Stevick picks up right where he left off, wins Capital City Marathon for the 11th time

For two years, the streets of Olympia stayed quiet on the third Sunday in May as the Capital City Marathon fell victim to the coronavirus pandemic.

This year the race was run. Little had changed.

Jesse Stevick, fresh from a potentially draining couple of days coaching the Olympia High School boys track team to a solid third place finish in the 4A South Puget Sound League track meet, paced himself early, then ran away for his eleventh Cap City victory.

He finished nine minutes ahead of runner-up Tyler Shirley of Vancouver in a steady drizzle.

His time, at age 40, of 2:39:09 was slightly faster than the 2:39:58 he ran three years ago to finish second to Roman Kirkov of Chehalis and only three minutes slower than the 2:36:10 he ran to his last triumph, in 2016.

Ever the realist, Stevick pointed out that there are a number or marathoners in the Northwest who could beat him if they entered the Olympia race but they seldom do.

After leaving the SPSL meet at Bethel High School in Spanaway on Saturday excited about the Bears’ performance in the final event, the 4x400 relay, Stevick, who had made it a point to stay hydrated and fed while coaching, reminded himself around 9 p.m. to rest for the morning’s race.

When the gun sounded, he stayed relaxed.

“I went out with a slower pace. I went through half in 1:18-ish, which is slower than I’ve been out in other races,” Stevick said. “I never really died. A couple of hilly parts, I backed off a little bit.”

With his big lead, Stevick didn’t know who was where behind him.

“I had no idea where anybody else was,” he said. “One year somebody pulled up on me with 400 meters to go and I had to outkick him.”

Stevick, a father of six as well as a teacher and coach, isn’t sure how long he’ll contend for titles in the marathon.

“Every year I ask myself ‘is it worth it to get up at 4:30 in the morning to go on 17, 18 mile runs before school, especially during track season?’” he said. “You wonder ‘why am I doing this?’”

Stevick said he and his wife, Jenny, who finished third in the women’s marathon Sunday, have come up with a philosophical take on continuing to run at a high level.

“It’s good to do something really hard,” he said. “Something where you feel overwhelmed with life, with coaching and teaching and having six kids. It so valuable because when you’re done and you feel the relief of having met a goal, it’s fun.”

Meanwhile, another parent roughly Stevick’s age, 39-year old Michaela Doelman of Olympia, got to run past her kids as they stood in the front yard of their South Capitol neighborhood home and cheered her on in the final stages of her win in the women’s marathon.

Doelman, who didn’t start running until she had children, clocked a time of 3:24:45, winning her first marathon in five tries by six minutes over Jesse Rodriguez of Auburn.

“I wasn’t worried about how I was going to do but I felt good. I didn’t think I had a chance to win. I was just trying to finish,” Doelman said. “Around mile 13 I started to think I might be able to win. My knee has been hurting but when I saw the pace car, I thought ‘oh, well, might as well keep up with it.’”

In the women’s half marathon, 37-year old Bridget Hovde of Olympia, a recent transplant from Colorado, won in 1:29:14, two minutes ahead of 28-year old Seattleite Mary Davis.

Hovde struggled a bit with an uphill section of the course between miles eight and nine, leading to Eastside Street.

“All I could think of was ‘for every uphill, there’ll be a downhill,’” she said. “Once I hit the corner I could see the downhill. It was nice. There were parts where it was raining, parts where it was dry.”

Hovde knew she was ahead of the 419 other women in the half marathon, so concentrated on reeling in as many male runners as she could.

She tentatively plans to follow up her win in Olympia with an eighth try at a full marathon, perhaps in Portland.

“But every time I see that 26.2, I’m like ‘oh, I don’t know,’” she said with a laugh.

Josiah Price of Olympia won the men’s half marathon in 1:14.51.

Matthew George of Tumwater triumphed in the men’s five-mile race in 28:09 while Seattle’s Miran McCash had the fastest time in the women’s five-mile at 34:33, good for a two-minute win over Mary Sherman of Tumwater.

This story was originally published May 15, 2022 at 12:39 PM.