Runner conquers 34th annual Arctic Valley Run

  • Published
  • By Mary Rall
  • Alaska Post editor
ANCHORAGE, Alaska --  Although 76 runners took on the steep inclines of the 34th Arctic Valley Run Saturday, it was Anchorage runner, Travis Rudge and family member Alex Babos, who were the respective winners of the day's 12.6- and five-mile races. 

Rudge, a first-time run participant, won the race up Arctic Valley Road to the ski lodge parking lot and back down to the bottom of the hill against 21 other runners with a time of 1 hour, 27 minutes and 49.28 seconds, a little more than one minute faster than second-place finisher Sean Edmunds, 1:28:54.96. 

Fifteen-year-old Chugiak High School cross country running team member Babos of Eagle River, who was also new to the race this year, ran the five-mile course in 31:55.53, edging out second-place finisher Roland Delavega, 32:06.46, the recent winner of Fort Richardson's Army Ten-Miler qualification run. 

Al Alston, the Buckner Physical Fitness Center sports director, said the 6.3 miles comprising the first half of the 12.6-mile run to the top is the most challenging aspect of the race. 

"The gradient is kind of straight up at some points," he said. "Hopefully they trained for it, because it's a shock to the body to have to go up and up and up and up and then (to get) a pounding on the down slope." 

Rudge, a former Army infantryman, said he didn't go into the run with any particular strategy. 

"Once you succumb to the realization that it's just going to keep going up, then you just slug along until you get to the top," he said of the 12.6-mile course, which reached an elevation of 2,500 feet. "It's kind of like a breath of fresh air once you get to the turnaround, and it's almost home free." 

Babos said he worked to remain focused on the goal of reaching the halfway point of the 800-foot elevation in the five-miler. 

"I just kept looking for that turnaround point," he said. "I hit it and was like, 'I just want to finish, just get to the finish.'" 

Lloyd Raines, a retired servicemember and a previous winner of the run, placed third in the five-miler with a time of 32:24.60. 

Raines said he looks at the run as an opportunity for a good workout. 

"I like it because it really causes you to work hard up the hill, and down the hill it's all speed," he said, adding Delevega really gave him a run for his money. 

"I was ahead of him coming up the hill. I passed him," Raines said. "And then coming down, he had a spring in his legs, and (is) much younger, so it was all speed coming down." 

However, despite the speed displayed by the run's winners, the record of 1:06.44 set by Jim Galanes in 1982 for the third oldest run in the state remains unbeaten.