Quad Dipsea no match for Ashland runner

Erik Skaggs, of Ashland, Oregon, was the men's winner of the Quad...Most everyone considers crossing the Dipsea Trail a formidable challenge. To run it four times in a row - 28 miles, with 9,200 feet each of precipitous uphill and downhill - appears nearly incomprehensible.
To do it in under 4 hours is, well, off the chart of adjectives. At Saturday's 25th annual Quadruple Dipsea, Erik Skaggs became the second runner ever to turn the feat with a sensational time of 3 hours, 53 minutes, 7 seconds. San Rafael's Victor Ballesteros was runner-up, 20 minutes back.

Skaggs, making his first visit to the Dipsea Trail, laid down the gauntlet by covering the opening leg from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach in a scintillating 54 minutes. Buchanan (last year's winner) lost sight of him by the top of the steps which open the course. Skaggs returned to Old Mill Park, halfway through, in 1:51:14, well on track to break the Quad's legendary record of 3:52:29, set by Carl Andersen in 1992. But a slowing, though still torrid, third leg of 59 minutes kept finish line observers guessing. Despite a furious final charge, Skaggs missed the record by 38 seconds.

"It was hard," said Skaggs immediately after finishing. "I walked, for the first time, on the hill out of Stinson Beach on the last lap, and that demoralized me a bit."

taken from the Marin Independant Journal