Sunday, June 21, 2009

Mohican update

A few notes from Saturday afternoon/evening:

- Reported weather at the start was wet, warm, and humid. Andrea and I drove down for the afternoon. Temps rose into the 80s with little cloud cover throughout the afternoon. Driving into town along Rt 3, the hot, open road was Badwater-esque with heat beating down on the shadeless pavement.

- First stop, Grist Mill (mile 37) at 2:30 PM. I was surprised by the number of runners still at this juncture but happy to see Courtney and Silent Bob. I suggested a dip in the creek near the mill to lower body temperature. While they had been at it for some 9-plus hours at this point, I had been at Mo' all of five minutes. It was warm enough for me to happily get in the creek, too.

- 50-mile runners endured the brunt of the heat with their final 13 miles on open roads. The uphill road stretch along Rt 3 with the sun beating down, in my view, was nothing like the trails of Mohican State Park. We drove past most of the finishers 10-12 hour range and many were near heat casualty. Men's winner 8:27 with women's winner two minutes behind. My quick glance at the finisher sheet showed about 10 runners under 10 hours in the fifty-mile.

- News from the runners was that there were a multiple turns poorly marked or ground marking washed away by the overnight storm. I heard second-hand reports of the 100 mile leaders all off course at one point or another, particularly on the purple loop.

- At the Fire Tower (mile 60) at 3:30 PM, I was surprized that none had come through yet. Bradley Mongold, Jay Smithberger (2008 winner), and Mark Tanaka all came through within a minute of each other. The heat was apparent as they were off the 2008 pace by over an hour, arriving at 3:55 PM. Fourth place Wyatt Hornsby was about 25 minutes back at 4:20 PM.

- We hiked the purple loop and although it was wet, the mud was not bad. I heard reports that the Green and Red loops were very muddy and slow.

- At the Covered Bridge (M63), the four top women were within minutes of each other: Ellen (last name unknown), Terri Lemke, Jenny Chow, and Michelle Bischel.

- At Grist Mill (M75), we had heard that Smithberger and Mongold both dropped. Tanaka was first at 7:05 PM, followed by Matt Arrow and Wyatt Hornby about 30 minutes behind. Wyatt took all of 1 minute here and looked in super shape.

- Tanaka was first thru Bridal Staging (M83). We didn't stick around to see how far back the other two were.

- Back at Grist Mill (M75), the top three women were all in the aid station at the same time. They departed in this order: Ellen (last name unknown), Terri Lemke, Jenny Chow.

We left for home around 10 PM. I wish I were around to see more of the race and particularly the mid and back-of-pack runners. Witnessing 100-mile finishers, particularly the final ones prior to 30-hour cutoff, is quite a sight to see.

The only other info I heard is Hornsby won in 19:5x. Congrats, Wyatt!

Looking forward to hearing more about the results. I wonder how many days it will take this year to post.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wyatt - 19:52:40
Matt Aro - about 20-25 minutes later
Mark Tanaka - another 10 minutes or so after that.

Jenny Chow won for the women in roughly 23ish hours...not too sure on that.

Many drops due to heat...

After the afternoon the weather got beautiful, but it was too late for many.

5:40 PM  

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