Local Pair Take the Cake in Missoula Full Marathon – Rain a Pleasant Surprise for Many Racers
Sunday morning thousands of runners competed in the Missoula Marathon and in the full marathon, a pair of locals took first place.
NBC Montana reports in the men's full marathon, Missoula's Collin Fehr crossed the finish line first with the top time of 2:37:06. Fehr's win was the second time the Griz cross country coach finished first in the Missoula Marathon, the last victory coming in 2012.
"I got to three miles to go and I thought you can win this thing man, go win it, you can win it," Fehr said. "It's just so cool coming across that bridge it's so much noise, people are cheering, it's just a rush of adrenaline and it's hard to contain that."
In the men's race Jason Delaney of Polson took second place with a time of 2:38:18 while Jacob Naegeli of Portland finished third with 2:39:30.
In the women's full marathon, local Trisha Drobeck took the top spot with a new course record of 2:46:54. NBC Montana said Drobeck's time beat her old mark of 2:49:32 when she won the Missoula Marathon in 2012.
"I really didn't look at my watch too much," Drobeck said. "I try not to do the math in my head and freak myself out too much. When I got kind of at the crest of the bridge I was like I'll take a quick peek and I saw it said 2:46:30 so I was like alright I better kick it in if I want to go under 2:47:00."
In the women's race Bryanna Petrie of Spokane took second place with a time of 2:55:33 while Liv Brumfield finished third with 2:59:28.
Yesterday also marked the Missoula 5K race, and a rainy one it was. Race organizer with Run Wild Missoula, Anders Brooker, was pleased with the steady rain that was falling in downtown Missoula.
"Beautiful morning!" Brooker exclaimed. "First year ever we’ve had rain. Everybody was worried about heat but now we’ve got rain..we’ll take it. It could be 100 degrees outside, but instead it’s 75 and cool. Just stay positive and have fun."
Brooker said thousands were going to be participating in Missoula's marathon weekend and the 5K was no exception. The race capped off at 1,200 runners, and each space was filled up by the start of the race Saturday morning.
"We’re going to have about 7,000 folks throughout the whole weekend," Brooker said. "We had a great beer run last night with 400 to 500 people. We’ve got about 1,200 people in the 5k and then he full and the half marathons are full again this year.It’s getting bigger and better each year. We can’t control the participation. It’s awesome."
The half marathon was capped at 4,000 runners, while the marathon was capped at 1,750.
In 2010, the Missoula Marathon won the Best Marathon in United States award by Runner’s World Magazine. In 2011, the Missoula Marathon was named the Best Tourism Event by the state of Montana.