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Long distance runner Fred Zalokar found dead after going missing

2 mins read

Fred Zalokar, 61, an ultra-marathon runner from Nevada, was discovered lifeless following his hike at Yosemite National Park.

Last weekend, the runner took a route off the trail from Happy Isles at the Yosemite Valley’s eastern end to the 11, 522-foot Mount Clark summit. He was a champion that had been featured in Runner’s World as well as the Reno Gazette Journal.

Zalokar said he will return to Yosemite Valley after the hike but failed to do so. The official search efforts for the missing marathoner concluded on Sunday and two days after, his body was found near Mount Clark’s summit, the National Park Service statement said.

The “incident remains under investigation,” the National Park Service said, adding that “no additional information is available,” as it expressed its condolences to the runner’s bereaved family and friends, as reported by SFGate.

Born in Ohio, Zalokar moved in different locations as a child, reaching New York, New Jersey, and Southern California.

He finished high school in Tulsa and completed an accounting degree from University of Oklahoma. After his college education, he moved to San Francisco and a couple of years later, in the 1980s, he relocated to Reno to pursue his passion for the mountains, the Gazette Journal reported.

“I just want to keep going, trying to get faster, stronger and do the best every day, every mountain, every race,” the runner once told the Runner’s World during an interview in 2017, as he shared his target to set a 55-to-59 age group marathon record.

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