06/11/2026
June 14, 2026 marks the 115th running of the Dipsea. This means 1,500 men and women, ranging in age from 8–80, most of them Marin residents, will leave downtown Mill Valley beginning at 8 a.m. and climb up 685 concrete steps, then run seven miles along some of Mt Tamalpais’ most rutted and steep dirt trails and finish in Stinson Beach near the Pacific Ocean. Sound like fun? It ain’t!
But for nearly every year since 1905, thousands of runners have insisted upon doing it. Only during two years of the Great Depression, four years of WWII and one year of the Covid pandemic were runners forced to stay home because the Dipsea had been cancelled. Yet, according to historian Barry Spitz’s 270-page book Dipsea, The Greatest Race, the weather — be it rain, fog or freezing cold — has never caused a cancellation.
Nor has harsh heat ever halted Dipsea mania. As Spitz chronicles on page 63, “The 1940 race was held on an oppressively hot day, perhaps the hottest in Dipsea history, with morning temperatures above 90 degrees.” Obvious results of the high temperatures were the runner’s slow times. “The winner Ernie Marinoni’s time,” Spitz points out, “was the second slowest winning time ever.” And Marinoni (note the first five letters of his last name), pictured above, wasn’t your typical runner. “He fought 183 fights as a lightweight boxer named Johnnie Costello,” writes Spitz. “He could really withstand punishment.” Who knows what the weather will be like for this year’s running of the Dipsea, but there’s one thing all of its runners will have to have in common — the ability to really withstand punishment.
Dipsea Race
