Inspirational Backgrounds Bring Many Runners to Sunday's 103rd Dipsea Race

By David Albee

73-year-old Hans Schmid of Greenbrae is defending Dipsea champion having become the oldest person to win the race last year at the age of 72. The 5-foot-5 retired natural foods importer and distributer from Greenbrae, a native of Germany, celebrated his Dipsea victory by traveling to Japan to compete in the Mt. Fuji Mountain Race – a 10,000-foot climb over 13.1 miles, four times greater than the ascent to Mt. Tam’s East Peak. Only about 40 percent of runners in the Mt. Fuji race actually complete the event.

“Very few females or old guys like me,” Schmid says.  “A race for young studs.”

Alex Varner of San Rafael, who finished 26th overall in this year’s Boston Marathon, has won the Dipsea “Fastest Time” award a record four consecutive years but has yet to win the 7.0-mile trail race because he is a scratch runner and has to pass more than 400 runners to get to the front of the pack. He has inspired his friend and roommate, Paul Wais, to finally enter the Dipsea. Wais has first-hand knowledge of Varner’s obsession with trying to win the Dipsea and predicts he will finally win it this year. “If Varner is the race’s aspiring Gatsby, I want to be his Nick Carraway,” Wais says. Bib #1672.

Former Tiburon resident and Redwood High School grad Michael Christy of Vallejo is a former Northern California Golden Gloves boxing champion who headed down the wrong path toward drug and alcohol abuse.  After 20 some odd years, he overcame his addiction and, in 2010, started running the Dipsea Trail which inspired him to apply for the Dipsea Race. He had one more setback: In the fall of 2010 at the age of 47, he was Medevac’d to Sutter Roseville Medical Center thinking he has suffered a stroke. He said he was paralyzed, went into a coma and when he woke up he was on life support for four months. Long story short: He lost 45 pounds but regained his muscular strength and is getting back to the top of Mt. Tam and getting in the Dipsea became his goal. Bib #1054

Nicole Demarcy is a 25-year-old Massachusetts transplant living in San Francisco. She met a gay man named Patrick in a bar in the Castro and he became her closest friend in SF and “gay husband.” However, while she was away on a trip, he mysteriously died in his apartment of unknown causes. She was scheduled to run a relay race to Napa a week or so after his death last year and that inspired her to run a series of races (now 12 since last September) culminating with this year’s Dipsea. She has discovered that trail running is her true passion and has even volunteered to donate 100 hours of her time, community service, to Dipsea trail maintenance. Bib #1722.

Mark Assem of Novato grew up in Mill Valley and took up running at age 21. In August of 2000, a man with a knife went after his friend and Mark, in attempt to tackle the man and stop the assault, was stabbed in the heart, piercing his left ventricle. He had two open heart surgeries: the first was seven hours to save his life and the second to repair the damage. His lost his job during his recovery process so he decided to start his own business, combining his two passions: running and dogs. He is now running an average of 15-to-20 miles a day on trails in Marin and is ready to run the Dipsea. Bib #1714

John Hirabayashi of Orange Park, Fla. is dedicating his first Dipsea to his father, Sam, who last raced in the Dipsea in 2010 at the age of 83 before he died in 2011. John, 54, started running as a teenager in Japan.  Florida is one of 28 states from Maine to Hawaii and the District of Columbia entered in this year’s Dipsea plus four countries (Switzerland, Great Britian, Puerto Rico and Canada). Bib #1518.

Eve Pell, Dipsea Hall of Fame runner from Mill Valley and the widow of Sam Hirabayashi, is leading a $70,000 fundraising drive to honor her late husband by building a much-needed water fountain at Cardiac Hill, the highest point on the Dipsea trail at 1,360 feet above sea level. The popular Mill Valley couple were married at that spot.

Suzie (Locke) Ross of San Rafael, 53, is reconnecting with the Dipsea, calling the race “her destiny” following a series of setbacks. She applied for the 2011 race, but her mother contracted Lou Gehrig’s Disease and Suzie cared for her. Unfortunately, her mother died 10 months later, two months after Suzie’s father passed. Suzie’s daughter soonafter had to be hospitalized and she recently lost her father-in-law to cancer. “Running kept me from totally losing it,” she says. She needs the Dipsea more than ever. Bib #1494.

