Well, that was a big weekend, and I’m not even talking about today’s pumpkin-patch fun–those corn mazes, yikes. That was a weekend in road running, wasn’t it! Over here in trail running and ultrarunning, what the weekend lacked in really competitive races, it more than made up for in volume, and we run through a bunch of it in this week’s column. G’day Monday.
Šmarna Gora – Ljubljana, Slovenia
The 10k Šmarna Gora race in Slovenia, in its 40th year, was the year’s seventh and final World Mountain Running Association World Cup contest.
Men
Petro Mamu (Eritrea) overtook Filimon Abraham (Eritrea) 400 meters from the summit finish and won in 42:17. Mamu’s win added to titles here in 2015 and 2016. Abraham chased to second just four seconds later, and Slovenia’s own Timotej Beçan was third in 43:19.
In 2017, Mamu failed two doping tests, after both the World Mountain Running Championships and the World Long Distance Mountain Running Championships. He was given a nine-month ban starting in September of 2017 by the IAAF for testing positive for fenoterol.
Andrew Douglas (U.K.) had already won the overall World Cup title, and he finished fourth in this race in 43:23.
Women
Lucy Murigi (Kenya) outdistanced Sarah McCormack (Ireland) over the race’s second half and won in 50:55. It was her third-straight win on this hill. McCormack was second in 51:51, but like Andrew Douglas, she too had already earned victory for the World Cup series. Lucie Maršánová (Czech Republic) ran 52:20 for third.
Lucy Murigi, 2019 Smarna Gora champion. Photo: Marco Gulberti and the World Mountain Running Association
Other Races and Runs
Defiance 50k
Roni Kauri and Lisa Wonneberg won Washington state’s Defiance 50k around the Puget Sound coast with 4:06 and 4:37 winning times. Full results.
Oregon Coast 50k
Rainshadow Running was in Oregon for the second weekend in a row. Evan Williams and Meredith Heestand led the Oregon Coast 50k in and around Yachats, Oregon. The pair went for 3:55 and 4:49 runs. Full results.
Elk-Kings 50k
Dylan Bowman moved to Oregon and won the Elk-Kings 50k men’s race on a route that summits both Elk and King Mountains inside of the Tillamook State Forest between Portland and the coast. Bowman ran 4:18 and women’s winner Megan Flanagan came through in 5:32. Full results.
Ruth Anderson Memorial 50 Mile
It was the 33rd year for the Ruth Anderson Memorial races in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. Fifty-mile wins went to Chikara Omine in 5:51, and Simone Angela Winkler in 8:16. Full results.
Ultra Trails Lake Tahoe
The first-year Ultra Trails Lake Tahoe race ran on the California side of Big Blue, Lake Tahoe. Haroldas Subertas and Alyson Kirk won the 100 miler, though just six finished, in 23:52 and 26:41. In the 50-mile race, Patrick Rabuzzi and Brianne Holland-Stergar won in 9:19 and 12:17. Full results.
Le Grizz 50 Mile
Only men’s winner Chris Durward finished in front of women’s winner Sarah Graves at Montana’s Le Grizz 50 Mile. The two champs ran 7:12 and 7:19. The race runs on a gravel road alongside the North Fork of the Flathead River. Full results.
Canyon de Chelly 55k
Ryan Haebe, the 2011 NCAA Division II cross country champion and 2012 NCAA Division II 3,000-meter steeplechase national champion, both while at Western State College, won Arizona’s Canyon de Chelly 55k in 4:47. Women’s winner Andrea McArdle was second overall in 5:00. Her time was a new course record for the seven-year-old race. Full results.
Corner Canyon Ultra Trail Run 50k
Eli White and Lara Rheinemann won Utah’s Corner Canyon Ultra Trail Run 50k in 4:13 and 4:59. Rheinemann beat the 5-hour mark by 23 seconds. Full results.
Ceder City Thunderbird 50k
In southern Utah, Andrew Butterworth and Elizabeth Funk won the second-year Cedar City Thunderbird 50k in 4:50 and 6:26. Full results.
Moab 240 Mile
Also in Utah, the Moab 240 Mile goes for 238 miles. Michael McKnight, the same guy that won the Tahoe 200 Mile and the Bigfoot 200 Mile earlier this year, won the long haul again. Women’s leader Sarah Emoto is currently 190 miles in at the time of this article’s writing. Tracking.
