All-Time Dipsea Runner #2

(This account first appeared in the Marin Independent Journal of April 16, 2010)

GREATEST DIPSEA RUNNERS No. 2, Russ Kiernan

By Barry Spitz

The Dipsea Race is celebrating its 100th running, and it just may take another 100 years for Russ Kiernan’s Dipsea records to be broken. He’s finished among the top three 15 times, captured 26 Team trophies and 29 black shirts, holds 13 Dipsea single age records, and won the Double Dipsea an absurdly high 11 times. And he’s far from through. At age 72, Kiernan is still gaining head start minutes, and is even an early favorite to get his fourth victory on June 13. Kiernan is No. 2 on our countdown of the greatest Dipsea racers of all-time, and a potential list-topper by the time he retires.

Kiernan, a native San Franciscan, followed his brother Don into the Dipsea in 1967. He finished an undistinguished 317th of 350. That was soon to change. Kiernan discovered he possessed a fearless ability to plunge down the Dipsea’s hair-raising descents, and the race favors downhill daredevils. Living in Mill Valley gave him time to train on the course, and to hunt down shortcuts, or “alternate routes” as he calls them, for which he has become legendary.

In 1977, he worked his way up to seventh, then to fourth the next year. From then on, any finish outside the top three was considered an off year. In 1979, he waged an epic battle with Don Chaffee, taking the lead in the downhill last mile. But then coming off the second Panoramic Highway shortcut, he made a horrid mistake, going right instead of crossing the creek. He had to scramble back and ended up three seconds behind Chaffee in what remains the closest Dipsea finish of the past 61 years. The site of the blunder is forever known as “Kiernan’s Crossing.”

In 1980, Kiernan ran his fastest Dipsea, fifty-one minutes, 23 seconds, at age 42, but was beaten by the race’s first adult woman winner, Donna Andrews. Russ and Don at least came away with the Family Trophy. In 1983, it was another second, this time to Sal Vasquez. People began calling Kiernan, “Avis,” the perennial also-ran to Hertz. Another 15 years of high finishes, and no victories, made Russ everyone’s sentimental favorite.

The drought ended in 1998. Melody-Anne Schultz had built a seemingly insurmountable lead but collapsed of dehydration a mile from the finish. Kiernan seized the moment. He held off a fast-closing Mike McManus to win, by 18 seconds.

In 1999, Kiernan ran “under his age,” a time in minutes below his years, a feat previously achieved by only a handful of the Dipsea’s greatest legends. Kiernan then made this rarity routine, doing it a mindboggling ten years in a row.

Victory No. 2 came in 2002, and it was eerily similar to his first win. Again Melody-Anne Schultz was seemingly cruising in front until she went down with a mile to go. And there came Kiernan, although his sensational 1:00:14 at age 64 may well have won in any case.

Kiernan also won the Dipsea’s first Centennial, the 2005 race that marked a century since the inaugural run. (Six years were missed, so 2010 is the actual 100th edition.) He blistered a 1:03:44 at age 67 to finish 49 seconds in front of Roy Rivers. There would likely have been even more victories except for the race’s draconian Winners Penalty, which knocked three minutes of head start (raised to four in 2007) from defending champions. Still, Kiernan managed second places in 2007 and ’08.

Kiernan’s combination of excellence, longevity, and consistency, in a race so dangerous and demanding, is without precedent. In the 33 Dipseas since 1977, Kiernan has finished among the top ten 27 times, with the next highest runner well back at 14. And this includes a three-year gap, 1989-91, when he battled prostate cancer. In 1994, he suffered a grizzly biking accident six days before the race. Anyone else would have stayed in bed; Kiernan raced anyhow, coming in 67th.

As another Dipsea Race Hall of Famer, Eve Pell, says, “When it comes to the Dipsea, Russ Kiernan is in a league of his own. No one else embodies his decades-long love affair with the race, knows so intimately every step, rock and root of the trail. He generously encourages and instructs both old hands and newcomers who want to do well on the second Sunday in June. He is respected and beloved--as the plaque on his [third flight] step says, ‘A Dipsea Legend.’”