Ultramarathon Daily News | Monday, March 4

Justin/IRF runs down all the trail and ultramarathon results from this weekend. My quick takes:

The Way Too Cool men’s race gave a preview of what to expect at Lake Sonoma. All three podium finishers (Costales, Gibbs, Mogavero) will be lining up in Healdsburg in six weeks. Whoa.
The women’s race was a good one. I’ll be honest, I don’t consider Clare to be a top 50k runner (50 miles plus is a different story), but she proved me very, very wrong on Saturday. She pushed hard and took the podium over a hard charging Addy Bracy and Ann-Marie Madden and was all smiles after the race.
Way Too Cool brought out the elites, but was also full of MOPers and BOPers with plenty of smiles and tons of experience.
On the East Coast (same distance, very different terrain!), it sounds like Caumsett had about as thrilling a race as possible with Zach Ornelas taking the lead in the final 5k and winning by a large margin. The women’s race had a similar finish with Elizabeth Northern nabbing the win in the final lap. Nice!

Clare Gallagher (Patagonia) en route to her win at Way Too Cool.

ultramarathon costales — Anthony Costales (rabbit) 1/2 mile from his 1st place finish.

Mountain Outhouse News: The 40 on 40 looks horrific. Wardian’s new record, crazy Chinese races and permits, Katylyn Gerbin at Transgrancanaria, and more. Great stuff as always.

Did you catch Ben’s review of the COROS Apex? With a 35 hour battery life, HRM, and a $300 price tag, many people have been looking for an honest and thorough review of this Garmin/Suunto competitor. Check it out here.

Guy gets stuck in snow with his dog and survives on Taco Bell hot sauce. The power of tacos should never be minimized.

Brittany Peterson ultramarathon — Brittany Peterson (Nike) passes mile 11 checkpoint at Way Too Cool near the iconic Foresthill Bridge.

When your first date is pacing at HURT and your second date is at a 200 miler in Australia, there’s bound to be a story in there. Read along with Candice’s love life.

Quite a few surprises in this article:
1. There are professional bridge players.
2. One of them got busted for doping.
3. He got busted for taking testosterone and some female fertility drug. WTH?

Kevin goes on a pretty epic rant about the human race and finishes it up with his distaste for Outside Magazine and a situation that turned sour with the editors.

So this bike race in Belgium had the fellas start ten minutes before the women in order to separate the two races and their support vehicles. Then the lead women caught up to the guys and all hell broke loose.

NA beer hits Australia, but with a native twist.

SteelTownRunner says:

March 4, 2019 at 7:09 am

re: Ornelas at Caumsett – “large margin” is relative. 50 seconds over 50 km isn’t a huge margin. Zach however was 3:11 behind Bogena (who front-ran the entire race and split halfway in under 1:22 – as he was chasing the American Record) at 45k. Zach closed that gap and put nearly a minute on Austin. That was both Zach charging hard and Bogena fading. This was also the first time to my knowledge that there were five men in a US 50 km to run under 3 hours.

Zach wrote this afterwards:

“I ran half a mile with the leader then let him go. I learned post race he was chasing the American Record and I respect the hell out of that. So I still was running splits much faster than planned (goal pace was 5:25-5:30 for as long as I could) and I defended second hoping maybe first would come back. I had really painful loops for 5,6, and 7, and at some points the voices in my head were whispering to drop out (the demons are always there!!). After loop 9, at 45k, I would told I was 3min behind so I assumed race for first was over. 3rd was about two min back so the game plan became run smart and strong but don’t accelerate too much and risk cramping and moving to third. I slowed down to 5:45 from 5:30 to keep it relaxed for the last loop until I got to 1.5mi to go. At that point a runner I was lapping said “dude I just saw first up ahead start walking, GO!!”. I didn’t know if he was lying to inspire me but I figured I’d check it out. I got back to 5:30 pace and saw him about a min ahead with less than a mile to go, but he was running again. I kept driving holding onto one last hope we’d meet just before the line. With 650 to go he had 30sec on me and I saw him start walking, and he didn’t look behind him thank god! I launched into a kick and passed him with 600 to go. Closed my last half mile of 31mi at 5:16 pace, I’ve never kicked that hard in an ultra. So, NEVER give up because it ain’t over until it’s over!! My amazing coach believed in me from day one, my wife had to worry about me running through a polar vortex to prepare for this, and my awesome mom cheered for three hours and greeted me at the line. Pretty good day, time for beer 🙂”

eric schranz says:

March 4, 2019 at 7:12 am

I hadn’t read his post report. Thanks. And large margin is relative, of course, but when you take the lead with only a few k’s left, 50s is pretty impressive.

Ultramarathon Daily News | Monday, March 4

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