POCATELLO — Branson Fonnesbeck secured his victory in the Pocatello Marathon this past weekend with an emotional finish nearly a year in the making, after a mountain bike crash and shoulder surgery had wiped out his shot at the race in 2025.

Fonnesbeck won the marathon in 2 hours, 39 minutes and 6 seconds, following a neck-and-neck final stretch in the race's concluding miles. With a surge of energy, Fonnesbeck rallied near the finish line, beating out runner-up Justin Cannon of Idaho Falls by 33 seconds. The pair had run nearly shoulder to shoulder for most of the 26.2-mile course.

Alexandra Doherty of Cary, North Carolina, won the women's race in 3:07:08, claiming her first Pocatello Marathon title. She finished 11th overall.

Fonnesbeck's wife was waiting for him at the finish line. After checking over his shoulder to make sure he had enough space, he leaned in and kissed her before securing his first-place finish.

"As we came into that final stretch, seeing the green arch and the finish line, I was hit with this wall of emotion and appreciation for what I was about to accomplish," Fonnesbeck said. "From not being able to do it because of injury to being busy this last year and maybe not having the best training, but still being able to go out and do something like this was really amazing to feel at that moment."

The Pocatello Marathon was first held in 2000, and Fonnesbeck's win marks one of only a handful of times the men's race has been won by a Pocatello resident.

The victory closed out a chapter for Fonnesbeck, who spent three years in Pocatello while completing physical therapy school and moved to Missoula, Montana, on July 31, just weeks before returning to run the race he missed because of the mountain bike crash in 2025.

Fonnesbeck ran track and cross country in high school but didn't compete in college. He drifted back into the sport as an adult, running the Ogden Half Marathon a couple of times. When graduate school brought him to the Gate City, he made his way into local 10Ks through the Portneuf Valley running series, then won the Pocatello Half Marathon in 2024.

Through that win, he connected with the Pocatello Running Club, a group he credited with keeping him accountable to his goals, and with the Pocatello Running Company store in Pocatello's historic downtown, where an employee linked him with the ski and outdoor brand Rossignol as a regional trail-running athlete.

Fonnesbeck later moved into shorter trail races, winning the Spitfire 30K near Idaho Falls in consecutive years and setting course records there and at the Skyline 30K in Utah.

Emboldened by that success, he signed up for the Pocatello Marathon in 2025. Two weeks before the race, a mountain bike accident tore up his shoulder, requiring surgery to repair the AC joint. He spent roughly two months in a sling and had to defer his marathon entry to this year.

The lead-up to this year's race was a significant balancing act. Fonnesbeck was finishing physical therapy school, studying for his board exams and welcoming a second child with his wife, all while relocating his family from California to Utah to Idaho for clinical rotations before the move to Montana. He said he leaned on a concerted training regimen built through trail running rather than dedicated marathon training. He also used a fueling plan that helped his body retain and manage its energy levels.

At the start of the race, Fonnesbeck paced himself gradually, eventually breaking away from the larger group alongside two other leaders — runner-up Cannon and another competitor, Nate Jacobs of Idaho Falls, who finished third.

Fonnesbeck eventually passed Jacobs, leaving just him and Cannon to battle down the stretch near the old Bannock highway. He described how his legs were starting to feel heavy but said he let Cannon dictate the pace so he wouldn't overexert himself.

"We get to Century Hill, and that one's notorious in the race, not only for the half marathon at mile eight, but for the full marathon," Fonnesbeck said. "You're like at mile 21, approaching mile 22. Your legs are pretty cooked by then. But we make it up the hill, and then I end up able to catch him, and we go back and forth for a little bit after that."

As the pair passed Century High School, Fonnesbeck said he began to feel better in waves, deciding to pick up the pace in the final miles of the race.

"I picked up the tempo and just relied on the subtle downhill there to help carry me to South Valley Road," Fonnesbeck said. "From there, I never looked back."

Fonnesbeck said he deliberately kept his expectations low going into the race, given his disrupted training, but that finishing just 33 seconds ahead of Cannon made the win feel earned. He described the race as a parting thank-you to the Pocatello running community, from training partners to aid station volunteers to friends among the spectators, who supported him during his years in the city.

"I had a lot of fun in that race," Fonnesbeck said. "It was just smiles the whole way, as hard as that is to believe for a marathon. I have a lot of appreciation for the amazing community that Pocatello is. Now, if I end up coming back, I certainly hope so. I don't have immediate plans right now in coming back for it, but it's definitely whetted my appetite for what I think I can do. Being 27, I'm still young as a marathoner, and for other races and stuff, if it's trails, then we'll just keep having fun with it because that's really what it's about — just enjoying it."