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Unalaska's Wilt beats 1,214 runners in 13.1-mile race

June 20th 5:39 pm | Van Williams Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

There were 1,216 women in Saturday's Mayor's Half-Marathon in Anchorage.

And Unalaska runner Hallidie Wilt beat all of them but one.

Palmer's Emma Bohman edged Wilt by 64 seconds in a 13.1-mile battle of University of Alaska Anchorage teammates, crossing the line in 1 hour, 25 minutes and 56 seconds.

Wilt finished in 1 hour, 27 minutes - a whopping 90 seconds faster than last year's time.

"I'm very happy," Wilt said. "It was the first time in a while that felt really good."

Under clear blue skies, the 22-year-old UCSD graduate delivered another strong performance in the race. Last year she earned second place in the half-marathon and the year before that she won the 5.6-mile race.

Wilt and Bohman ran together on and off most of the race before Bohman pulled away for good.

"I was trying to run with her, but she wasn't having it," Wilt said with a laugh.

To be fair, Bohman was coming off the heels of a strong UAA track season while Wilt sat out to focus on school as a double major. That and she was a little burned out on running after having 3 years of intense college training for both track and cross country. She needed a break and redshirted.

"It got to the point where I wasn't enjoying running," she said.

The itch came back in May when her teammates went to Nationals. Wilt watched the action off a live feed online.

"It got me amped to get running again," she said. "It doesn't take much before you start to miss it."

She started with 45-minute runs and graduated to live races a few weeks later.

Three weeks ago, she won the Skinny Mini 6-K in 22:35.

Two weeks ago, she placed ninth out 1,721 in the Run for Women 5-miler in 31:46 (a 6:22 mile pace).

And last week she was second in the Mayor's Half-Marathon.

"All my races right now I'm just kind of doing for fun, just trying to get back into racing," Wilt said. "I'm just trying to build volume again because I took a week off after school."

Wilt is on pace to graduate next year and will wrap up her college track career in the spring of 2012.

 

Van Williams can be reached at vwilliams@alaskanewspapers.com

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