April 30, 2026, Seward Folly by John Fraser

No one is surprised to see folks running around Seward in all types of weather. They pass you on the Tonsina trail, or maybe you’ve seen someone scampering along Third Ave. opposite the Safeway. They are your neighbors, your coworkers in Seward. Quiet folks who don’t talk a lot about their extraordinary achievements. These are our town’s ultramarathon runners. 

An ultramarathon is any race longer than the standard 26.2-mile marathon. That could mean 50 kilometers, just 6 miles more than a marathon, or it could mean 50 miles, 100 kilometers, or even 250 miles across rugged mountain terrain. These are not casual jogs. They are multi-day ordeals of physical and psychological endurance that push athletes past every limit they thought they had. And they are drawing a very particular kind of person: someone humble enough to suffer beautifully, stubborn enough to keep going when their body says stop, but also the kind of people who like to cheer for strangers doing the same thing. Who knew there was a sport known for competitive kindness? A sport where everyone cheers for everyone else, and celebrates each other. A sport where not finishing is a badge you can proudly hold close to your heart. 

The Mountain People Sport

Ultra running has grown in popularity over the past decade. What was once a fringe pursuit of a few eccentric athletes has evolved into a global fringe pursuit, with tens of thousands of competitors tackling races on every continent, from desert ultras in Jordan to mountain challenges in China. Some races now attract professional sponsors, international fields, and purse money, but others are pretty low-key, small groups of folks running around a public park for days. At its heart, the ultra running culture has remained stubbornly grassroots: supportive, community-driven, and deeply tied to a love of wild places.

One of the things that distinguishes ultra running from nearly every other competitive sport is that it genuinely levels the playing field between men and women. Ultramarathons demand a balance of power and endurance. As distances grow, the winner’s podium can easily see men or women claim the top prize. In multi-day or extreme distance races, the psychological grit and efficient pacing that many female runners bring to the course can outweigh the strength advantage men carry in shorter distances.

But it’s also a sport that seems to match Seward’s personality. All the runners I’ve met in the past and working on this story say it’s one of the nicest sports on earth. Ask any ultramarathoner about the culture and they’ll tell you the same thing: everyone wants everyone else to succeed. Professional runners give advice to beginners mid-race.

Competitors who finished two days ago come back to the finish line to cheer strangers on days four and five. People who have never met share aid station food, pace each other through the dark, and cry tears of joy when someone they don’t know crosses the finish line. They describe it as a community that suffers together, and admire one another’s grit.

Why Seward makes sense

When Ruby Lindquist, raised in Moose Pass, now a sponsored professional runner living in Truckee, California, was asked why Seward produces so many serious outdoor athletes like her, she didn’t hesitate: “It’s in the blood there. We’re mountain people.”

Lindquist enthusiastically described the Seward we all know, our fjords and mountain trails, the places from her childhood that most of the world will never know. For the people like Ruby, who grew up here, outdoor mountain experiences were the fabric of daily life. The mountains were her playground. But humorously, she said she gravitated to running because you could go further, faster, and lighter than the long hikes her mom, Irene, a former park ranger, loved to take them on when Ruby and her siblings were young. Today, she’s embraced ultra running because she enjoys pushing her body further than it wants to go. As she described it, “It’s simply what you do when you live somewhere this wild.”

Local teacher and new ultra runner Tara Swanson put it plainly after finishing her first Ultra Marathon last weekend: “I feel like Seward is a place with incredible athletes. Athletic feats in Seward aren’t lofty. When I look around at the people in my age group, climbing Denali or running 100Ks. There are a lot of badass people in Seward, so it feels like just one of those things we do here.”

The ultra community, too, mirrors what ultra runners find in their sport. Seward is a place where people show up for each other, where accomplishment is celebrated without jealousy, and where the shared experience of living in a challenging, beautiful place creates bonds that don’t need much explanation. Runners succeed in ultras, like our local community succeeds, because of the supportive network around them.

Tara Swanson: A new ultra runner

Last weekend, April 24-25,  local teacher Tara Swanson traveled to Oregon to compete in the 2026 Banana Slug Backyard Ultra at Champoeg State Park, her first ultramarathon. The Backyard Ultra format is psychologically demanding: runners complete a 4.16-mile loop  within the hour, every hour, starting at 7:00 a.m. Miss the start, miss the finish, or simply decide you’re done, and you’re out. The last person running wins. Everyone else receives a wooden medal branded with three bold letters: DNF (Did Not Finish) and how far they ran. In this world, the Banana Slug DNF medal is worn with pride.

