By Jordan Chavez
February 27, 2017
Something interesting that we’re going to try and do with this nifty new site is provide the occasional insight into ultra, mountain and trail running.
Having competed at two World Mountain Running Championships (Italy 2012 and Poland 2013) for Team USA as a member of the Junior National team and two NACAC Mountain Running Championships as a member of the Senior National team (Mexico 2014 and Canada 2015), I like to follow that side of running as well.
If you’re just a track fan, some of these performances may impress you enough to the point where you hope to follow some of the other running scenes. I’ll bring these round-ups weekly to maybe wet your beak with a little mountain, ultra and trail running results.
This past weekend saw a collection of major results from across the globe. Here’s a look:
2017 World Snowshoe Championships: Held around Saranac Lake, NY, this race was won by Joseph Gray in a time of 28:22 over the approximately 10k course. Of the 90 participants in these World Championships Joe captured the win over Nacho Hernando-Angulo of Spain by nearly 75 seconds. This is another major accolade for Joseph who won the World Mountain Running Championships in 2016 and has made Team USA 21 times in Cross Country and Mountain Running in his career. 5 of the top 10 finishers in the race hail from the United States, despite one of the top American runners, Zach Miller, losing a snowshoe at some point on the course (see his Instagram post).
On the women’s side, Ragna Debats of the Netherlands took the win in 34:57, beating out second place Annie Jean of Canada and American Michelle Hummel who went 36:48 and 37:14, respectively.
The Women’s 24 Hour American Record was set by Courtney Dauwalter at the Riverbank One Day Classic 24 hour track race in Modesto, CA. She covered just over 250km (equalling 155.34 miles) during these 24 hours beating Sabrina Little’s previous AR by ~5km. This puts her at sixth all-time, with Mami Kudo of Japan holding the top 3 times ever run by a woman (rankings).
15th Transgrancanaria – Gran Canaria, Spain is a race on the Ultra-Trail World Tour covering 125km (77 mi) of distance and 8,000 km (26,246 ft) of vertical elevation gain. Spanish ultra-marathoner Pau Capell, who was third a year ago, took the win in the men’s race over Lithuania’s Vaidas Zlabys. Capell accidentally took a wrong turn at 43K which cut down on a 10 minute lead he had built to that point. Capell ended up breaking away from Zlabys to finish in 13:21:03 and 13:35:38 respectively. The top American man in this race was, Oregon resident and two-time champion Western States 100-mile race, Timothy Olson who traversed the course in 14:22:40 to finish 10th.
On the women’s side, Spain’s Azara Garcia dominated the field, winning by nearly an hour over Swiss athlete Andrea Huser. Azara covered the distance in 16:25:20, placing 35th overall with second (Andrea Huser 17:15:45) and third (Melanie Rousset 17:30:40) many miles behind.
The Week Ahead:
The big race of the weekend will be the Way Too Cool 50k held in Cool, California.
Big names on the Men’s side include: Patrick Smyth (2015 Champ and course record holder in 3:04:48), Ryan Bak (2015 runner-up and third all-time in 3:10:20), and up & comer to the ultra scene Cody Reed who is coming off a win at the 2017 Black Canyon Trail 60k two weekends ago.
Women: Megan Roche (Defending Champ and course record holder in 3:41:56), and YiOu Wang (2016 runner-up and third all-time in 3:43:12)
Got any interesting ultra, trail or mountain running stories to share, feel free to hit me up on Twitter: @JordanChavez23 or email me at jordanchavez23@gmail.com.
Jordan Chavez
Photographer. 1/3 of A Runner's Eye. Founder of the Twitter formerly known as Runners & Cats. Often writes overly romanticized recollections of his running experiences, which include being a Richmond Spider and USA Mountain running team member. Has used the same Garmin for more than 10 years and in middle school he broke Colby Lowe's district-wide mile record.