Klaire Rhodes kept looking over her shoulder as she raced toward the Mount Marathon finish line in first place Thursday afternoon in Seward.

She didn’t need to.

No pursuer was in sight. The only people near her were the thousands of fans lining the streets, many with arms outstretched in the hope of high-fiving the soon-to-be champion.

By the time the race left the mountain and hit the pavement, Rhodes had no reason to look back. She was nearing the end of a head-turning performance that began as a stirring duel and ended in dominance.

Rhodes, a 26-year-old from Anchorage, registered the fourth-fastest women’s time in race history.

She shook off Kendall Kramer of Fairbanks during the breakneck descent of the 3,022-foot mountain and coasted to victory in a time of 49 minutes, 49 seconds.

Rhodes became the fourth woman in history to break 50 minutes, joining Allie McLaughlin (47:09 in 2022), Emelie Forsberg (47:48 in 2015) and Allie Ostrander (49:19 in 2017).

She claimed her first Mount Marathon title with a 91-second win over Kramer, the UAF skiing and running star who turned a few heads herself — Kramer finished in 51:20 to slash more than five minutes off her previous best.

Mount Marathon
Women’s Top 10
1) Klaire Rhodes 49:49
2) Kendall Kramer 51:20
3) Meg Inokuma 51:59
4) Hannah Lafleur 53:04
5) Christy Marvin 53:17
6) Denali Strabel 53:58
7) April McAnly 55:06
8) Sophie Wright 55:12
9) Rosie Fordham 55:17
10) Katey Houser 55:46
Complete results HERE

Rhodes’ previous best was 53:09 in 2022. She was coming off three consecutive top-5 finishes at Mount Marathon, but she was also coming off the recent 26-mile Broken Arrow Skyrace in California, where she placed second in a race with 9,100 feet of elevation gain and loss.

She wasn’t sure how her trail-running training would serve her in Seward, where racers face a straight scramble up and down the mountain.

“Last Saturday was my first time on the mountain,” she told Tudor Road Studios reporter Holly Brooks. “I’ve been training more runnable climbing and I just had my fingers crossed it would translate well, and I guess it did. So I’m really happy.”

Rhodes was a step ahead of Kramer, 22, for most of the arduous climb up Mount Marathon, where racers typically walk a lot more than they run up the steep mountainside. Kramer ran the final several steps to the turnaround to get in front of Rhodes, but it was a short-lived lead.

Rhodes flew down the mountain to create a healthy gap by the time she was halfway down.

“It was a whirlwind,” Rhodes said. “I went up the cliffs and Kendall went up the roots, and we met at the same time. She matched me step for step.”

“The last 300 feet before the top she passed me and started to run. She took a different route down — I took the snow and came out in front.”

Once in front, Rhode’s lead grew and grew as she careened downhill.

After Kramer came Palmer’s Meg Inokuma (51:59), who was more than a minute ahead of a pair of past champions — fourth-place Hannah Lafleur of Seward, a two-time champ back after missing last year’s race because she was pregnant, and fifth-place Christy Marvin of Palmer, a three-time champ who won last year but was hobbled this year by a foot injury. Marvin’s last race before Thursday was in early May, and she barely ran in June.

Lafleur, whose daughter is 8 months old, faced training challenges as well: “I’ve been doing a lot of jogging with a stroller along the bike path,” she said.

The top five featured an age range from 22 (Kramer) to 44 (Inokuma, who is a year older than Marvin).

While it’s too soon to declare a changing of the guard, Marvin welcomed the new, young look at the top of the results.

“It’s so fun to see those other ladies taking the reins,” she said. “I told them, ‘You go, girls.’ ”