Each of the first three Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathons was blessed by beautiful spring weather, but the laws of probability caught up with us this year. After another dry winter, early April conditions on foothills trails above Salt Lake City were fast—until a storm on Thursday before the run covered the course with several inches of snow. The sun came out on Friday, melting the snow from all but two high ridge sections of the course and leaving behind a lot of muddy trail.
At 8 a.m. on Saturday, 56 runners gathered under an overcast sky to begin the first (northwest) loop, which includes 10.6 miles of singletrack and jeep roads and 3100’ of elevation gain and loss. At 9 a.m. it began to snow again and continued the rest of the day. The snow melted as it landed, and thus the trail went from muddy to sloppy to downright treacherous, and the runners went from damp to wet to thoroughly sodden. From the amount of mud worn by some finishers, it was hard to believe that they left any on the course! Yet, in spite of tough weather and tougher trail conditions, the 35 finishers were the most ever, and among them were some terrific performances.
As in the two previous years, Karl Meltzer and Ken Jensen took the early lead, chased this year by Leland Barker, Shane Martin, Kevin Reynolds and Derek Blaylock. Karl and Ken opened a five-minute lead by the end of the first loop and continued to stretch it out around the 15.8 mile southeast loop, with Meltzer pulling away in the last 5 miles for the victory. Karl’s time was only 10 minutes off of the course record that he set last year and, given the conditions, this year’s run may actually have been the better effort. Ken’s finish actually was four minutes quicker than his previous best, making him one of seven 2003 finishers who improved on 2002 times that were run in vastly better conditions. Derek Blaylock was the only member of the early chase pack who did not fade on the southeast loop, and he recorded the fastest time ever by anyone besides Karl and Ken. On the women’s side, Ruth Zollinger ran virtually unchallenged from the start and finished only 11 minutes slower than her 2001 winning time.
The BSTM remains a “no fee, no t-shirt, no promises” event, but numerous participants made donations to offset the modest cost of putting on the event (mainly for aid at three points on the course). Cynthia Daniels, long-time regular in of the Wasatch trail-running scene, had to pass up the BSTM for the first time owing to a serious stress fracture. To make up for it, she and Fred Riemer ran the City Creek aid station at the end of the first loop. Tony DeArcos apparently is more than usually fond of that loop—in good weather, it does provide sweeping vistas of the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake—because he passed up the southeast loop to spend the afternoon doing a second lap of the northwest loop to remove course markings. As an addendum to the BST Marathon report, it may be noted that Dale and Shauna Heisler volunteered to sweep flags from behind the U and Red Butt. Thanks for being willing to help. Many runners brought goodies to share at a good-natured, if chilly, impromptu pot-luck feast at the finish. The lobster bisque was ESPECIALLY good!
the B O S H O
Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon
April 5, 2003
26.3 miles,
trails
1 Karl Meltzer
4:03
2 Ken Jensen
4:09
3 Derek Blaylock 4:25
4 Leland Barker 4:43
5 Shane Martin
4:58
6 Ruth Zollinger
5:03
7 Nathan Durtschi 5:03
8 Tim Seminoff
5:04
9 Kevin Reynolds 5:07
10 Dave Hunt
5:17
11 Dale Heisler
5:17
12 Troy Olsen
5:19
13 Charlie Vincent 5:23
14 Jeff LaMora 5:23
15 Brian Kamm 5:33
16 Pat McMurtry 5:33
17 Chuck Wight 5:38
18 Roger Adams 5:39
19 Lyle Nay
6:06
20 Marty Kovener 6:12
20 Mike Fitzimons 6:12
22 Grizz Randall 6:19
23 Jill Bohney
6:21
24 Nick Bassett 6:23
24 Ferrett Diroll 6:23
26 Eve Davies
6:29
26 Sean Wetterberg 6:29
28 Colleen Ford
6:33
28 Karl Brailsford 6:33
30 Shauna Heisler 6:50
30 Scott Neilson 6:55
32 Barb Elias
7:01
33 Bert Ley
7:15
34 Jodi Martin
7:32
35 Bryan Todd 7:47
the B o S h o r t
First loop (ca. 10 miles)
Murray Schart 1:50
Martin Pahl
1:57
Stan Larrabee 2:00
Tony DeArcos 2:05
John Lindblom 2:05
Paola del Ossa 2:05
Rick Clayton 2:07
Andrew Wittwer 2:12
Greg Clark
2:15
Lisa Brunhart 2:23
Ulrich Brunhart 2:23
Dave Blaylock 2:23
Wendy Wittwer 2:30
Chris Campbell 2:30
Martha Pierce 2:30
Chris Kline
2:32
Vanessa Oklyas 2:37
Grizz reported nasty, freezing wet, stormy conditions as a winter storm moved into the area a couple of hours after the run started. He figures it slowed some of the runners down, maybe by as much as a half hour. Ankle deep mud competed with clay mud/adobe bricks sticking to shoes. But hey, no bikers! Right? Grizz slowed to 6:19 for his race and saw Karl Meltzer, Ken Jensen, Derek Blaylock, and Leland Barker in the lead in that order coming up the trail in Dry Creek on their way to the Black Mountain chin scraping climb.