Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of four articles leading up to the weekend of the Brookings Marathon May 10-11. For more information on the races, go to prairiestriders.net.
Marathons in South Dakota in 1969 were rarer than a cool day in late June. In fact, they didn’t exist.
The same couldn’t be said in 1970 because on June 21, 1970, 22 runners toed the starting line on the track at State Field (later called Sexauer Field) near the north edge of Brookings for the appropriately named Longest Day Marathon. The race lived up to its name. “It was hot, windy and humid—just like a death march,” said winner and race organizer Jay Dirksen.
Considering that the race started at 5 p.m., the conditions weren’t too surprising, but organizers freely admit they knew little about staging the 26.2-mile race.
Much has changed in the decades that followed. For one thing, marathons are no longer rare. In South Dakota, runners can now go to Sioux Falls, Yankton, Swan Lake, Custer or Deadwood to attempt the feat that killed Pheidippides when he covered the distance from Marathon, Greece, to Athens to announce the victory of the Athenian army against the Persians.
For 50 years now, runners have been coming to Brookings to challenge that distance. The 50th running of what is now called the Brookings Marathon is May 11.
As of April 23, there were 207 registered for the marathon, threatening to match the high of 228 finishers in 2012. The half marathon hit its cap of 400 runners April 3. The six-member relays hit their cap of 50 teams March 14. Marathon director Matt Bien is hoping for a marathon entry from all 50 states. To date, 39 states are represented.
Edelen inspired race organizer Dirksen
In 1970, runners came from eight states, most were collegiate runners or recent collegiate runners. Of course, there were a couple exceptions.
The second-place runner was a 15-year-old—Jay Monfore, of Miller, who became the state A cross country champ in the fall as well as in 2012. At the other end was Bob Bartling, then 43, of Brookings, who had been running two years and had run his first marathon Oct. 19, 1969, in Kansas.
“I decided to run the Longest Day Marathon because I couldn’t believe the marathon could be as difficult as my first one was. I thought I just had an off day in Topeka,” Bartling recalled. Despite the hot weather, his time was eight minutes better in Brookings, finishing ninth in 3:23:35.
Dirksen’s fascination with long distance running was linked to reading newspaper accounts of former Sioux Falls Washington sensation Buddy Edelen, who starred at the University of Minnesota and qualified for the 1964 Olympics in the marathon. In 1964, he attracted a huge crowd to Brookings as well as Look magazine photographer when he battled another Olympian, Ron Dawes, in the Jack 15.
“Boy, I would like to be like him. I actually ran against him in the Jack 15 and got to meet him. He was my hero,” Dirksen said.
First woman runner in 1975
The first Longest Day Marathon came two years before Frank Shorter won the 1972 Olympic Marathon and kicked off America’s first running boom.
In a bid to qualify for the Olympic marathon trials, Hal Higdon, who became one of the best-known running authors of all time, entered the Longest Day 1972. Then a 41-year-old Long Beach, Indiana, runner hoping to turn in a 2:30 to qualify for the Olympic trials, Higdon won in a course record time of 2:37:23. A south wind with gusts of 15 to 25 mph did in his qualifying plans, he said.
To avoid the heat, the marathon moved to November in 1974. However, in 1975 heat was a problem again. Incredibly, the temperature at the start on Nov. 2 was 75 degrees. The race attracted 53 runners, but 25 dropped out, including two women. However, a third woman made history. Kathy Magnuson, 24, of St. Paul, Minn., finished in 4:30:17.
She finished 28th out of 28, but made history and started a streak that has had only one interruption—no women were entered in 1987.
Races fastest marks set early
In terms of performance, the late 1970s and early 1980s could be considered the marathon’s zenith.
Holding the marathon on the first weekend of November provided an opportunity for collegiate runners to compete and South Dakota State University had some of the best Division II runners in the nation. Randy Fischer, the current Mount Marty track and cross country coach, won the first of his five Brookings Marathon titles in 1979 with a course record time of 2:23:29 (5:28 pace).
The next year his teammate, Mike Dunlap, won in 2:23:34 and Fischer grabbed his second title in 1981 with a time of 2:24:35. Those remain the top three times in Brookings Marathon history and only two runners have come with nine minutes of Fischer’s record time. One of those was Duane Millslagle with a 2:32:02 in 1983.
The women’s record also was set in that era.
Jane Wipf, a Utah State standout from Freeman, won her second Brookings Marathon title in 1980 with a time of 2:48:26 (6:25 pace). She would go on to finish sixth in Boston with a 2:37:18 in 1983.
The following year, Susan Thomas, a four-time cross country MVP at South Dakota State, won the first of her two Brookings Marathon titles with a time of 2:57:43. There is only one other occasion of a woman finishing under three hours in Brookings. That was in 1999, when Janice Ettle, 40, of Roseville, Minn., a marathon trial qualifier, clocked a 2:56:29.
Entries waned in 1980s
In the mid to late 1980s, the marathon had trouble finding a suitable race date. In 1983-86, the dates were May 1-April 26. In 1987-89, the race was moved to the Brookings Summer Arts Festival weekend in an unsuccessful bid to draw more runners. In 1987, there were 18 entries and 15 finishers, one of whom was Randy Fischer, who won his fourth title by getting in a “good workout” with a 2:36:14 run (5:58 pace).
No women entered.
The 1988 race provided an interesting story.
