‘It’s been a good run’

Published 10:30 pm Tuesday, July 8, 2025

When Fred Moore, 85, of Seward does something, he wants to do it right.

That’s why the decision for him to end his record streak at 54 straight finishes in the Mount Marathon Race in Seward on the Fourth of July was not as hard as one might think.

“Once I reasoned it out a little bit, it was quite easy,” he said.

Moore said health issues were 90% of his reasoning not take on the 97th running of the race up and down to the 3,022-foot race point.

“I’m not really competitive,” he said. “I don’t go out there trying to defeat people or anything like that. When I do something, I try to do it well.

“That was my main goal, rather than trying to beat my friends, because the camaraderie in that thing is something special.

“There’s people that I consider close friends even though I might only see them one day a year. We all have that bond of the Mount Marathon Race.”

The Mount Marathon Race, first run in 1915, is about 5 kilometers and starts and ends on a half mile of city streets. The rest is a climb and descent of a mountain with an average steepness of 34 degrees and a max of 60 degrees.

Just finishing the race 54 straight times shows a commitment to excellence, but Moore took it a step further.

He’s not sure his consecutive race record is safe, but he said another of his accomplishments is.

“One thing that’s not going to happen that I can just about guarantee is the fact that I have an age group award for every single year that I ran,” he said.

That means in each of his 54 races, starting in 1970, Moore’s preparation was so on point that he finished in the top five of his age group. He’s got 54 pieces of hardware to prove it.

“Some of them are medallions, some of them are plaques, some of them are cups,” he said. “It’s all changed over the years, but I have 54 of them.”

Moore, who retired from the construction business about 15 years ago, said there were two main health issues that kept him from adding a 55th.

“Maybe as much as three years ago, when I’d go for a run, after it was over, I’d pee blood,” Moore said.

He said he looked that up on his cellphone and determined it was not too serious, but then he did a 17-mile training run for the Equinox Marathon a few years ago and the blood lasted until the second day.

“I didn’t do much running after that,” he said. “And if you don’t run, well, that’s one of the things that keeps you in shape.

“Even though climbing up and down the mountain and running (down) the street didn’t cause me any problems, you still have to run to be able to get to the mountain.

“It’s just a half mile, but I’m not going to walk that, even though last year I did a little bit of it. I don’t want to be getting to the mountain five minutes after everybody and not making the cutoff time.”

Moore also said he has tachycardia, a condition where the heart has episodes of beating faster than normal. Moore said during those episodes, the heart is not efficient in delivering oxygen.

“One thing that causes it is stress, and one thing that is kind of stressful is lining up at the starting line to get ready for the race,” he said. “For the last two years, it’s just kicked on when I was getting ready to start.

“That makes running up the street kind of problematic.”

Moore said in addition to those two physical issues stacked against him at the starting line, he also had other priorities than getting ready for the race.

“Midwinter, I hadn’t really decided for sure at that point, so I still signed up for it, in case it came together,” Moore said. “From midwinter on, I wasn’t really expecting to do it.”

Going into this spring, Moore hadn’t had a successful black bear hunt for the last two years.

He was able to put in many days climbing 800 to 1,000 feet with a pack this spring, but his hunting effort came up short.

That meant he wasn’t preparing for the race, but he was still fit enough for proper spectating.

The junior race turnaround is halfway up the mountain. Moore was there to cheer everybody on, including his Kasilof grandsons, 14-year-old Charlie Moore and 10-year old Matthew Moore.

Fred then climbed up to watch the women and men round race point, including his son, 39-year-old Walter Moore of Kasilof.

“I got a lot of smiles, handshakes and hugs,” Fred said. “When I finally left the top and was ready to head down, a whole lot of them — some were spectators, some of them were media, some of them were race officials and everything else — when I started down there were a whole bunch of voices that said, ‘Goodbye, Fred.’”

Moore did get to experience things he would not have if he was racing. He got to watch David Norris, on his way to six men’s wins in six tries, go down the snowfield just off the summit.

“I’ve never seen anybody go down the snow the way he did,” Moore said.

Norris was able to stay on his feet while rocketing down the steep patch of snow, but that was not all.

“He wasn’t just digging in his heels and stopping himself,” Moore said. “He was pushing hard with every step going down that snow.”

Norris now has four of the fastest five times in the history of the race, including the course record of 40 minutes, 37 seconds, from 2024.

Moore said he’d love to see Norris break 40 minutes.

Is that even possible?

“Of course,” Moore said. “If you get the right day, the right person and some of the right people pushing him.”

Another iconic number that may or may not be broken is 54.

Braun Kopsack, 68, of Palmer had his 47th finish this year, including his 41st straight.

Lance Kopsack, 60, of Palmer now has 41 finishes, all consecutive. Even more impressive, he finished in 1:08:53 this year.

“I had a chat with him before I was heading up the mountain in the forest,” Moore said of Lance. “He was at the Jeep Road base, down by the gate.

“We talked for a little while. He said he’s determined not to do more than 54.”

Everett Billingslea, 64, of Seattle has 43 finishes and a streak of 38, while Steven Carroll, 63, of Anchorage has 43 finishes and a streak of 40.

For the women, both Ellyn Brown, 72, of Anchorage and Patti Foldager, 67, of Hope have finished 42. Brown has 35 straight while Foldager has 33.

Brown is the only one of all of the above with consistency coming close to Moore’s. The race website only has age group results back to 2005, but in that time Brown has been out of the top five just once.

Moore has not given up on more Mount Marathon finishes. He said he will try to start running on soft ground and cushy shoes to see if that helps with the issue of blood in his urine.

“It’s unlikely, but I haven’t given up and we’ll see how things pan out,” he said of more races.

Moore is not the oldest Mount Marathon finisher. That belongs to Chad Resari of Anchorage. Last year, at 88, Resari finished the Golden Racer option, which goes halfway up the mountain.

This year, Resari did not make the cutoff. Moore said he doesn’t want to do the Golden Racer option and beat up on Resari. Moose also noted that option doesn’t solve the problem of having to run to the mountain.

If Moore has raced his last Mount Marathon, he said he’s determined to remain active and not be a one-trick pony. In addition to the spring bear hunting, Moore also biked hundreds of miles last winter thanks to the lack of snow.

“It’s been a good run, but it can’t last forever,” Moore said. “That’s just realism.”