Mark Miller, Dipsea Ironman

Never mind Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak, or Cal Ripken’s 2,632 consecutive games. THE streak in Marin running circles is Jack Kirk’s 67 consecutive Dipsea Race finishes from 1930 through 2002. (There were six years with no Dipsea, with the break during World War II preserving Kirk’s streak while he was in the military.) Mill Valley’s Mark Miller, 61, has now run 45 straight Dipseas. Or has he?

            Miller moved with his family—a brother, Matt, and sister, Maureen, have also raced the Dipsea—from Missouri to Mill Valley in 1967. He joined the Tamalpais High cross country and track teams. Bob Bunnell, who has also run 45 Dipseas (not consecutive), recalls a dual meet against Terra Linda High.

“Mark anchored the mile relay. He got the baton a good 50 yards behind the TL runner. Remarkably, he caught the guy just before the finish line. Mark’s split was under 50 seconds.”

            A newspaper photo of the Dipsea caught Miller’s eye and he decided to give the race a try. Teammates took him over the trail on his only practice run.            

“Back then (1968), you walked up to the Mill Valley Jaycees office, filled out a form, showed your AAU card, paid $1 and you were in,” recalls Miller. “The bib was a piece of white bed sheet with a number written in magic marker. I got a pair of Adidas shoes by mail from a store in Palo Alto and set off. But the shoes were so slick I fell coming down from Windy Gap (runners then were allowed to take a now-closed plunge from Panoramic Highway to the Muir Woods Road) and gashed open my knee. My prescription sunglasses also fell off and I kept shouting at runners not to step on them. Then, coming up from crossing the creek in Muir Woods (again via a steeper route than now permitted), I ran into a hornet nest and got stung. So there I was, bleeding and stung and not even halfway into the race.”

            But Miller pressed on and felt so proud of finishing—he was 314th in a time of one hour, seven minutes--he vowed then and there to race the Dipsea every year. He’s kept the promise.

            Miller was part of a great College of Marin cross-country team with Dipsea legends Bunnell, Don Makela, Ron Elijah and Darren Walton, plus Robin Williams. In 1978, he joined the new Tamalpa Runners club. In 1987, two weeks after running 35:42 in the Pacific Sun 10K, he ran a 58:42 Dipsea and finished 121st, all lifetime bests.

            In 1998, Miller tore his left ACL while skiing. Favoring the knee, he damaged the right one as well. He’s now had five knee surgeries, ending his competitive racing days. Then his house was burgled. Stolen were his camera and all his Dipsea finisher medals.

            Further disaster struck in spring 2004. Miller had volunteered at a Dipsea Trail poison-oak clearing work party in Muir Woods, supervised by park rangers. Soon after, ex-Tamalpa president Jerry Leith called and invited him to join another work party.

“When I didn’t see any rangers I asked Jerry about it and he said it was fine, that he had permission,” says Miller. “We worked in Swoop Hollow, then the rest of the group drove down to work on the shortcuts off Panoramic Highway. I walked down to meet them. When I got there, a Golden Gate National Recreation Area ranger was citing all the group of 15 for ‘building and clearing an illegal trail.’ (These shortcuts have been used by Dipsea racers for some 100 years, but are no longer part of the official Dipsea Trail.) Though I hadn’t done any work there, I was cited as well and had to pay $100.”

            Miller feared worse was ahead, and he was right. The GGNRA threatened to deny a race permit unless the cited runners were banned. So the Dipsea Committee wrote Miller telling him he was out, though they did refund his entry fee. Miller appealed to the GGNRA supervisor, to no avail.

“When the letter from the Dipsea Committee arrived, I was afraid to open it for fear I would be banned forever,” says Miller. “But when it only said I couldn’t run one year, I was so relieved I didn’t argue.” Leith, who never apologized to Miller, was banned for life.

            On race day, Miller ran the course, save for the start and the finish, where he was barred by an official.

            So is Miller’s Dipsea streak, which would only trail Darryl Beardall’s 53 in a row among active racers, actually still alive? Many Dipsea aficionados think so. 

“Mark’s disqualification from the race in 2004 was unfair. I consider his streak to be intact,” says George Frazier, who has a 34-race streak of his own.

            But Miller, semi-retired after working for decades at the Mill Valley Safeway, believes his streak ended in ’04. “I knew it as soon as I opened the letter. But I do feel I have a lot more Dipseas ahead. As I’ve told people, if you don’t see me at the Dipsea, you’ll know that I’m dead.” In 2009, the Dipsea Committee awarded Miller the Jack Kirk Trophy, for “dedication, perseverance and performance over time.”

**John Boitano, who had both a son (Mike) and daughter (MaryEtta) win the Dipsea Race, died on December 17 at age 91. Boitano, a World War II hero, ran many Dipseas, including with five-year-old MaryEtta in 1968.