Seward's Matt Adams was an interstate sensation Sunday in a Montana marathon.
Adams shattered the record in the Missoula Marathon with a race that set a Montana state record and ranks fifth among the fastest marathons by an Alaskan.
Adams, 26, running his first 26.2-mile race in more than two years, finished in 2 hours, 20 minutes, 27.91 seconds – a performance that came at an altitude of 3,200 feet.
He shaved more than six minutes off his previous best, a 2:26:36 in September 2011.
His time wiped out the previous Missoula Marathon record (2:26:10, set last year) and is the fastest recorded in any Montana marathon, according to the Missoulian newspaper.
It's the fifth fastest by an Alaskan, a list topped by Chugiak's David Morris, who ran 2:09:32 in 1999. Adams, who won the Mayor's Marathon in 2012 and finished second in the Crow Pass Crossing backcountry marathon that summer, bumped Will Kimball (2:21:28 in 1999) out of the top five.
Adams, a former runner for Montana State, told KECI TV of Missoula that he is hoping to meet the qualifying standard for the 2016 Olympic marathon trials.
"I haven't run a marathon in two years so I'm just trying to get back into it," Adams told KECI. "Trials are next year so I'm about a minute away, a minute and a half. If I had (met the standard) I would have sat back and relaxed, but now I've got some work to do."
Alaskas fastest marathon times
David Morris, 2:09:32, 1999
Jesse Cherry, 2:16:31, 2012
Rick Wilhelm, 2:17:00, 1991
Kris Mueller, 2:19:26, 1986
Matt Adams, 2:20:27, 2014