Ruby Lindquist
Racin’ Ruby Lindquist reinforced her ridiculous range over the weekend at The Rut Runs in Montana.
The former Seward High standout, who owns Black Hills State University (S.D.) track records in the indoor mile and 3,000 meters, as well as outdoor 1,500 meters, showed she’s also built for longer hauls in the mountains.
Lindquist, 23, on Saturday finished second in the 28-kilometer (17.5-mile) race in Big Sky, where the course at altitude featured 7,800 feet of vertical gain and topped out at 11,166 feet elevation. Lindquist clocked 4 hours, 1 minutes, 4 seconds, to finish runner-up to winner Bailey Kowalczyk, 26, an elite mountain and trail runner from Nederland, Colo., who crossed in 3:47.20.
Lindquist, a NCAA Division II All-American, was coming off a seventh-place finish earlier this summer at Mount Marathon and a third-place finish at Bird Ridge. She finished second at Mount Marathon in 2021.
Lindquist’s runner-up finish led Alaskans at The Rut Mountain Runs, a three-day festival that includes a vertical kilometer (VK), an 11-K race and a 50-K race.
Anchorage’s Tsaina Mahlen, 27, led Alaskans in Sunday’s 50-K (31 miles), which featured 10,500 feet of elevation gain. She finished ninth in 7:36.47. James Pyke of Anchorage, 37, finished 38th among men in 7:41.42.
Eagle River’s Christopher Kirk, 25, who owns four top-20 finishes at Mount Marathon, took 19th among men in Friday’s VK in 1:05:28. That race gained 3,632 feet in elevation in less than three miles.
The top Alaska placement in the 11-K (just shy of seven miles) came from Anchorage’s Michelle Fabry, who finished 57th among women in 1:25:05.40. The 11-K included 1,600 feet of elevation gain.