Anchorage's Caitlin Patterson is best known as a nordic skier — she's pocketed World Cup points, won national championships and seized the overall women's title in the SuperTour, the top domestic circuit.
She's pretty good at mountain running, too, as she showed Saturday.
Patterson, 27, finished fourth among women at the U.S. Mountain Running Championships in North Conway, New Hampshire, to qualify for the World Mountain Running Championships next month in Italy.
Patterson clocked 56 minutes, 42 seconds, in the Canmore Mountain Race, which doubled as the national championship. The two-loop race covered 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) and a combined total of about 2,500 feet in elevation gain, with a similar amount of descent.
The top four men and top four women qualified for the world championships, set for July 30 in Premana, Italy. The women's winner was Addie Bracey, who clocked 53:56. Brandon Newbould, who starred for Soldotna in high school, finished eighth in the men's 10-K race Saturday in 51:20.
In 2015, Allie Ostrander of Soldotna won the junior women's title at the World Mountain Running Championships in North Wales and Levi Thomet of Kodiak took second place in the junior men's division.