Seward's Famed Mt. Marathon race suffers two big headlines | Golden Skate

Seward's Famed Mt. Marathon race suffers two big headlines

Tonichelle

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Seward hosts a race every 4th of July with a race up Mt. Marathon... basically you hike up the very steep terrain and then gravity makes you run at break neck speeds down rocky steep dangerous terrain. In the 85 years no one has died, but bloody broken bodies have been the norm... it's one of those crazy Alaskan traditions, and people sign up in record number every year (I'm friends with several of the annual crazies).

This year, however, the race is looking at its possible first death with a missing runner - who still hasn't been found and if he didn't die in a fall he certainly is looking at death with injuries and hypothermia (which you don't need freezing temps to deal with it).

Then today news out of Seward is that there's a second man in the hostpital in a coma because of a fall that resulted in a massive head injury - though he seems to be doing better...

http://sewardcitynews.com/
 
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Violet Bliss

Record Breaker
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
I have never participated in such a race but I can tell you how difficult it is to run uphill and how dangerous it is to run downhill. Crazy indeed. Another extreme sport? No monitors along the way?
 
Tonichelle

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
They have monitors along the way, however it sounds like they passed him on the mountain - they were headed down while he was still headed up. It makes no sense.
 
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Olympia

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Yipes! Between this and the running of the bulls at Pamplona, there's no worry that the human race is losing its moxie.
 
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Olympia

Joined
Aug 16, 2009
That's too bad, but it's not entirely surprising to hear.

Today they showed the Ironman Triathlon on TV. It's run (and swum and biked) in Hawaii, and though it's not as perilous as the mountain run, it does seem a bit unhinged: competitors swim about 2 miles, bike about 100 miles, and then RUN A FULL-DISTANCE MARATHON. Several of the competitors were 70 years old or more. It takes a special kind of person to put himself or herself through that. At least they get the swimming over with first, when they're fresh, so no one seems to drown from sheer fatigue.
 
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