Greates Dipsea Runner #3: Mason Hartwell

(This story first appeared in the Marin Independent Journal of March 16, 2010.)

In its first decades, the Dipsea Race regularly drew just about every top distance runner in northern California. So newspaper accounts always gave the winner of the Best Time Trophy, for the fastest actual time, as much ink as the runner, aided by a head start, who broke the finish tape. Mason Hartwell managed to win seven Best Time awards—a record that stood for 74 years--in just eight tries. He was the first runner to break both 49 and 48 minutes, and set a Dipsea course record that lasted 25 years. For setting records that lasted not years, but decades, Hartwell is No. 3 of the greatest Dipsea racers.

John Mason Hartwell was born in 1889 and grew up in Mill Valley. His younger brother Ben was Mill Valley’s first motorcycle patrolman, and older brother George finished third in the 1908 Dipsea.

Mason made his Dipsea debut in 1910, running for the Olympic Club, founders of the race five years earlier. He passed George and ran the day’s fastest time, 52 minutes, 43 seconds. But he finished a tantalizing 13 seconds behind winner Oliver Millard, who started two-and-a-half minutes ahead of him.

In 1911, one of the hottest Dipsea days ever slowed all, except Mason Hartwell. Now running scratch (no head start), or “the place of honor,” Hartwell shaved 42 seconds off his 1910 mark to win Best Time trophy No. 2.

The 1912 Dipsea was epic. Mason was the lone scratch runner in a field of 81. Even Millard, runner-up at Cross-City (now called Bay to Breakers) earlier in the year, got a minute. The San Francisco Chronicle described Mason charging up from Redwood Creek, “As if he cared not for the laws of gravity….(Runners) were astonished to see the scratch man overtake them so early in the race, and most of them willingly gave way so that the Olympic Club member might have the opportunity to break the record for the course.” Mason got that record, by an amazing two minutes. Indeed, his 47:56 was faster than anyone imagined the hilly seven miles between Mill Valley and Stinson Beach could be covered. Still, it only got Hartwell third place, with Donald Dunn (six-minute handicap) winning. Over the next 48 years, there would be only one faster crossing, Norman Bright’s 47:22 in 1937.

Hartwell missed the next two Dipseas, returning in 1915. He and Millard were the lone scratch men. Mason outran Millard by 45 seconds, his 50:40 earning him Best Time No. 4. But again it wasn’t enough to catch the winner, Lee Blackwell (7:30 handicap).

In 1917, after a year off, Mason Hartwell finally won the Dipsea. Again he was in the “place of honor,” with only Millard and Walter Jones. Hartwell’s 51:39 brought him home 2:48 ahead of runner-up Millard, the largest victory margin in the Dipsea’s first 47 years. Hartwell also became the first scratch man to win, a feat not duplicated for 35 years.

Hartwell did not return to the Dipsea until 1920. He was the lone scratch man—among 121 finishers—and once again he won Best Time honors. But his 49:57 was only good for eighth place.

Hartwell retired from racing, then got the bug again in 1925. Awarded just one head start minute, although he was near the oldest (age 36) in the field, Hartwell finished 31st.

But there was a last hurrah. In 1926, Hartwell, dubbed “the grand old man of the race,” ran 52:53, arriving in 6^th place and winning Best Time award No. 7. It was 16 years since his first Time trophy, still the record. And it would be 51 years until anyone older (Homer Latimer, 38) won Best Time honors.

Here is the Chronicle’s account of Hartwell’s 1926 finish: “Their faces tell the story of the hard Dipsea Trail as the runners come down the road between the double bank of spectators at the Willow Camp (Stinson Beach) finish….Their tied-up leg muscles show the effects of unaccustomed strain….But there comes one….coasting along like a miler on a good track. There’s a half smile on his face as he comes down the stretch. His legs work with an easy loose-muscled action. It’s Mason Hartwell, an Olympian and greatest of Dipsea runners….No trainer reaches to catch Hartwell as he crosses the finish line. Leave the cots and the rubbing for the youngsters. The veteran….fresh as a daisy, and, without resting, goes to join his family for he has another race on his day’s schedule. He has promised to swim out beyond the breakers with his 11-year-old daughter.”

Hartwell died in 1971. In 2000, Mike McManus finally surpassed his Best Time total by winning an eighth trophy. Fittingly, Mason’s 80-year-old son Thomas, a family friend of the McManus’s, was on hand to watch.