The Deseret Morning News/KJZZ-TV Marathon has been in the news plenty the past few months — first, how the 34th annual event was on its last legs because of declining participation, followed by the recent announcement that the 26.2-mile race is being reconsidered to return again next year.
So it was refreshing that Thursday's story lines focused on the runners themselves.
And there were plenty of storylines to choose from — a men's 2003 champion who triumphed in his first attempt at the notoriously steep course, a runner-up whose real marathon might have been the two-day bus journey to Utah, a women's repeat winner who was worried she might be mistaken for a very slow 10-kilometer runner and a wheelchair victor who asked to be held back by a volunteer.
All this in the supposed final chapter of the Marathon That Would Not Die.
Jonathan Ndambuki won the men's overall, clocking in at two hours, 24 minutes and 49 seconds, more than seven minutes ahead of runner-up Shingirai Badza (2:31.53). Official race results had Alexander Pachev (2:34.49) third; however, some at the finish line reported another apparent male marathon runner finished ahead of Pachev; however, the runner's entry number was among official results reviewed later Thursday.
Admitting that she ran to win rather than post a top-10 time, Salt Lake City's Michelle Simonaitis (3:04:49) won her second women's marathon in seven years, well ahead of Kerilyn Hatch (3:12.18) and Lorie Hutchison (3:15.58). Simontaitis has two of the top 10 all-time marks in Deseret News marathon history, including her 2:51:59 in 1997.
Based in Farmington, N.M., the 26-year-old Ndambuki is part of a strong contingent of Kenyan distance runners who live and train there — and who have found their way to dominate the Salt Lake races for several years now. He had run locally in the July 24th 10K twice before, finishing sixth in 1998 and fifth the following year.
A two-time winner of the Big Sur International Marathon, Ndambuki made his maiden trek Thursday on the Wasatch Front course a victorious one. And he spent most of the 26.2 miles out in front of the pack.
"When I slow down early, I sometimes develop cramps," said Ndambuki of his all-out-from-the-start strategy.
Badza was worried about his own physical discomfort Thursday after making his own cross-continent trek to run in Utah's Pioneer Day race. The Zimbabwe native arrived at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday — less than 13 hours before the 5 a.m. marathon start — after a 48-hour bus ride from his Toronto-area residence.
The 29-year-old had discovered Thursday's marathon last month while surfing the Internet, looking for a mid-summer distance race to enter. Saying he felt like his legs never really loosened up from the long bus ride, Badza vowed to return to Utah with a stronger showing.
"I'll be back next year," he said, "and with a good time."
Most spectators lining the last few miles of the course — which doubled later as the Days of '47 parade route — likely didn't recognize Simonaitis as the women's marathon leader. That's because the color of her participant's "bib" — bearing her entry number — was blue, the color for 10K runners, and not the yellow designating the marathoners.
"I was the first woman in the marathon — I want to make sure of this," she told race officials shortly after crossing the finishing line, visibly disappointed at missing the spectator applause and recognition given other marathon runners with the yellow race bibs who finished after her. "They had me as a 10K runner."
To the uninformed spectator, the blue-bibbed Simonaitis could have been confused with a 10K runner finishing well behind not only the pack of more than 2,100 10K runners but most of 300-plus in the 5-kilometer fitness walk.
But race aficionados and officials at the finish line recognized her — and her entry number designating her as an elite marathon runner — and there was no question of her race and her place.
Actually, the 37-year-old Simonaitis has run both events in the past. She followed her 1997 marathon title with back-to-back finishes as the runner-up, then switching to the companion 10K race for three top-eight finishes from 2000 to 2002.
The earlier reports that 2003 might be the marathon's final running prompted her to prepare for the longer haul.
Simonaitis said she wasn't' worried that she was trailing in seventh place at the five-mile marker at the East Canyon turnaround or still in fourth as she headed up Little Mountain leading into the ninth mile.
"I go by breathing, not by splits and not by times," said Simonaitis, who eventually took the lead for good at 17 miles, as the course started its Research Park stretch.
Kaysville's John Brewer, who covered the course in 3:26.16, said he was the only wheelchair contestant at Thursday morning's marathon start (another entrant did finish some two hours later). He upped his 26-year total to 18 Deseret News marathons and more than 130 marathons total.
Brewer said Thursday's course layout was the most dangerous and curvy of the five versions of the July 24th marathons he has faced. Calling the canyon stretches "incredibly dangerous," he remembered races during the 1980s, when the canyons were closed to cars and no traffic meant no braking.
And while traversing the course's new steep loop around the University of Utah Hospital, Brewer was forced to recruit a race volunteer to hold onto the back of the wheelchair to help keep the front wheel from skidding wildly out of control.
Cash prizes were $1,000 for first place, $500 for second and $250 for third in the men's and women's divisions. Brewer earned $250 as the wheelchair winner.
E-mail: taylor@desnews.com