The ascent of Ester Dome begins “officially” near the 9-mile mark on the course. Runners reach the first summit (Ullrhavn Summit) 3.4 miles/5.4Km and about 1500 vertical feet/450 vertical meters later. Needless to say, it is important to adjust one’s pace when ascending.

The 3 mile long Out-And-Back begins shortly beyond the Ullrhavn Summit, at the saddle between the two peaks of Ester Dome – see the FAQ about the Out-And-Back. This hilly section often decides the race.

The descent from Ester Dome is as crucial as the ascent. The descent starts near the 17 mile mark with the semi-suicidal plummet down the “Chute,” which drops several hundred feet in about 1/3 of a mile of rutted, loose gravel with very bad footing. After that, the course makes a 90-degree left hand turn and gets on a trail which continues to descend, albeit more gradually than the chute.

The trail ends past the 19-mile mark, at which point the course continues to descend on Henderson Road, which starts out as a well-graded gravel road, then becomes a paved road about 1/2 mile later, just past the 20-mile mark. From that point, it’s another 1.5 miles of steady, rolling downhill to the power lines just before Gold Hill Road, where you can breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that you have put “the Dome” behind you.

You have two opportunities to pick up your race number/bib . . . but we don’t want you to use the last opportunity (race morning).

The two pre-race bib pickup occasions are during the week leading up to race day. See the Schedule page for the times and locations.

Runners who have entered prior to those bib pick-up times can pick up their bibs and race swag at that time. It will also be possible for people who have not yet entered to enter at this time.

The final opportunity for bib pickup is race morning in the Patty Center. Please do not use this bib pickup session unless you are from out-of-town and haven’t been able to attend one of the earlier bib pickup sessions. The fewer people who pick up their bibs on race day, the smoother the event will go for everyone involved–especially for runners.

You can also enter the race on race morning, at a very high entry fee. Race day entries are a hassle for everyone, so we use our entry fee schedule to encourage people to enter early, and to discourage them from entering late.

The “out-and-back” is the section of the Equinox Marathon course begins at the saddle between the two Ester Dome peaks, at mile 13.7. It goes west along the summit ridge of Ester Dome to the turnaround (approximately mile 14.75), then returns by the same route to mile 16.6.

This section involves ascending four summits on the way out, and the same four summits on the return. Most of this part of the course is on gravel road/mining road. This section can often have many puddles and will likely be rutted in places. If we have gotten any snow before the day of the race, there could be icy spots as well.

The “out-and-back” section can be challenging, and it’s something you want to train for. Ideally, you should have at least hiked it before the race.

The word “Ullrhavn” refers to the first summit that you reach on Ester Dome, at 12.4 miles into the course. In the early days of the marathon there was a lodge called “Ullrhavn” located on that summit. The lodge was connected with a ski area that used to operate on the slopes of Ester Dome.

The Equinox Marathon is NOT certified as a Boston Marathon qualifier. If you have run many marathons and have never run the Equinox Marathon, DO NOT plan on running a PR in the Equinox Marathon. It won’t happen.

Plan on adding 45 to 90 seconds a mile to your “normal” marathon time. More, if you’re not trained for large elevation changes.

There is also a practical reason why the Equinox Marathon is not a Boston qualifier. The majority of our course is on trails and gravel roads, although there are some sections on road shoulders and bike paths. It is very difficult to certify a course that has more than a tiny amount of non-paved surfaces, and impossible on the rocky and rooty trails of the Equinox. So the Equinox Marathon course is not officially certified and registered with the USATF, which is required by Boston. It is, however, carefully measured by experienced course certifiers.

Awards will be presented at the awards banquet and ceremony, beginning at 7:30PM on race day:

Marathon and Half-Marathon Awards

The first three men and the first three women in the in each age class will receive medals

The first five men and the first five women overall will receive special awards

Spirit of the Equinox Award

The Spirit of the Equinox Award is made at the conclusion of the awards ceremony. Read more about the Spirit of the Equinox Award by running your cursor over the “More” menu item and then clicking on “Spirit of the Equinox.”

Special Awards

From time to time, the organizers of the Equinox Marathon may create special awards, either one-time awards or annual awards.

In 2010, Nat Goodhue, Gail (Bakken) Johnson and Jim Mahaffey, three of the principals who created the Equinox Marathon, were presented with special “Founders Awards,” in recognition of their foresight and energy in starting the event in 1963.

Marathon finishers who finish by 6:00PM will receive an Equinox Marathon patch, the traditional recognition of finishing the marathon. Food and drink will be available for all finishers who cross the line by 4:00PM; service levels will be reduced beginning at 4:00PM.

The Equinox events are held on the Saturday in September on or immediately prior to the Autumnal Equinox. When the Autumnal Equinox occurs on a Saturday, then the Equinox events are normally held on that date. The Equinox events will not be held later than the Autumnal Equinox.

Both equinoxes–autumnal and spring–are significant dates in Fairbanks, since we are so close to the Arctic Circle. They represent the two dates each year where the sun is above and below the horizon for roughly the same amount of time on a given day. You can find lots of interesting information about the equinoxes on the Wikipedia Equinox article.

The Equinox courses have been carefully measured using calibrated bicycles using a technique similar to the standard technique use to certify road race courses. It is impossible to obtain official certification for the course because so much of it is on rough, unpaved surfaces. And it would serve little purpose. It would be hard to get a Boston qualifying time on the Equinox and no world record is going to be set on the course.

We install Jones Counters on the front wheel of mountain bikes. The bikes are calibrated on a measured ½ mile course on a straight, flat section of Chena Pump Road that was established with precision electronic distance measurement (EDM) equipment by registered surveyor Pat Kalen. We ride back and forth, and if the measurements are not consistent we ride more laps. This gives us a constant – the number of clicks per mile on the Jones counter.

We use the mile markers as monuments as we ride the calibrated bikes around the course. We establish a point as the start of the out and back. We measure the distance from the start to that point and measure the distance from the finish to the same point. We can then calculate how long the out and back needs to be for the course to be 26 miles and 385 yards.

If you measure the course with a GPS you should find the course is short. This is because a GPS measures the distance from point to point as you move around the course, so it misses a lot of surface irregularities that a rolling wheel measures. Of course, a rolling wheel measures up one side of every root and down the other, whereas a runner steps over the root. But our objective is to have a course that is similar to past Equinox courses. We have talked to course founder Nat Goodhue and he used a surveyor’s wheel to lay out the course. The calibrated bicycle should give a similar measurement to a surveyor’s wheel.

We diverge from the USATF methods in one way: To ensure that a course is not short, they have you multiply your working constant by 1.001. Since we are not worried about someone setting a world record we don’t bother with this. We ride the course at least twice and the certification standard is that two rides need to be within 0.08 percent of each other. The roughness of the course makes it very hard to meet the 0.08 percent standard.

We are confident the course is very close to marathon length and similar to past courses.

There is no official race photographer, so no one you see out taking photos on the course is doing it officially. Nonetheless, there are usually lots of very good photographers out there on race day, and some generously post their race-day collections online. Often you can even request a full size version of a photo for free or small cost. (Please don’t abuse their generosity! Few are professional photographers, in the sense that is how they make their living.)

We normally put a post with links we hear about in the News section of this site, a few days after the race. If we know about any links to photo collections, that’s where they will be. And please let us know of any good collections you find.

And you can often find lots of great photos on our Facebook page and the pages of our friends.

If you want to be sure of getting great photos of your race day, you can always hire your own photographer!