Gina Lyons Hartquist of Novato, 43, has competed in 10 consecutive Dipseas since she entered in honor of her late father, 17-time Dipsea black T-shirt winner Steve Lyons, after he was diagnosed with ALS. She carries a lock of his hair and his photo for inspiration each year she runs the Dipsea. Bib # 1510

Ryan Mollberg of Lafayette is running the Dipsea in honor of his dad, Richard, who had competed in the race for more than 10 years as a member of the Orinda Road Runners.  Richard was killed in a hit-and-run accident while running in Lake Tahoe last fall. Bib #1515

Eric Specter, 65, of San Francisco was training for his first Dipsea two years ago when he took a spectacular fall. One of his feet was placed in a brace and he thought he would never run competitively again without pain. Now, he is finally healthy and running again and is entered in this year’s Dipsea – one of 10 grueling races he’s entering to complete in a personal bucket list this year. Bib #423

10th anniversary of Melody-Anne Schultz’s second (of three) Dipsea wins and the late Jack “The Dipsea Demon” Kirk’s final start in the race at the age of 95. Kirk had to be driven down to the finish line from Cardiac Hill, ending his consecutive Dipsea finishes streak at 67. Schultz, then 61 years old, won by a whopping 5 minutes and 33 seconds. The Ross resident won one more Dipsea (in 2006) and finished runner-up, at age 68, to then 8-year-old Reilly Johnson of Mill Valley in 2010, the 100th running of the Dipsea.

15th anniversary of Russ Kiernan’s first Dipsea win after finishing second twice, third three times and 16 top 10 finishes. The Mill Valley runner, now 75, is the Dipsea’s all-time leader in black T-shirts won with 30 for finishing in the top 35. His first Dipsea race was in 1967 when he finished 317th out of 350.

20th anniversary of the inauguration of the Dipsea Hall of Fame and Andre Tuinzing collapsing three times in the race and crossing the finish line in his bare feet as he forget to put them on after being revived following one of his falls. The annual Dipsea Race Foundation Hall of Fame dinner is at the Mill Valley Golf Course this year on Friday, June 7.

25th anniversary of Kay Willoughby’s one and only Dipsea victory. The top five finishers were females and the top three (Willoughby, Peggy Smyth and Patricia English) crossed the finish line within 10 seconds, one of the closest finishes in Dipsea history.

50th anniversary of the “Changing of the Guard” in the Dipsea.  The Mill Valley Junior Chamber of Commerce (later the Mill Valley Jaycees) took over ownership of the race led by new Chamber member Jerry Hauke. It was first year the Dipsea had more than 100 runners (all male) finish the race (now there are more than 1,000 males and females who finish). Hauke became the driving force behind the Dipsea, guiding it through trials and tribulations to its current status.

Carolyn Costamagna of San Ramon is now doing “something for myself” after raising two sons after her husband and their father died suddenly and tragically in 1999. She competed in her first Dipsea last year at the age of 45. Bib # 1774.

Peter Kissin, 22 of Larkspur, is an NCAA Div. III All-American runner at Haverford College who ran cross country for Redwood High School. He has never competed in the Dipsea, but this year wants to run with his father, Roy, a Dipsea veteran, in an attempt to win the Family Trophy a week before Father’s Day. Peter’s Bib #675.

Joe Grant of Dublin, who will be 55 on Dipsea Sunday, has been a competitive runner since 1972 having been inspired by Frank Shorter’s Olympic victory in Munich. Joe has competed in 25 consecutive Dipsea races. Bib #617.

Erin Wagner, the track and field coach at Tam High School in Mill Valley, was unable to run in last year’s Dipsea because she broke the fifth metatarsal in her left foot the day after she competed in the 2012 Boston Marathon. She mailed an X-ray copy of her left foot as proof of her injury. Bib #418.

Ken Barrett of Mill Valley ran last year’s Dipsea with pneumonia, his 36th consecutive Dipsea race, three weeks after running in the Grand Canyon Rim To Rim Race in the cold. He is a member of a group of avid backcountry skiers, climbers, runners and hikers who called themselves “The Duck Brothers.” Bib #402.

Johnny Lawson, an 18-year-old record-breaking cross country runner at Drake High School from Forest Knolls who has been the fastest high school runner in the Dipsea the past – years, will be joined by his brother, Wyatt, who will be competing in his first Dipsea. Johnny’s mother Kelly leads volunteers at the finish line where Johnny, upon crossing the line, traditionally points skyward, acknowledging his late father, John, who was a perennial Dipsea competitor. Johnny’s Bib #377.