Michael McKnight, 2019 Moab 240 Mile champion. Photo: Moab 240 Mile
Oil Creek 100 Mile
Cameron Stauffer set a new course record at Pennsylvania’s Oil Creek 100 Mile, by just over a minute. He won in 17:03. Kristen Johnson won the women’s race and was fourth overall in 20:39. Full results.
New River Trail Races 50k
Virginia’s New River Trail 50k is flat and fast inside of a state park of the same name. George Tolton and Bridget Stacy won in 3:30 and 3:53. Full results.
Stumpjump 50k
Local runner Seth Ruhling scored, perhaps, an upset win over Darren Thomas in Tennessee at the Stumpjump 50k. The pair raced to 4:12 and 4:16 finishes, and women’s best Rachel Gibson finished in 5:56. Full results.
Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock 50 Mile
North Carolina’s Pilot Mountain to Hanging Rock 50 Mile race connects its two eponymous two state parks on a point-to-point course. Bhushan Suresh and Emily Cavallo won the adventure in 8:35 and 9:24, and Reid Palmer and Elizabeth Steffens won the 50k in 4:47 and 6:19. Full 50-mile and 50k results.
Cloudsplitter 100 Mile
Karl Meltzer pushed his streak into October, but his win at Virginia’s Cloudsplitter 100 Mile marked 17-straight years of winning a 100-mile race. Not only that, it was Meltzer’s 41st 100-mile win, and 61st ultra win, and he’s now 51 years old. This one happened in 21:16. That’s the race’s second-best time ever, nine minutes back of Avery Collins’s event record on a different course. It was not yet clear who won the women’s race. Leave a comment to let us know! Full results (when available).
Karl Meltzer, 2019 Cloudsplitter 100 Mile champion. Photo: Cloudsplitter 100 Mile
Race for DFL
Much like next weekend’s Big Backyard Ultra, the first-year Race for DFL in Massachusetts ran on a 4.25-mile loop on forested singletrack with an hour on the clock. Stephen Anthony won with 68 miles in 16 hours.
Midstate Massive Ultra-Trail
Also in Massachusetts, the Midstate Massive Ultra-Trail runs from north to south across the whole state. Jonathan McInerney and Kate Olson won the inaugural 100-mile run in 23:27 and 24:57. Full results (when available).
Next Weekend – Big Backyard Ultra – Bell Buckle, Tennessee
The over-and-over Big Backyard Ultra has gotten so popular that its spawned a group of sister qualifying races around the world. The unique race will run on a 4.166667-mile loop in a last-person-standing format. There’s a long list of potential winners here.
Men
- Guillaume Calmettes – 4th 2018 Big Backyard Ultra, 1st 2017 Big Backyard Ultra
- Piotr Chadovich – 1st 2018 Old Cascadia 100 Mile
- Marco Farinazzo (Brazil) – 13th 2017 Spartathlon 135 Mile
- Joe Fejes – 532 miles at 2019 Six Days in the Dome
- Bob Hearn – 530 miles at 2019 Six Days in the Dome
- Dave Johnston – 524 miles at 2019 Six Days in the Dome
- Marc Laveson – 4th 2017 White River 50 Mile
- Grant Maughan – 6th 2019 Badwater 135 Mile
- Philip McCarthy – 416 miles at 2019 Six Days in the Dome
- Dave Proctor (Canada) – 14:21 at 2014 Desert Solstice 100 Mile
- Bradley Revenis – 1st 2019 Lumberjack 100 Mile
- Steve Speirs – 2nd 2018 Rocky Raccoon 100 Mile
Women
- Amelia Boone – 4th 2018 Broken Arrow Skyrace 26k
- Liz Canty – 1st 2019 Barkley Fall Classic 50k
- Anna Carlsson (Sweden) – 1st 2018 Swedish Alpine Ultra 107k
- Jasmine Chiaramonte – 1st 2019 Yeti 100 Mile
- Maggie Guterl – 2nd 2018 Big Backyard Ultra
Call for Comments
- The Chicago Marathon was this weekend, but it didn’t seem to attract trail runners and ultrarunners like the Boston and New York City Marathons do. Did you spot any familiar names who put down fast times in the Chicago results?
- We went all over the country, but there was a lot more that happened this weekend too. Hit us, gently, with your racing and spectating in the comments below.
