Nordic ski marathon 03/17/10

Story last updated at 9:43 PM on Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Nordic ski marathon

Heavy snowfall creates challenge for skiers and groomers

BY RYAN M. LONG

It was a race to finish grooming the trails as much as it was a race to the finish at the Kachemak Nordic Ski Club's marathon last Saturday.

Photographer: Ryan Long, Homer News

Will Anderson leads around the first bend at Lookout Mtn. Anderson finished 23rd.

This year marked the largest turnout ever for the event, with nearly 100 skiers primarily from Homer, Soldotna and Anchorage participating. The going was tough both in terms of competition and in race conditions with a slow track that had to be busily groomed after a week of blizzards.

Originally billed as a full 42K race for the marathon and a 25K race, the event was revamped due to the heavy snowfall and the two races were combined into one 30K, a bit of a relief for the longer racers, but a sudden hike in work for the shorter-length racers.

"The snow was soft and cold, so that the skiers who came prepared to ski a longer race were tired enough, and the skiers who came expecting to ski a shorter race were exhausted. But they all seemed to have a good time," said Marylou Burton, race organizer.

Billy Day, David Stutzer, Dave Brann and John Miles led the grooming effort with the help of others. "I was one of about fourteen groomers up there. It was a lot of work all week long because of all the new snow," said Dave Brann.

The trail had to be beaten down with several snowmachine passes before drag-behind grooming tools or rollers could be used. "It firmed up pretty good for the skiers. It was still soft in some of the places but there was a huge effort put into the grooming and we really did a lot of work to get that trail finished before Saturday," said Brann.

Initially, the plan had been to connect the Lookout Mountain trails to the Baycrest trails all the way down to the Sterling Highway, which, over the winter, groomers were able to do piece by piece.

The cowbell sounded the start of the KNSC marathon at Lookout Mtn. Over 100 skiers came from both the Kenai and Anchorage areas.

With the heavy snow accumulation, race organizers and trail groomers had to scramble to come up with a new plan for the marathon, and so they settled on the 30K and were still able to connect to the Sterling Highway. The marathon trail will still be available for skiers looking to try it out, so long as the weather holds and the grooming is kept up.

2010 marked the largest turnout so far for the KNSC marathon and Burton said that it only looks to grow over the coming years.

Here is how Homer skiers, and nearly 30 skiers from out of town finished up:

30K - Women

1 Steer, Rachel 2:07:29

2 Carbonell, Diana 2:12:11

3 Crawford, Devon 2:13:07

4 Barnel, Aurelie 2:15:29

5 Hauser, Becky 2:23:25

6 Loan, Sheryl 2:23:47

7 Forbes,Susan 2:28:24

8 Osmond, Jeanne 2:33:08

9 Rauch, Carlin 2:35:36

10 Sarns-Irwin, Kathy 2:37:12

11 O'Hara, Alison 2:40:45

12 Richardson, Kirsten 2:41:59

13 Toll, Ellen 2:42:45

14 Wrigley, Debbie 2:42:48

15 Miller, Alaine 2:43:18

16 Schmidt, Marie 2:43:26

17 Butera, Liz 2:45:40

18 Wear, Tamra 2:51:17

19 Evans, Diana 2:52:45

20 Bladow, Melanie 2:59:23

21 Buckelew, Stacey 2:59:45

22 Schmidt, Emily 3:03:11

23 Hopp, Karen 3:07:44

24 Clemens, Kara 3:32:52

25 Claerbout, Ann 3:48:44

26 Storm, Caroline 3:58:20

27 Sue Mauger 4:00:33

28 Schmidt, Tara 4:10:30

29 Alexson, Mia 4:11:17

30 Alexson, Marie 4:11:18

31 Lord, Rachel 4:25:43

32 Zitzman, Lori 4:29:27

33 Marquardt, Karen 4:35:34

34 Lewandowski, Therese 4:39:16

35 Anderson, Christine 4:48:26

36 Anderson, Stephanie 4:55:28

37 Johnson, Solvein 4:55:28

38 Melambianakis, Dorothy 4:55:28

39 Lowe, Catriona 4:55:28

40 Harrald, Ingrid 4:55:28

41 Van Tuyn, Marielle 5:08:36

42 Bessenyey, Liska 5:17:00

43 Bessenyey, Llann 5:17:00

44 Laukitis,Shelly 5:17:00

45 Neal, Amanda 5:17:01

46 O'Donnell, Tela 5:17:01

30K - Men

1 Crawford, Jeremy 1:52:44

2 Hessong, Randy 1:56:33

3 Peterson, Kent 1:57:03

4 Klaar, Jens 1:59:51

5 Hauser,Scott 2:02:21

6 Smith, Mark 2:06:28

7 Bergt, Steven 2:07:24

8 Spencer, Bill 2:09:22

9 Harbison, Intimayo 2:09:44

10 Blackmon, Tim 2:09:49

11 Bannish, Jeffrey 2:13:17

12 Harbison, Dan 2:18:25

13 Van Tuyn, Peter 2:18:49

14 McFarland, Mace 2:19:05

15 Berryman, Jon 2:19:14

16 Erikson, Brian 2:19:45

17 Laukitis, Buck 2:22:11

18 Stewart, Charlie 2:22:15

19 McMahon, Neil 2:23:19

20 Loan, Alex 2:23:47

21 Graz, Mike 2:25:08

22 Robinson, Ray 2:25:47

23 Anderson, Will 2:25:54

24 Dickerson, Gary 2:26:17

25 Petter, Rick 2:35:19

26 Gutzler , Paul 2:36:13

27 Seaman, Glen 2:42:50

28 Kidd, Gerald 2:43:31

29 Roth, Solen 2:45:18

30 Leveque, Jerome 2:47:57

31 Earll, TJ 2:50:23

32 Campbell, Sean 2:56:33

33 Gengler, Bob 2:59:26

34 Bloom, Kenton 3:00:41

35 Stedman, Ben 3:05:01

36 Backus , Gene 3:07:44

37 Pitcher, Don 3:20:28

38 Crawford, Clancy 3:23:53

39 Clemens, David 3:32:53

40 Priest, Todd 3:34:19

41 Kleinleder, Rich 3:40:29

42 Barnel, Yoann 3:53:56

43 Walker , Kevin 3:56:20

44 Heston, Jim 3:59:42

45 Day, Billy 4:01:36

46 Purington, Stanley 4:08:51

47 Zitzman, Tom 4:34:06

48 Head, Wes 4:45:57

49 Anderson, Deland 4:48:26

50 Olson, Bjorn 4:55:11

51 McCarthy, Mike 5:06:00

Homer Alaska - Sports