Not every racer in Sunday's Alaska Gold Nugget Triathlon was as fast as third-place finisher Amber Stull, but if you look beyond the race clock that separates the swift, the slow and the in-between, you find ample common ground.
As Stull approached the finish line at Chugiak High School and saw the majestic mountains, the blue sky and the brilliant sunshine, she remembered why she spent the morning swimming, biking and running 12.2 miles.
"You have to be so thankful you have the health to do all of it," she said. "You do it because you can."
As she spoke, hundreds of competitors were still on the course. Hundreds more were waiting to begin their race. None of them would come close to Stull's time of 51 minutes, 38 seconds, but many shared her sentiments.
Somewhere in the middle of the pack of 1,200 competitors, 13 women calling themselves AK CAKES raced in honor of a colleague who can't.
CAKES is an acronym for Cancer Ass-Kicking Exercising Superstars, a group of medical professionals from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.
One of their own -- pediatrician Shana Weber -- was recently diagnosed with advanced-stage adrenal cancer and is getting chemotherapy treatment in Michigan, where she has family.
Weber's diagnosis came six weeks after the birth of her 1-year-old, pediatrician Anna Ogena said, who said the prognosis is daunting: The five-year survival rate of advanced-stage adrenal cancer is less than 1 percent.
"If anyone can beat it, she can," Ogena said. "She has a will of steel."
As Weber musters the strength to battle long odds, her friends decided they should demonstrate their support in a way that would be meaningful to Weber, a Gold Nugget veteran who was named to the city's task force on obesity four years ago.
"We can all get off our butts and train," Ogena said. "We love her so much. The whole time I will think about her."
Ogena, 37, was a first-time triathlete, as were several others on the AK CAKES team. Rookies are always welcome at the Gold Nugget, a 26-year-old event that's one of the oldest and biggest all-female triathlons in North America.
For every Shannon Donley and Lori Deschamps -- a pair of former champs who staged a stirring sprint finish Sunday, with Donley winning by two seconds to claim victory in 50:47 -- there are dozens of newbies who side-stroke, back float and bob their way across the swimming pool.
Each year offers stories like Amanda Heard's. Heard is a 37-year-old mother of two who has lost 72 pounds in the last two years and entered the triathlon, her first, to commemorate her achievement.
She went from 225 pounds to 153 thanks to a miracle weight-loss program -- "Eat less, move more," she said.
She started by taking walks that eventually turned into runs, and she joined Weight Watchers. Now she can't imagine an inactive life.
"My body craves exercise," she said. "When I don't exercise, I get really fatigued."
Heard is proud of the U-turn she's taken, but she's in awe of her friend Dana McDonald, who helped persuade her to enter the triathlon.
"She's doing it with an injury -- maybe with a cracked rib," Heard said. "She's inspiring."
So was the finish produced by Donley and Deschamps, winners of a combined nine Gold Nugget titles.
They treated the crowd to one of the closest finishes in race history, with Donley winning her sixth title by coming from behind to beat Deschamps, a three-time winner.
Donley, 37, wasn't first to leave the Chugiak pool after the 300-yard swim, but she grabbed command during the 9-mile bike. Deschamps, 38, used the 3-mile run to close the gap, taking the lead briefly as the pair rounded a corner to enter the high school parking lot, but Donley found a burst of speed to surge ahead down the final stretch. Donley finished in 50:47, Deschamps in 50:49.
Less than a minute later came Stull, who found inspiration recently while swimming. She shared the pool with a man who'd been paralyzed in a bike wreck, and meeting him furthered her resolve to train and compete.
"That's all the more reason to lay it all out there," Stull said, "because so many people can't."
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.
Top 10 finishers
1) Shannon Donley, 50:47
2) Lori Deschamps, 50:49
3) Amber Stull, 51:38
4) Kristi Waythomas, 53:24
5) Larrell Lockard, 53:45
6) Danelle Winn, 54:45
7) Jenny Kimball, 54:55
8) Suzanne Wheatall, 55:16
9) Holly Brooks, 55:19
10) Natasha Bergt, 57:04
By BETH BRAGG
bbragg@adn.com