Swanson adapted her regular running habit to train aggressively for three to four months, running Seward’s icy winter roads and trails in January and February, supplementing running with yoga and swimming as core exercises when conditions made outdoor runs impossible. She mapped loops along the Iditarod Trail toward Nash Road, wound through the creek bed, circled Bear Lake, and ran the dump road, or the Tonsina trail. She also ran the Exit Glacier road many times. “I realized how small Seward is,” she laughed. “You have to do a lot of repeating. People definitely saw me out there.”

Sixty-four runners started, and Swanson tapped out as the 36^th, further than a lot of runners, covering 66.6 miles in 15 hours. That’s just more than 2.5 marathons in one day. She’d never run anything close to that distance before. And Swanson did that by experimentation with her own grit, learning on the fly that watermelon was magic food, but that pancakes, bacon, and three cans of flat Coke at the aid station were not the strategy her body needed.

“I probably should have taken Imodium,” she said, laughing. “I just didn’t know.”

What struck her most, though, wasn’t the physical challenge. Swanson was completely embraced by the spirit of the ultra running community. Her first race in a small loop in a state park, runners stayed close to each other throughout the race, talking, encouraging, keeping company through the hours. One older runner named Pam, still going well into the second day, said something Swanson won’t forget: “Most running injuries are just inflammation. Your brain is telling you to stop. All you have to do is just not stop.”

“That kind of got my head right off the bat,” Swanson said. “This is who we’re working with. This is really a mental challenge as much as anything.”

She already made a friend who tracked down her email after the race. Her mom, dad, and her brother, an experienced endurance runner who had planned to race with her but was sidelined by injury, provided support from the sidelines for all 15 hours. They even brought friends, set up a tent, and some fun string lights.

“The entire support crews for all 64 runners, it was sort of like a pop-up world that really celebrated everyone,” she said.

She’s already thinking about what comes next. “Running is something everyone can do in some capacity. There’s real value in pushing yourself and trying something new with people you don’t know, and opening yourself to the unknown.”

Larry and Julie DeBoard: A shared passion on the trail

Larry and Julie DeBoard are a couple in their mid-fifties. They’ve been running together for 13 years. They ran their first marathon together in 2013 and, five years ago, stepped into the ultra-running world with a 50K in St. George, Utah. And they say they’ve never looked back. It’s their sport. And they finish one another’s sentences. For most of the interview, they kept saying “we,” celebrating each other’s accomplishments as a team sport.

This week, Larry is taking on the demanding Cocodona 250, a 250-mile race through the Arizona high country beginning May 3. Competitors have 125 hours to finish. Julie is his crew and support team for this one, a role they trade off, depending on the race. Later this fall, Julie will run the Hennepin 100 in Illinois, and Larry will be her pacer and crew.

“We wanted something we could do together,” Julie explained simply. “You do your first marathon, and you want to see how far you can push yourself. We started with 50K, then 55K.”

Larry, who is 6’5” and 250 pounds, not exactly the stereotypical build of a distance runner, has learned to train with patience. Seward’s winters limit things: plowed roads, icy conditions, treadmill miles when you have to, but he hates the treadmill. When spring opens up, “the Harding Icefield trail is my favorite training run,” he said, “but running from town to Lowell Point and then the Tonsina trail is fun three or four times a week.” Summer, he said, isn’t hard, “the trails are beautiful.”

Training in Flagstaff before the Cocodona, Larry had an encounter that perfectly captures the culture of ultra running. He was on a training run when he found himself alongside a professional runner who, without prompting, offered him ten minutes of focused race advice. A stranger. A professional. Just helping out.

“Everyone wants to see everyone else succeed and be their best,” Julie said.

Larry is frank about the realities of race day at 53: “There’s always a fear of the unknown. But sometimes you look forward to the anxiety, even though you put yourself into it.”

Larry said he keeps his weekly mileage under 50 miles to avoid overuse injuries, relying on experience to know when to push and when to back off. “Just knowing you can do it is a huge benefit.”

For the DeBoards, there will be a lot more races to come.  But Julie highly recommends watching the YouTube video that focuses on the back of the pack at the Cocodona race to get the true feeling of overcoming your own obstacles.

Locally, both suggest that spectators can head out to watch the Resurrection Pass Ultras ending in Cooper Landing this July 24–25.