Race winner Kevin Osborn thought he was taking on four-time champion Randy Fischer in the 26.2-mile event. Fischer took off at a 5:10 pace and Osborn stayed in range with a 5:16 pace. However, Fischer’s intentions were much shorter. After five miles, he handed off to a teammate. Osborn had another 21.2 miles to go.
Despite burning too much energy early, Osborn, of Wahpeton, N.D., finished in 2:35:11 to beat the runner-up by nearly 27 minutes.
Fischer, meanwhile, teamed with Tim Blackstone, Jan Cain, Duane Millslagle, Scott Underwood and Dan (Digger) Carlson, to win the relay in a record time of 2:19:01, breaking the mark set by the Brookings Jaycees in 1987 of 2:59:02. Fischer’s team represented South Dakota in the Asics Cup America’s Ekiden 50K road relay in New York in the spring.
Also in 1988, Longest Day Marathon organizers added the 5K race walk to its list of events (also 5K, 10K and marathon relay). The race walk lasted until 2003.
Race moves to April in 1990
After another slim turnout in 1989 (10 of the 13 preregistered runners were 50 or older), the race moved to the third Saturday of April in 1990.
There it would stay until the Longest Day Marathon became the Brookings Marathon and was moved to May in 2004 and staged on a new course.
During the 1990s, the race saw some big names speaking at the pre-race pasta feed (Dick Beardsley, 1991, and Buddy Edelen, 1993), the debut of the half marathon (1993) and record-setting performances by 5K race walker Mike Wiggins of Hawarden, Iowa. He set the mark each year from 1990 to 1995 (best of 23:27 in 1995).
The 1992 field included Jerry Brown, 40, of West St. Paul, Minnesota, who was running his first Brookings Marathon and his 122nd overall. Brown continues his Brookings Marathon tradition. With the 2019, his streak stretches to 28 consecutive years. No one else is close to Brown, said Matt Bien, race director since 2007.
Ice forces race inside
Perhaps the most remembered race in the event’s 50 years occurred in 2000, when a belated winter blast of freezing rain and snow on Saturday morning forced the running of the 31stannual Longest Day Marathon to the track inside the HPER Center on the South Dakota State University Campus.
The thick ice covering the marathon trail early Saturday morning had race officials concerned about the runners’ safety. Thoughts were entertained about foregoing the day’s activities, but the runners felt differently.
“We wanted to cancel the race,” said race director Scotty Roberts, “but there were marathoners that came from Germany and California, all over the country.”
So up to the HPER Center they went. In addition to the change of venue, the race started 90 minutes later than its planned 8 a.m. start time and four races — the 5K run and racewalk, the 10K and the half marathon — were canceled.
While some runners ran outside at their own risk, the vast majority chose the great indoors. The marathoners needed 209 laps around the 1/8-mile track to fulfill the 26.2-mile distance, and also needed people and family members to keep a count of how many laps they had completed.
Race winner was Tom Jacobs, of Kansas City. A 2:40 runner, he clocked a 2:58:48 inside. “It’s way too crowded inside. It’s hard to keep up a steady pace many times, so I like running outside better, except today. I was glad we got inside.”
The women’s runner did run outside. Sara Schuchart, of Denver, posted an unofficial time of 3:35:29 on the traditional Longest Day Marathon course.
2004 changes introduce modern era
The changes made in 2004 brought a new vitality to the race. The previous course, two loops that had runners spending a fair share of the race on highway bypasses and exposed to unwelcoming north winds, was discarded in favor of a route that took runners through Brookings’ parks, the SDSU campus and its historic neighborhood.
Runners liked the change. There were 104 in the marathon and 119 in the half marathon compared to 30 in the 2003 marathon.
Marathon finishers hit a peak of 232 in 2012, however, Bien has his fingers crossed that the 50th will beat that mark.
The 2006 race marked the emergence of Jill Moncur, 38, of Sioux Falls, who won the women’s race in 3:34:21. It would be the first of three wins in four years for Moncur. In 2009, she had a PR of 3:16:43.
The 2009 race also saw Bret Fransen, of Sioux Falls, set the half marathon mark with a time of 1:08:20. It remains the course record.
The current decade has seen the overwhelming popularity of the half marathon.
By early April 2012, the half marathon hit its cap of 400 entries while the relay hit its cap of 50. Both races increased from the 2011 caps of 300 individuals and 45 teams. The marathon was at an astonishing 270 entries, well above the 203 in 2011. While the marathoners hailed from Brooklyn, New York, to Bruce, S.D., it is noteworthy that 14 were from Brookings and six from Volga, a sharp rise from past years.
Among the 412 half marathon entries was Bob Bartling, who was sure to win his age group. Bartling was 85; no other runner was older than 70. The local legend who ran in the first Longest Day Marathon said he decided to enter the half “mainly (because of) the fact I knew that I could finish it.”
One thing hasn’t changed since 1970
The 2016 marathon marked the debut of pacers, a feature common in larger races. In honor of the 50th running, pacers will return this year.
When Jay Dirksen, Bob Bartling and some of their running buddies organized the first Longest Day Marathon, they couldn’t have imagined pacers, chip timing, $180 shoes, electrolyte drinks, policemen directing traffic and people dressed in costumes at aid stations to cheer hundreds of runners. In fact, they could not have imagined an event that would still be going nearly 50 years later.
They simply wanted to create an opportunity for people who love the challenge of long distance running.
As 2014 marathon winner Tim Fryer of Hendricks, Minn., observed: “When you run a 5K, you run with other people who like to run. When you run a marathon you get to run with people that love to run.”
