31 miles in the Mountains
Ashland, OR
July 14th 2007
VIDEO - DAILY DOUBLE
What a sweet run! This morning I finished 3rd overall in the Siskiyou Out and Back 50k here in the mountains of southern Oregon. The competition out this way is stiff - lots of great ultra runners call Oregon home -- I hammered it though. With a time of 4 hours and 6 minutes, this was easily my best ultra ever. With each race I am getting stronger and building confidence. Gonna be a great season in the bowhunting mountains. 4:06 is my best ever-50k time by 20 minutes and it is faster than I ran at the Bighorn 50k Trail Run in Wyoming last month by almost 50 minutes! Relatively speaking I felt good the entire run (might be time to take my ultra running game to the next level - a 100 miler?). At the Bighorn I went out too fast and that elevation got me (9,000). The Bighorn helped me here though as the SOB starts at the Mount Ashland ski lodge which sits right around 7,000 feet and the race overall has much more elevation gain than there in WY. The SOB course meanders on and off the Pacific Crest Trail throughout the duration of the run, climbing a total of approximately 4,200 feet and in looking at all the results from years past; 4:06 on is very fast and actually would have won the race a number of times! Man, if feels real good to compete with all those talented runners! Just for comparisons sake, this year's winner of the most famous ultra marathon of all-time, the Western States 100, Hal Koerner, who is from Ashland, ran 4 hours 14 minutes at the SOB last year. I saw him at the race and he was registered but didn't run. I was bummed. I was really excited to run with Hal after his huge win at the WS100. It would have been an honor.
Here are the full official results from the SOB ultra -- http://www.siskiyououtback.com/results.cgi?year=2007
As you can see, I was just off the win by a few minutes (3 minutes 37 seconds to be exact) - some dude from Maine had to come out here and win it! I will get a chance to avenge that northeastern win though. In two weeks I am headed back to Vermont to run the Jay Challenge. We will see how a western boy can hang running one of the toughest ultras on that end of the country. I am pumped for the Jay - check it out here, http://www.jaychallenge.com/ultimateXC/home.html
I will be putting video from the race up on my web site in the next couple days. Swing back by www.cameronhanes.com if you get a chance -- the title of the video will be "Daily Double".
