A former member of the University of Wisconsin cross-country and track team won the Milwaukee Marathon on Saturday morning and a 32-year-old mother of three made a huge comeback to win the women's division.
Tony Adriansen, 21, a junior computer science major at UW, finished first with a time of 2 hours 21 minutes and 11 seconds. Krista Staley of Missouri was crowned the women's winner.
An 8K runner for his first two years in college, Adriansen took the giant leap to the 26.2-mile marathon distance just within the past year. In his first-ever marathon in 2024, the Madison Marathon, he took second place.
Now, he's a winner already, in just his second marathon.
The Green Bay native led the entire way without a close challenger and may have found his ideal race distance.
"I was never really like the fastest sprinter on the scene," said Adriansen, who added he ran longer-distance races in high school and college. "So moving up felt pretty natural. I've actually never even raced a half-marathon.
"I signed up for Chicago this fall. And then I decided, I want to run something in the spring, but I don't want to burn out and run a full. So I'll run the Milwaukee half-marathon.
"And then, like, I don't know, five weeks ago, I was like, well, training is going really well ..."
So he signed up for the full and ended up winning it.
Running with the momentum of the half-marathoners in the mass starting line, Adriansen then took the lead solo between three and four miles when the two distances split the course route. Alone with just the cyclists who cleared the route before him, he monitored his blistering fast 5:24 pace with his watch.
"My goal − because I only switched to the full five weeks ago − was, 'I just want to run faster,'" Adriansen said. "And so this definitely exceeded it, because it was 2 minutes faster."
Noting the hill by the water tower that most runners found to be a bit of a beast, he liked the course overall.
"Running along the water was really cool," he said. "Madison Marathon ran around Lake Monona, and I just like running on the water. So having that full massive stretch right by Summerfest is really cool."
By the time he rejoined the half-marathoners to share the same course and finish the final five miles or so, Adriansen had become a bit of a celebrity with his marathon blue bib in a sea of red half-marathon bibs.
"Everyone was like, 'Oh my gosh, look at that dude,'" he said.
With a beautiful first-place medal, all he needs now is a name, image and likeness deal.
