By DOUGLAS W. MOTLEY
Senior Writer
Longtime Crestline runner Edward “Fast Eddie” Hahn completed his 300th marathon last Saturday, Nov. 18, at the REVEL Big Bear marathon.
Eddie Hahn finished in 14th place at last August’s 250-person Run Through the Pines at Lake Gregory in Crestline. (Photo by Douglas W. Motley)
“Thank you for the support and kind words from my marathon friends and pacees,” said Hahn. He began the grueling, 26.2-mile course from Greyback Amphitheater (altitude 6,629 feet), near the base of Sugarloaf Mountain, south of Big Bear Mountain Ski Resort, at 6 a.m. and traveled downhill all the way to Redlands Sports Park, near Mentone, in just 3 hours and 48 minutes.
Prior to Saturday’s event, some 1,000 or more marathon participants attended the REVEL Big Bear Expo on Friday, Nov. 17 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Ontario Convention Center, where they picked up their race bags. Marathon buses departed for Big Bear the next morning from 3:30 to 4:45 a.m.
Dozens of vendors provided marathon apparel and healthy breakfast foods. (Photo by Douglas W. Motley)
Hahn, who retired from the U.S. Army in 2016, resides in Crestline with his three children – Samantha, 19, Julian, 16, and Francis, 12 – along with their dog, Susie, who has also completed a marathon. His 40-year passion for running includes finishing his goal of running one marathon in each of 50 states, which he did in October 2014 at Portland, Maine.
He has also run marathons in 10 countries, most recently Turks and Caicos islands in 2020. His 300 completed marathons include three 50-kilometer, one 88-mile and one100-mile ultra marathon. Hahn’s personal best time of 2:52 occurred in a Piscataway, N.J., marathon in 1993. His best time in a half-marathon was 1:18 at Seaside Heights, N.J., in 1994.
The 58-year-old Hahn completed the Mainly Marathons Southwest in Laughlin, Nev., on Nov. 9. He was the overall winner of that marathon, his 299th.
Thank you for the article. Very nice. Only two minor corrections. I retired from the US Army in 2006, not 2016. I have been a runner for 44 years. (I ran my first marathon in 1984, but I started running and racing in 1980, including a half marathon finish in 1982.)