Running 50K up and down Juneau’s mountains as a warmup? Yes, for some Nifty Fifty racers

Running a 50K race mostly on mountain trails was just a warmup for Brian Hitchcock, who said he’s planning to run more than three times that distance — 100 miles, to be exact — to celebrate his 50th birthday in a couple of months.

“So this was a good motivator to just get out and do a good, steady run with some company,” he said.

Hitchcock was the overall winner of the annual Nifty Fifty race on Saturday that includes — among other stretches — Salmon Creek Trail, Perseverance Trail, and finishes with a there-and-back trip up the Mt. Roberts Trail to the Father Brown Cross.

More than 5,000 feet of elevation gain occurs along the way and, since the start and finish lines are at the same place, it also means the same amount of downhill running to punish the knees if not the lungs.

Hitchcock finished in five hours, 16 minutes and 14 seconds, short of the course record of 3:54:38 set in 2017 by Allan Spangler, who was 30 years old at the time. A total of 14 people participated in the full-length course, with 40 additional people running 25K and 10K courses along a part of the full race route, according to race director Keith Levy.

Hitchcock said he did the Nifty Fifty about a decade ago and his last 50K race anywhere was a couple of years ago, but while “I didn’t do a lot of racing I kept running.”

Getting back into long racing form this summer is important because he’s scheduled to participate in the Kodiak Ultra Marathons by UTMB, a 100-mile course that circumvents Big Bear Lake in the mountains of southern California, in October. The event also offers four other shorter course lengths and he said friends are taking part in some of those as part of his landmark birthday celebration.

“We’re actually moving down to Washington so this is also a little bit of a nice sendoff,” said Hitchcock, who moved to Juneau in 1996.

The full 50K course was also just an intended warm-up for Aaron and Tracy Morrison, who said they have qualified for the ÖTILLÖ Swinrun ultra-endurance race that takes place in Sweden in early September. The course involves 60 kilometers of trail running and 10 kilometers of open-water swimming across 25 islands in the Stockholm archipelago.

The couple’s goal for the Nifty Fifty was staying together — since that will be a key element in Sweden — and testing out their “wet” shoes as well as their traditional running footwear on part of the course.

“We’re partnered together, and basically your setup is kind of a running wetsuit with shoes that are drainable and you have paddles,” Aaron Morrison said.

Mostly overcast skies and cool temperatures made for what Levy called ideal weather for such a race and participants said the course — which saw some last-minute changes due to some trail sections that were inaccessible — was in good shape.

“This was good in terms of keeping your knees healthy, just nice and soft,” said Caitlyn Fleischman, the women’s winner of the 25K course in a time of 2:55:30. “It’s rocky and technical coming down Roberts so you have to think about it differently, you have to conserve your coordination. So I feel like a lot more people were walking the hills early, rather than wasting their energy and pushing it hard knowing that you have that big obstacle at the end. So it is different.”

Fleischman, who turned 30 this year and has run two previous 50K races, said she didn’t set out this year with the intent of trying to win the shorter course.

“I was just going to run casually with my sister, but I just got that race energy and then kept going, and it felt good,” she said.

The men’s winner of the 25K with a time of 2:28:16 was Seth Nolen, who said he moved to Juneau two years ago and has only participated in two local races during that time. One of those was the Goldbelt Tram-Mount Roberts Run that’s a one-way trip up to the Father Brown Cross, but Nolen said it’s a completely difference experience making a round-trip after first running the Perseverance and Red Mill trails.

“This was pretty much what I expected, but the tram at the end of the race is kind of a killer,” he said. “They shove that when you’re tired about 10 miles in. So it’s pretty tough, but, I paced decent for it so I was able to finish OK.”

The last-minute changes, occurring for reasons such as a bridge that is out near the end of Perseverance Trail, had to be mapped out and trekked by Levy, who has been directing the race for the past 15 years. He said this is his last year of doing so, however, so somebody else will need to step in next year.

“It’s a ton of work,” he said when asked why he’s stepping down. “It’s exhausting.”

Full race results will be available at https://ultrasignup.com/results_event.aspx?did=113408.

• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.