Ben Marvin. Photo courtesy Brikru Photography
Ben Marvin’s first victory at the 38th Crow Pass Crossing didn’t come easy: he faced a significant early deficit, spooked a grizzly cub, took a fall towards the end and was reduced to hand-scooping water out of creeks after losing his water bottle on stiflingly hot day.
His breakthrough at the iconic 22.5-mile backcountry run from Girdwood to Eagle River also came after missing a month of training this spring with a badly sprained ankle.
After crossing the line in 3 hours, 22 minutes and 23 seconds, he didn’t linger long before heading back onto the trail to cheer his wife Christy Marvin to her eighth straight victory. Saturday’s results marked the first time the couple swept a major race on the same day.
With eight-time champion Scott Patterson sitting out with a sprained ankle, 24-year-old Tracen Knopp emerged as the favorite with credentials like the Resurrection Pass 50-mile record.
Ben Marvin hadn’t expected to contend for the top prize. “My plan was to lay low and race for second,” he said.
That plan changed when Knopp, after leading to the Crow Pass checkpoint, crashed on the moraine about four miles into the race, wrenching his ankle. Knopp hiked back to the Girdwood trailhead and dropped out for the second time in three years.
That left Galen Hecht in the lead. Marvin, a strong descender, chased him down and then forged ahead approaching the Eagle River crossing, only to encounter a grizzly bear cub. It ran off the trail and Marvin waited briefly for Hecht before giving the bear a wide berth by bushwhacking through the forest. After crossing the river, Marvin glanced back and spotted Hecht just 50-75-feet behind him, wading through the frigid, waist-deep Eagle River.
“That was the last time I saw him,” Marvin said of Hecht, adding that he surged after the river because he wanted to avoid giving Hecht, a race rookie, a “free tour” of the complicated trail.
Ben Marvin. Photo courtesy Brikru Photography
As the temperature rose, Marvin stopped to soak himself in every creek he crossed. He also drank directly out of them after a strong current at Thunder Gorge ripped his water bottle from his hand and it floated away.
Marvin, who ran a personal-best 3:06 in 2021, finished nearly eight minutes ahead of Hecht and 14 minutes ahead of third-place David Ryland after running the second half of the course faster than the first.
Times this year were slowed significantly by sunny skies and temperatures that reached into the 70s, not to mention an extremely brushy trail.
“There was more (cow) parsnip than I think I’ve ever seen,” said Marvin, 42.
Add Devil’s Club, stinging nettle, an obscured trail, countless rocks and roots, mud, standing water, and many other obstacles, and Crow Pass more than delivered on its gnarly reputation.
The victory was satisfying for Marvin, who has racked up plenty of runner-up finishes (and one win at the Matanuska Peak Challenge) while playing second fiddle to wife Christy — winner of countless races — and son Coby, a two-time junior Mount Marathon Race champ.
Christy Marvin. Photo courtesy Brikru Photography
Meanwhile, for about 13 miles Christy had the company of Denali Strabel.
“It was a beautiful day to be out on the trail. I really enjoyed it,” Christy said. “It’s more fun to team up and work together than ditch somebody and suffer alone.”
But a couple miles beyond the river crossing, Strabel caught her toe on a root and fell hard enough to tumble and roll. Then Strabel scraped her shorts and hip on a tree. Then she encouraged Christy to ditch her.
“(Denali) was like ‘OK, time to dial it back a notch. I’m fine, you just go,” Marvin said.
Marvin ran unchallenged the rest of the way, finishing in 3:40:15, good for sixth overall and 11 minutes ahead of Strabel. A year ago, Marvin, then 41, ran 2:25:52 to break Nancy Pease’s record that had stood 32 years.
While conditions were not conducive for records this year — 22 runners came in after the six-hour cutoff for an official finish —Marvin moved within one victory of Pease’s all-time mark of eight wins. Christy’s streak started in 2014, and she’s never lost at Crow Pass (although the event was canceled in 2017 and 2020).
On Wednesday, the whole Marvin family leaves for the Dolomites in Italy, where Coby will compete in the Youth Skyrunning World Championships August 4-6.
Full Crow Pass results can be viewed here.
Photo courtesy Brikru Photography