International mountain-running stars Emelie Forsberg and Kilian Jornet, who obliterated course records in their Mount Marathon debuts last Fourth of July, appear doubtful to defend their titles in Seward this summer.
Forsberg, a 29-year-old Swede, underwent reconstructive surgery on her right knee in February after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in a skiing accident.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend Jornet, a 28-year-old Spaniard, has only one race in the U.S. on his summer calendar. Jornet in mid-July will defend his title at Colorado's Hardrock 100-Mile Endurance Run — that torture test features 68,000 feet of elevation change, all of it above 11,000 feet in elevation. He has won that race in record time the last two years.
Also, Soldotna's Allie Ostrander, who last year finished runner-up to Forsberg in her scintillating senior-division debut at Mount Marathon, will likely have to choose this summer between Mount Marathon and the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials.
Ostrander, 19, a Boise State freshman and the 2015 world junior mountain running champion, has qualified for the Trials in the 5,000 meters. The opening-round heats of that event are set for July 7, three days after Mount Marathon, in Eugene, Oregon.
Forsberg said by email that she entered Mount Marathon, the iconic race up and down the 3,022-foot peak overlooking Resurrection Bay, in the event her rehabilitation proceeds quickly. Still, Mount Marathon comes less than five months after her Feb. 18 surgery, putting her participation in doubt.
"I don't think I will be able to run it this year, at least not in the shape I want to be,'' Forsberg wrote. "I applied, just in case!''
Laura Font, a spokesman for Jornet, said he doesn't plan to travel to Alaska this summer because he is focused on his attempt to set the fastest known time up and down Mount Everest as part of his "Summits of My Life" project. Jornet in 2014 made it from Kahiltna Base Camp at 7,300 feet to the summit of 20,310-foot Denali and back to base camp in less than 12 hours.
Font in an email held out a sliver of hope Jornet could adjust his schedule to return to Mount Marathon this summer.
"(He) liked so much your race that maybe he changes plans … you never know,'' Font wrote.
Jornet is widely considered the world's best men's mountain runner. He was National Geographic's Adventurer of the Year in 2014 and has won races as short as Mount Marathon (about 3.1 miles) and as long as the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (105 miles).
Forsberg is among the best women's mountain runners in the world.
Forsberg and Jornet, along with Ostrander, delivered electrifying performances in Seward last summer.
Forsberg won Mount Marathon in 47 minutes, 48 seconds, slashing an astonishing 2:42 off Nancy Pease's 1990 record (50:30). Ostrander, a six-time Mount Marathon junior champion, finished second in 50:28, the second-fastest women's time in race history.
Jornet clocked 41:48 to gut Eric Strabel's 2013 record (42:55) by 67 seconds.
Both Jornet and Forsberg after their record-setting runs said they would like to defend their titles if their schedules permitted.
The couple astounded fellow racers and fans with their Mount Marathon performances, and also charmed them with their humility and graciousness.
Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr