Anchorage Daily News

Not long ago, women's Mount Marathon champion Cedar Bourgeois bumped into someone who basically asked her when she was going to hang up her trail shoes.

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Cedar Bourgeois

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Brad Precosky

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Bourgeois didn't think her questioner intended any slight, but she found the question curious, puzzling and, well, a touch insulting.

Sure, she has reigned on the 3,022-foot peak in Seward for four consecutive years, dating back to her maiden victory in 2004. But she's only 32, and there remain quests she would like to conquer on Mount Marathon, namely taking a few more stabs at Nancy Pease's 1990 race record.

Anyhow, Cedar being Cedar -- about as sweet as folks come -- she smiled and equivocated. To herself, though, she wondered if the implication was that she should allow someone else to savor the satisfaction of winning the state's most prestigious footrace.

"I thought, 'Are you telling me I'm supposed to step aside?' " Bourgeois recounted. "I don't want to bore people, but I have my own goals.''

All of which raises a fair question: Has Mount Marathon become predictable?

After all, Bourgeois has thumped the field in Seward four straight years, winning by such a gaping margin each time that no other woman was even running down Fourth Avenue by the time she broke the tape. And in the last 24 editions of the race, only five women have won Mount Marathon -- Nina Kemppel (nine times), Pease (six), Bourgeois (four), Carmen Young (now Carmen Dunham, three) and Patti Foldager (two).

On the men's side, Brad Precosky has won the last two races, and six overall dating back to 1999. Only four men have won Mount Marathon in the last 12 runnings -- Precosky (six), Todd Boonstra (four), Brian Bethard and Toby Schwoerer.

We constantly hear that change is good -- that's the drumbeat in sports, business, arts, you-name-it -- and there's some truth to that, even if we seem to chant it by rote.

Some fresh blood at Mount Marathon -- sometimes, literally, on a course with a perilous descent -- is energizing.

Bourgeois's 2004 win was feel-good stuff. Hometown girl makes good. Hugs her mom and kids. Cries tears of joy. Crowd goes crazy. And Bourgeois' breakthrough refreshed on another front, coming after Kemppel's remarkable run of eight consecutive wins and nine in 10 years.

Ditto on the men's side. Bethard's 2005 win was compelling. He was a former Division I college hockey player who did not come with a notable running or skiing background, like most Mount Marathon types, yet still made the transition to elite status in another sport.

Schwoerer's victory in 2004 in 43:39 was breathtaking simply because he became the first man to threaten the 1981 race record (43:23) of eight-time men's champion Bill Spencer.

And even though Boonstra had won Mount Marathon three times, his fourth victory, in 2003, proved special. At 41 he was the oldest champion in the history of a race that dates back to 1915. Also, five years had lapsed since his previous win.

Still, as much as an occasional changing of the guard at Mount Marathon is exciting, history and tradition are no less stirring.

It's easy to consider the Mount Marathon resumes of Bourgeois and Precosky and marvel at their considerable talent.

But that's short-sighted. They have succeeded, too, because of their discipline and drive -- and sense of race history. They operate under the belief that if they lose, they will have done so giving a hard, honest effort, and their successor will have earned the crown.

These runners want to leave a legacy that becomes part of the race's narrative, and that's a noble ambition.

Sure, it would shake things up and inject something new into that narrative if a relatively inexperienced mountain runner like Brent Knight, 24, or Sam Hill, 30, won Friday's 81st running of Mount Marathon. Or if Trond Flagstad, 38, shoved aside his three straight runner-up finishes and seized the victory he covets.

But it would also be pretty cool if Precosky, 41, won and supplanted Boonstra as the oldest champion in history. Precosky would be 25 days older than Boonstra was when he earned his last title. And a seventh overall victory would leave Precosky just one shy of Spencer's men's record eight wins.

And it would also be noteworthy if Bourgeois wins a fifth straight championship, something that seems a safe bet. In the history of the race, only three people have won as many as five straight races -- Kemppel (eight, 1996-2003), Sven Johanson (six, 1954-59) and Ralph Hatch (five, 1946-1950).

Besides, it's not as though Precosky and Bourgeois have bored us.

Precosky in 2006 won despite shin splints that severely limited his training in the weeks before the race. Last year, he won even though he trailed Hill, who led the field to the top of the mountain, by nearly two minutes before unleashing his typically blazing descent.

And Bourgeois -- we can't even imagine the burden she faces as the hometown favorite year after year. She's expected to win, expected to represent Seward. Gee, no pressure there.

If new champions emerge Friday, they will gain the glory they deserve, and perhaps that will mark a rejuvenating changing of the guard.

But if the current rulers of the mountain still reign, that won't be as predictable as it is priceless.

Find Doyle Woody's blog online at adn.com/hockeyblog or call him at 257-4335.

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