“Once you experience that community,” Larry said, “it will be like another family.”

Julie’s advice for anyone curious about trying an ultra? “Honestly, anybody can do it. The further the distance, the less running. It’s more like hiking and mental endurance. It’s almost 80% mental. How far can you push yourself and still keep going?”

 

Ruby Lindquist: Seward to the summit of China

If you need proof of what Seward produces, look no further than Ruby Lindquist.

Now living in Truckee, California, and sponsored by The North Face since 2022, Ruby recently returned from Mount Emei in Leshan City, in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, where she won the women’s division of the 2026 Emei Mountain Trail Challenge. Ruby placed sixth overall in a field of elite competitors from around the world. The race drew more than 8,000 runners from 15 countries across two weekends in a wide range of endurance races. But the premier 102-kilometer challenge represents the sport’s most demanding distance on offer. Ruby’s race was the 75-kilometer course, featuring 16,100 feet of vertical climb and finishing at 10,000 feet above sea level. She completed it in 10 hours and 30 minutes, and won the women’s competition.

“The last three miles was all stairs, straight to the top,” she said. “At the bottom of the stairs, I kept slowing down, started to hurt, and couldn’t eat. I really felt the altitude. You’re already working hard, but you have to work harder.”

Ruby’s path to that summit started in Seward. She said she started racing in fourth grade, began taking training seriously in high school, and fell in love with trail running because it was more efficient than the backpacking and hiking she grew up doing in Alaska’s mountains. “You cover more distance. Traveling light and going farther faster.” That was what appealed to her.

What took her to the top of the field was good fortune. The North Face launched an athlete development program a few years ago, recruiting from over 3,000 applicants across running, skiing, and alpine disciplines. They chose 17 athletes in different sports, and Ruby was one of them.

“The first time I was with my people,” she said. “They are really driven and love to be outside. It was really motivating.”

She went on to tell her college professors and track coaches that she planned to pursue ultra running as a profession. She laughed a bit in the interview and said, “They didn’t even know it was a career path.” But today, she’s shown everyone that it is.

Now she trains 15 to 20 hours a week, with long days stacked back-to-back on Thursday through Sunday. She takes a long run followed by a long bike ride, then another long run the next day, just to teach her body to keep moving on tired legs. She works with a nutritionist who prescribes precise fueling: 80 grams of carbohydrates per hour, 300 milligrams of sodium, a flask of water. “That’s the hardest part,” she said, “but it helps so much.” As for food, she prefers a high-carb drink mix over gels. “Gels are gross,” she said flatly.

She still counts the DeBoards as part of her Seward running family. She’s known Larry and Julie through her brother, who was friends with their son Levi when they were all in high school together. The small-town threads run deep. 

On the culture of ultra running, Ruby is direct: “People are just down to grind for a long time, to be in pain together. Doesn’t matter if you’re at the back. We all have the same goal, to do our best. The suffering together brings us together.” She’s seen it everywhere from Alaska to China: competitors who have been running for 100 miles, on their second night without sleep, encouraging the people around them. “So many kind people.”

And she traces it all back to home. “I think Seward is a massive mountain playground. The kids growing up are mountain people. I’m doing this because I love racing. This is my lifestyle. And that’s what Seward gave me. It built endurance and made me strong. I have a lot of gratitude.”

Try it yourself: The Resurrection Pass Ultras

Alaska has a lot of endurance running events in the summer. Of course, there’s Mount Marathon on the 4^th of July, but if any reader is thinking about grabbing their running shoes to try an ultra, there’s a local option close to home. The 2026 Resurrection Pass Ultras in Cooper Landing is now open for registration, with 50-mile and 100-mile courses scheduled for July 24–25. Last year, Meg Inokuma set the course record at 20 hours and 39 minutes. It’s a stunning route, close to home, and the community around it is exactly what you’d expect from ultra running. But all these runners say it’s not about winning, it’s about competing with yourself, and helping others to succeed.

https://www.rpultras.com

Larry DeBoard encourages anyone who’s curious to take the first step. “Most people take incremental steps with their distances. But the race is one thing, the training is really quality time outside, time with yourself, time to be in nature. I encourage people to do it.”

The Long Run

Ultra running is, at its core, a sport for people who love hard challenges and good company. It asks you to be honest about your limits and then exceed them anyway. It rewards those who help others as much as those who finish first. It is a sport where a woman from a small Alaska town can climb a sacred Chinese mountain and prove they can be the best in the world.