SEWARD -- As Brad Precosky neared the summit of Mount Marathon beneath drab, overcast skies Wednesday afternoon, he wondered if his remarkable reign in Alaska's most prestigious footrace had peaked.
Well ahead of the 40-year-old on the 3,022-foot monument to quivering quadriceps and laboring lungs were a couple of relative youngsters, Sam Hill and Brent Knight. Hill, 29, was nearly a minute ahead of Precosky, and Knight, 23, was close behind Hill.
"Everybody slows down sometime," Precosky said. "I had a fleeting thought: 'Maybe today's the day I slow down.' "
But if there is one essential on which Precosky can always rely, it is the surpassing velocity of his descent on a mountain he knows as intimately as an old friend.
And that's why the king still wears his crown -- for the sixth time, no less.
Precosky blew past Hill and Knight on the downhill and held off three-time runner-up Trond Flagstad to clock 46:14 and win the men's race at Mount Marathon for the second straight year.
Combined with his four consecutive victories from 1999-2002, Precosky's six wins overall tie him with Ralph Hatch (1946-50, 1953) and Sven Johanson (1954-59) for second-most in the Fourth of July race that began as a bar bet and has been run 80 times since 1915.
"That's awesome," Precosky said. "Those guys were phenomenal."
The standard bearer for mountain men in Seward is course record-holder Bill Spencer, who won Mount Marathon eight times.
Precosky on Wednesday also broke his friend Clint McCool's 40-49 age-group record, knocking 19 seconds off McCool's 46:33 in 2005. The oldest Mount Marathon champion is Todd Boonstra, who was 41 when he won in 2003.
But Precosky's performance on the mountain that averages a 38-degree pitch wasn't the only record run.
Jerre Wills, 70, of Homer, demolished the record in the 70-plus division. His time of 1:16:52 slashed 6:31 off Heinrich Gruber's 2001 mark of 1:23:23. And Anchorage's Teresa Brady, 46, obliterated Pam Richter's 40-49 age group record by an astonishing 3:08, finishing in 58:42.
Precosky's 12-second margin over Flagstad, 37, matched the margin of his 2006 win over the UAA ski coach.
Knight finished third for the second straight year, clocking 46:50. Hill finished fourth in 46:59; Jens Beck, 37, claimed fifth in 47:31; and McCool, 43, nabbed sixth in 47:38. The rest of the top 10 featured race rookie Matias Saari, 36, in seventh (47:57); perennial contender Barney Griffith, 49, in eighth (48:17); former junior champion Rory Egelus, 20, in ninth (48:38); and Mike Kramer, 39, in 10th (48:49).
The runners were cheered on by thousands of spectators who lined city streets, the base of the mountain and the rugged trails for the 80th edition of the roughly 3.5-mile race. Cloudy skies and a breeze made the day coat-worthy for fans, but the cool conditions were ideal for racing.
As Hill led the field of about 350 runners snaking up narrow dirt trails on the mountain overlooking Resurrection Bay, he pulled Knight with him.
Hill has been battling severe groin problems for the better part of a year, and his downhilling has never been especially rapid, but he is a fierce climber.
"He told me, 'Brent, I don't know if I have the downhill, so I'm gonna pull you up,' " Knight said. "He was yelling at me the whole way. I really appreciated it."
By the time Hill and Knight rounded the turnaround rock at the summit, Precosky believed their margin might be too great.
"I thought, 'Game over,' five minutes from the top," Precosky said.
Yet Knight, who knows Precosky is one of the premier downhillers of his generation, or any other, was not comfortable, even as he passed Hill about one-third of the way down the mountain.
Precosky was behind him, but Precosky's reputation preceded him.
"He's a giant fear looming over your head," Knight said. "I've got to get over that mental block of thinking, 'When's he going to catch me?' jumbled with, like, 'I can actually win.' "
Shortly after Precosky hit the crossover point halfway down the mountain and finally put a small gap between himself and a furiously pursuing Flagstad, he caught his first distant glimpse of Knight. The pair soon passed Hill and began reeling in the leader.
As Precosky and Knight hit a section known as "The Waterfall," Precosky went directly down the waterfall. Knight, whose legs had begun to get wobbly, took a side trail in the woods and brush beside the waterfall.
By the time both men cleared that section, Precosky had rocketed into the lead. Flagstad, meanwhile, never saw Knight during that sequence and thought his former nordic skier at UAA was well in the lead and on his way to glory.
"I was thinking, 'That's great for Brent,' " Flagstad said. "I thought Brad was in second place. I thought, 'Second or third, who cares?' But I'm a coach -- older, experienced -- I shouldn't think like that."
Once Precosky and Flagstad were past Knight -- "Those guys just rallied down the mountain," Knight said -- it was a two-man race. Precosky worried about Flagstad's superior foot speed over the road leading back into the downtown finish line, but Flagstad said he didn't gain much on the six-time titleholder.
Precosky's downhilling on the mountain, it turned out, was simply too commanding. Precosky figured he covered the descent from the peak to the finish line in roughly 11:20.
That's about 15 seconds slower than his descent last year, but most top runners were slower on the mountain this year because of more difficult, technical footing in sections.
"It's just his forte," explained Griffith, Precosky's good friend and training partner. "He definitely works at it, but you can take all these other guys and have them work at it and they won't be as good.
"He just has that natural talent."
Still, Precosky doubted himself as he neared the peak Wednesday, and there was a lesson in that, even for a guy whose brain has mapped the mountain.
"This is a good experience for me, to know you don't count yourself out," Precosky said. "Unexpected things happen."
Find Doyle Woody online at adn.com/contact/dwoody or call him at 257-4335.
