Hess breaks course record on Day 2; Taflinger still No. 1

Fighting fatigue/soreness, early morning drowsiness/darkness, and the unforgiving hills of Saipan’s highest peak, Swiss visitor Martin Hess still ran it and broke the course record for what most runners said was the hardest course of the Run Saipan 2024 Trinity Race—the Mt. Tapochau 5K course on Day 2.

With the morning sun not even peeking over the eastside horizon yet, the Top 3 runners came bounding into the finish line last Sunday, with Hess clocking in first at an impressive time of 25 minutes flat.

Second to Hess was youngster Victor Nash Santos at 26:28, and third was Sildrey Veloria at 27:08. The Top 3 actually beat last year’s inaugural first place time of 31:36 set by runner/cyclist Joel Buco.

In the women’s division, 13-year-old Addalee Taflinger outpaced all the other women runners with a time of 33:03; second was Shawna Brennfleck with a time of 33:53; and third was Ann Bang who clocked in at 35:41.

Hess brought his sprinting legs despite being a distance runner and fearlessly scaled the 474 m (1,555 ft.) mountain with relative ease. The loop at the base in Capital Hill may have confused him for a bit, but that didn’t deter him from racing up the mountain the fastest and setting a new course record.

He said this second consecutive day of the race was the hardest because he was sore and had initial complications of finding the way through the course in the loop at the base of the mountain, but when he reached the mountain road, it was all uphill for him from there—literally.

Hess said this race was way harder than Day 1’s 10K as it’s a steep course, but he managed to pull away from the pack 2 kilometers in.

For student-athlete Taflinger, she said, the race for her was also “exhausting since it was all uphill. I feel like every single time we run Mt. Tapochau, it gets longer.”

She ran with Brennfleck for the first mile and a half, but as they ran up one of the hills, she pulled ahead. It was a grueling race for Taflinger as she felt sore from Day 1’s race and also from playing volleyball, but she still managed to once again lock down first place on Day 2.

On how she kept pushing despite the challenges, she said, “I wanted to keep first place and so I just kept on pushing myself and telling myself that I could do it.” With the final race on Day 3 the next day and also a 6am race, she said, “I’m ready for it, but I feel like it’s going to be really hard since it’s been two days of running. I’m already really exhausted.”

Results of Day 3 at Marpi (5K) and overall/Top 10 runners will be posted in the next issues of Saipan Tribune.