VOLCANO — At the top of the hill, hours from the starting point down at Coconut Island, time was insignificant Saturday at the Cooper Center.
For a variety of reasons, the usual cast of characters found in the top finishes for both genders weren’t signed up this year so the individual championships for the annual Hilo-to-Volcano 50k ultra marathon became a display of new faces, in more ways than one.
Jacob Fansler, 44, of Kona, won the men’s division in 4:43.36, minutes away from the top times recorded in the event, but considering this was just his second run up the hill, and a churning stomach forced him to slow down and walk a mile not far from the finish, it was a noteworthy performance.
“I wanted a better time, but I was on my own, running all by myself the whole way,” Fansler said. “Without Billy (Barnett) and some of the others, I didn’t have anything to pace with. I’m sure I couldn’t have beaten those guys, but I probably would have had a better time.
“It was kind of frustrating with about three or miles to go,” he said. “My insides were tightening up like crazy, so I slow down and it eased up a little. I probably walked a mile and lost all that time but then I felt better enough to finish the race.
“Right now,” he said, “it feels pretty good.”
In a sense, the women’s winner, Sharla-Ann Fujimoto, 32, also of Kona, did him one better. Fansler may have run the Hilo-to-Volcano just once before, but a year ago at this time Fujimoto had never run a race of any kind.
This was her first and that’s where she finished, albeit, without a handful of top women runners like Bree Brown, sidelined with a broken ankle and a few others who had other commitments.
Fujimoto’s time of 6:07.49 was far down the list by an hour from top women’s finishes, and that’s all fine, but the record for winning an ultra marathon? It doesn’t get any better than winning your gender in the first race you entered.
Fujuimoto was greeted by her running partner Jesse Houlding and her husband Aaron, and it was smiles and laughter until they told her she won the event. She broke down emotionally, the victory mixing with the thrill of even finishing a nearly 4,000 foot climb in altitude in her first ultra.
“I knew I could finish,” she said, “I absolutely knew that, but I didn’t expect this.”
Houlding got her out on conditioning runs starting last May. She said she ran 10 to 15 miles the first week or two, but the distances then shot up, way up. Within a month she was clocking 50-mile weeks and in July she hit her first 70-mile week.
“Never in a million years would I have guessed something like this,” Fujimoto said, with a huge, satisfied smile.
Her strategy, if she had one in her first race? “I was just feeling good and thinking, ‘This is just where I need to be,’” she said. “I don’t know that I was pushing it that hard, I had no idea, no clue whatsoever that I was leading the race — that might have been a good thing.”
Yet another new face at the top of the finishers was Adam Bonus, 56, of Kurtistown, a coffee roaster at Hilo Coffee Mill, who competed for the third time in this event and placed second in the men’s results with a time of 4:50.43.
Bonus once had a string of three and-a-half years in which he ran every day, but life situations interrupted that streak and while he has been running, he said he didn’t have time to do any special training for this event.
“This is the third time I’ve done this,” he said, “and it was my best time, so maybe I should train more.”
The relay event was won by a hastily gathered team of David Wild, Alec Antrum and Cody Ranfranz, collectively the West Side Rejects, who clocked in at 3:58.53.
Wild is the cross country coach at Konawaena High School, Ankrum attends Kealakehe and Ranfranz is a Konawaena alum.
