RETURN OF THE KING

Trail titan prepares to defend his national crown

By Nathan Dinsdale

PUBLISHED 09/10/2009

King will be the men's favorite this weekend, but he's not a complete lock for a repeat trip atop the podium. The Bend course is faster than most trail runs and thus more palatable to track specialists like Bruce and Ryan Bak (who joined King on the 2008 US Cross Country Team and also finished third at last year's XTERRA nationals). The fact that runners like King, Bruce and Bak, along with ultramarathon stalwarts Susannah Beck and Kami Semick (who finished 1-2, respectively, on the women's side last year), are competing in the fledgling national championship is a testament to the growing prominence of the XTERRA races.

Still, many of the top runners will use this year's Nationals as a training tune-up for bigger and more lucrative races (King is targeting November's New York City Marathon and Semick will race the Twin Cities Marathon in October). It's simply a matter of economics and logistics. With scant prize money (King earned $3,000 for his national and world championship wins combined) and little-to-no travel support, the XTERRA Series still has plenty of room to grow.

"When you have top-notch runners like Max King competing, it's obviously attracting elite talent," Semick says. "It's fun to have a national championship and to get to compete against runners across the country but I think if the prize package was upped and there was greater awareness the talent pool would definitely be deeper."

Having the National Championship in Bend doesn't hurt, given that so many elite distance runners have adopted Oregon as their home. The killer B's (Bruce, Bak and Beck) all reside in Eugene while King and Semick both hail from Bend.

King credits the XTERRA Championships for helping boost the prominence of trail racing but is nevertheless reluctant to wear his crown as ostensibly the best trail runner on the planet. At least until he hits the trail with the true crème-de-la-crème of the running world.

"I might start losing if the best runners in the world started competing, but I think that'd be great for the sport," King says. "I've had some success with trail running but I'd love to be able to compete against some of the top guys in the world and see how I stack up against the very best."