2005 Seattle Marathon: Steidl in seventh heaven

Seattle Marathon race announcer Laurel James wanted to make sure that the hundreds of spectators at Memorial Stadium were aware of the approaching winner in Sunday's race.

"It's the Uli Seattle Marathon," she began.

"It's the Uliathon," she continued.

"He owns this race," she concluded.

Moments later, "he" appeared. That would be Uli Steidl of Shoreline, who romped home with his seventh consecutive win with a course record clocking of 2 hours, 24 minutes and 24 seconds. It broke his 4-year-old course standard by 14 seconds.

Steidl ran by himself after putting in an especially hard mile just past the midway point of the course. He continued to pull away, finishing almost exactly 10 minutes (and nearly two miles) ahead of runner-up Jesse Stevick of Spokane.

Steidl crossed the finish line hand-in-hand with Trisha Rosenberg, his wife and fellow marathoner. Sidelined by a stress fracture, Rosenberg watched her husband's almost wire-to-wire triumph from the pace car, then hopped out to join him in the final sprint.

The finish area has special meaning for them. It's where Steidl proposed moments after Rosenberg finished last year.

The same area has now acquired a special meaning for women's winner Sara Otepka, as she won her first marathon in six tries. Her 3:07:44 represented a personal best. Her time might have been even better, but she confessed to "underestimating the hills at the end."

A bit of a latecomer to top-level running, Otepka was a four-time state high-school tennis champion in Nebraska. She took up marathoning and multi-sport events after moving to Boulder, Colo., widely considered one of the top two or three running meccas in the United States.

The recent Seattle transplant described the feeling covering the final few yards of FieldTurf as "just so awesome. I'm trying not to lose it emotionally."

It may also give her the chance to say, "I told you so" to one of her new co-workers at Amazon.com. She had predicted her victory to him a few days earlier, but he didn't believe her.

"I was ready to win it," she said. "My whole family was in town."

Steidl's cheering section was smaller, but Rosenberg made up for lack of numbers with her enthusiasm — as well as her heavy down parka, which Steidl put on as temperatures hovered in the low 40s.

John Hill of Bellevue won the accompanying half marathon in 1:11:28. Portland's Lauren Johnson was the female champion in 1:20:52.

Dick Camermayer, 76 of Aurora, Ill., completed his decade-long goal of finishing a race in every state. Camermayer's excellent 2:18:10 clocking in the half marathon not only won his age group but also placed him in the top third of all finishers. Rick Becker, 51, of Selah leapfrogged all of the 40-year-olds to win the masters division (ages 40 and above) in 1:17:21.

Total registration for the two events was about 300 above last year, with 2,735 entering the full marathon and another 8,158 in the half marathon.

MALE MARATHON