what happened,” said Korsmoe. On Saturday, July 23rd, there will be pre-race check in from 4 to 6 PM at Peter T Park on Main Street in Ennis. There is also a pre-race dinner for runners, their friends and family, and community members from 5 to 7 PM at the same location. The race will be held on Sunday, July 24th in the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest in Madison County. More information on the race is available at www.themadisonmarathon.com
Elliot Welder, a resident of Kalispell and a recent graduate of Princeton University where he competed nationally in the steeplechase, won the men’s marathon in a course record time of 3h 15:30. It was Welder’s first marathon race. In the women’s division, Debbie Gibson from Helena took top honors. Gibson also set a new course record and finished with the second lowest time overall at 3h 53:33. In the half marathon, David Gregory from Cameron successfully defended his title in the men’s division and also bested the course record that he set last year by three minutes with a finishing time of 1h 38:48. In the women’s half marathon division, Danielle Dykstra of Bozeman won the event in a record time of 1h 50:17 which beat the previous course record by more than 17 minutes. Finally in the team relay division (four athletes running equal distances over the route), the M-Town Boyz, a group of high school students from Tustin, California not only won the event, but they achieved their own personals goals for the race which were to win the race, beat the course record, and finish the marathon distance in under three hours. The M-Town Boyz finished in 2h 59:38. “It was an excellent and exciting day and not just because so many records were set,” said Sam Korsmoe, the race director for the Madison Marathon and the executive director of the Madison County Economic Development Council and West Yellowstone Economic Development. “The Madison County community really participated the night before at the pre-race dinner, during the race, and well after the race with a huge volunteer effort. My goal for this race was to put Madison County and all of Southwest Montana on the map and I think we have done that.” Nearly all the runners said the 9,000 plus foot elevation was the biggest challenge along with the heat and the very long up hills. But many also verbally committed to return for the 4th annual race in July 2011. “For any chronic marathoners (or not), this one should be on your "Must Do" list,” wrote Richard Holmes from North Carolina who competed in the race. The Madison Marathon was Holmes’ 31st marathon of 2010 and his 258th marathon overall. He confessed to singing the opening song of ‘The Sound of Music’ as he ran because of the panorama on the route. “The high altitude and steep grades result in you not just feeling like you've completed another marathon but you will experience the ‘earned it’ glow that was always there at the end of one's early marathons,” Holmes told Korsmoe one day after the race by email.
It should be no sweat for the 60 year old North Carolina runner. The Madison Marathon happens to come right in the middle of his self described “five weekend challenge” to his body. The first weekend (July 10) is the all uphill Grandfather’s Mountain Marathon in Boone, North Carolina which is self described as “America’s Toughest Marathon.” The following weekend, on July 18, he runs in the tropics at the Rio De Janeiro Marathon in Brazil. The next weekend is July 25 and the Madison Marathon in Madison County, Montana (www.themadisonmarathon.com) with its starting line at 9,200 feet above sea level. Just seven days later on August 1, Holmes travels 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle where he will run together with his wife in the world’s most northerly ultra-marathon in the 24 hours of sunlight on Somerset Island in the Canadian Territory of Nunavut. He wraps it all up the following weekend with a trail ultra-marathon in England whose route passes through ‘new’ sites such as 2,000 year old Roman roads as well as ‘old’ sites like Stonehenge which was built around 2,500 BC. After one month’s rest, Holmes will complete 21 more marathons before the end of the year. At the beginning of 2004 at the age of 54, Jeff Bishton, a 50 State Club member from Florida, started walking in order to lose weight as part of his New Year’s Resolution. It worked and the walking turned into treadmill running in order to keep the weight off. He continued to walk, but found himself fantasizing about running a marathon one day which he eventually did in Baltimore in October of 2004. At his third marathon in Florida, he spotted a runner with a 50 State singlet and asked about the club. “The idea of the club intrigued me and I decided to do it and my goal would be 50 by 60 or 50 marathons by age 60. I figured I would need to run six marathons a year,” said Bishton who earned the nickname ‘Cowboy Jeff’ because he always wears a cowboy hat during his races. At his eighth marathon, he upped his ambitions when he learned about the Marathon Maniacs who have a star rating system. The 10-star level, the highest of the club, is 30 marathons in 30 different states in a calendar year. He first accomplished this feat in 2007 and has earned 10 stars each year since. The Madison Marathon will be Bishton’s 151st marathon overall. Bishton says the appeal to the 50 State Club is the chance to travel around the country and visit small towns like Ennis. He tends to stick to the smaller events because of the people and the small town support. “I think marathoners enjoy a challenge and anytime they see a most or in Madison's case highest they are attracted to it,” said Bishton in an online interview with race director Sam Korsmoe. There are six Montanans in the club and as of this writing Jeff Bollman from Billings will be carrying the 50 State flag for the Big Sky state. “For me, it’s just an excuse to go and visit different places,” says Bollman about being a 50 State Club member. The Madison Marathon will be his 35th marathon and he has 18 states covered as well as completing a marathon in Germany. He has run two marathons and two ultra-marathons (longer than 26.2 miles) in June of this year. He will have run the Missoula Marathon on July 11 prior to the Madison. “I’ve been wanting to do it [the Madison] for some time,” he said noting that he tried to schedule the race in for the first and second year but always had a conflict. “I like to do small races and running on a nice gravel road with good scenery will be a lot of fun.” Like the elevation of the marathon route itself, Sam Korsmoe, the race director and founder of the race, has set some lofty goals. “I want this race to become one of those really unique experiences for runners and to leave them with a lasting and good impression of this part of Montana,” said Korsmoe from his Ennis office. Korsmoe is the executive director of Madison County Economic Development Council and West Yellowstone Economic Development. The two nonprofit corporations are co-sponsoring the Madison Marathon together with Wild West Photos of Bozeman. “My first two goals for the race are to first cap out [sell out] within five years and, second, to have international runners within 10 years,” said Korsmoe. Not to be outdone by the international runners or the sheer number of marathons completed by others, Steve Rumley from Helena and Sunni Knapton from Ennis are among a small handful of runners who are unique in their own right. These two runners, with probably more to follow, will have run in all three Madison Marathons. “The elevation aspect is what attracted me. I also knew it was going to be scenic,” said Rumley from Helena who intends to keep his Madison Marathon streak going as long as he can. Rumley did not start running until he was in his 50s, but he is making up for it now. The day before the Madison he will be running an uphill race in Jackson Wyoming that gains 1,600 feet over 2.3 miles. “I like that the Madison is a boutique event that is out of the way,” said Rumley in a phone interview from Helena. The Madison Marathon is still open to runners. The deadline for online registration is midnight on Friday, July 23rd. Runners can also register in person on Saturday from 4 to 6 PM at Peter T's Park in Ennis. There is no race day registration. For more information call Sam Korsmoe at 406-682-5923. |
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