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 Can Anyone Beat the King in Hawaii?The second running of the XTERRA Trail Run World Championship half-marathon Sunday on the Hawaiian island of Oahu will host some of the fastest runners on dirt, but can any of them survive the grueling course faster than defending champ Max King?
He won his second straight XTERRA Nationals crown in September and since then finished 18th at the New York City Marathon in 2:19:11 and a week later, on six day’s rest, won the USATF National Trail Marathon Championship. To get a real feel for just how fast he is consider his performance at the U.S. Cross Country Championship 12k early this year where he finished in 36:54 – a scant 46 seconds behind the great Meb Keflezighi (the American record holder in the 10k with a 27:13.98). King, a steeplechase All-American at Cornell and three-time member of Team USA at the World Cross Country Championships, set the standard with his winning time of 1:18:23 at XTERRA Trail Run Worlds last year. Perhaps his toughest competition will come from friend Ben Bruce, a member of the prestigious Nike Oregon Track Club elite team in Eugene. Bruce was second to King here last year when he turned in a 1:21:55 and also finished runner-up to King at the last two XTERRA Nationals. There is one runner in this race who has, indeed, beat the King. Joe Gray, the reigning and two-time USA Track and Field Mountain Runner of the Year from Lakewood, Washington won a head-to-head battle against King at the Northwest Mountain Champs last year. Also of note is Michael Tobin, the 2000 XTERRA off-road triathlon World Champ and XTERRA Hall-of-Famer who has built one of the most incredible adventure racing resumes on the planet. THE WOMEN'S RACE Cynthia “Cindy” Anderson won the women’s race last year in 1:39:38, placing 12th overall and 32 seconds ahead of runner-up Danelle Kabush from Canada.
Anderson’s most formidable competitor will likely be 15-time Ironman Champ (and 1997 Ironman World Champ) Heather Fuhr from San Diego, California, who has dominated the XTERRA SoCal Trail Run Series this year, winning all three races she entered. Also in the mix is three-time XTERRA off-road triathlon World Champ Melanie McQuaid from Canada, long-time XTERRA pro Jenny Tobin (who consistently had the fastest run split among women through the years) from Boise, Idaho, XTERRA Wheeler Canyon 21k Champ Rachel Cieslewicz from Salt Lake City, Utah and Ady Ngawati from New Zealand - a two-time winner of the Auckland Marathon and XTERRA New Zealand 21k champ. Plus, with registration open until Saturday. Dec. 5, it’s anyone’s guess as to what other ringers will show up on the start line. XTERRA TRAIL RUN WORLDS QUICK FACTS Who: Roughly 1,000 runners of all skill levels from around the world.
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The 29-year-old bio-chemical engineer from Bend, Oregon is clearly, unequivocally the guy to beat and has made a name for himself not only on the single track trails of XTERRA but around the country in disciplines ranging from 5k to 50-miles and on every imaginable running surface.
The 26-year-old from Miller Place, New York now resides in nearby Kailua town and is a full-time cell and molecular biology PhD. student and research assistant at the University of Hawaii. In 2006 she won the Atlantic 10 Collegiate Conference 10k championship race as a runner for the University of Rhode Island, and has won numerous races since including the Fort Lauderdale Marathon.
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