Equinox Marathon
The Equinox Marathon has enthralled and exhausted participants for 50 years. When University of Alaska Fairbanks ski coach Jim Mahaffey tasked two of his athletes, Nat Goodhue and Gail Bakken, with laying out a 26.2-mile trail in 1963, the concept was novel: only about a dozen marathons existed in the United States. Quickly the community embraced the event and it grew from 143 entrants to more than 1,000. Several times in the late 1960s, the Equinox exceeded even the famous Boston Marathon in participation.