Kodiak runner finishes second at prep national championship

For a guy with no game plan going into the race, that's pretty good.

"I didn't have much of a strategy. Just to be up with the leaders, in contention. I was ready for anything," said Dunbar, a senior at Kodiak High.

"I just put it all on the line and wasn't afraid of anyone."

The only runner ahead of Dunbar at the annual Foot Locker championships at Balboa Park was Solomon Haile, who goes to school in Silver Springs, Md., but comes from Ethiopia, a country famous for its distance runners. Haile won the five-kilometer race in 15 minutes, 15 seconds, seven seconds ahead of Dunbar.

"I feel fantastic," Dunbar said. "It's been so much fun meeting new friends."

First he meets them, then he beats them.

Dunbar was one of 40 runners Saturday in a field composed of the top 10 finishers from four regional meets held last weekend.

Most of the runners recently wrapped up their high school seasons, and most have been training on ice-free terrain.

Meanwhile, Dunbar has been clocking miles in the snow ever since his high school season ended more than two months ago.

After running what he felt was a slow first mile in 4:47, Dunbar moved into the top three, where he and Haile found each other.

"It was me and Solomon running stride for stride," he said. "Then at the 2-mile mark he started getting ahead."

In the last mile of the hilly, 3.1-mile course, Dunbar tried to push the pace, but he remained 10 to 20 meters behind Haile. With 800 meters to go, Thomas Porter of Fredericksburg, Va., made a charge to catch Dunbar.

It was about then that Dunbar's dad, on the sideline, started to sweat.

"I was in doubt whether he could keep second," Marcus Dunbar said. "But he had a really nice last 300 meters."

Dunbar's dad is also his coach -- and an accomplished runner himself. The elder Dunbar, who graduated from Bartlett High, was a perennial winner of the Heart Run during the 1990s and, even more impressively, won the national indoor mile championship in 1994.

Now it's his son who is making a name for himself on the national level. The younger Dunbar, a three-time state cross country champion, raced in four major Outside races this season, winning two of them, placing second in one and third in another.

His performance Saturday marked the best finish by an Alaskan at the national cross country meet. In 1992, Miguel Gomez of West High placed 13th, which is believed to be the best showing by an Alaskan until Dunbar came along.

"I was idolizing these guys growing up, and to be one of those guys that people look up to, it's almost a dream come true," Dunbar said.

Dunbar plans to head back to Kodiak tonight, where he intends to crash on the couch and enjoy some Christmas cookies.