Welcome to the new Wasatch Alpine Striders blog!
Watch this space for updates on trail running along the Wasatch Front throughout the year.
In the meantime you can view many of the results from past fun run events have been posted on the Archived Results page.
The 13th annual Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon (a.k.a. BoSho) took place under sunny skies and in very warm temperatures. No hotter than the leaders’ running, though—a dry trail and light winds made for a blistering early pace and very fast times.
ReplyDeleteA record 128 participants left the starting line but, of course, not all at the same time. Several people headed out early to beat the heat and, in the true bandit spirit of the event, Jeff Bertot and Ed Conrad ran it unsupported at night, and Pat McMurtry assembled the course segments in a different order from everybody else. A total of 103 runners finished, a new record by a huge margin.
Newcomer Adrian Shipley took the early lead, reportedly running every step up “Unkel F---er,” the 700’ climb up from Dry Creek that wakes everyone up after dozing (NOT!) for the first 6 miles. When Christian Johnson, last year’s winner, came through the Morris Reservoir aid station at 9.5 miles, he said with widened eyes that he was 5 minutes ahead of last year’s sub-4:00 pace yet was trailing by a couple of minutes. Experience carried the day, however. On the western loop, previous winner Kevin Shilling reeled in Adrian, and he still was leading and looking good when he reappeared at Morris Reservoir. Kevin kept the hammer down all the way to the finish to record a PR and one of the best times ever, 3:52:15. Karl Meltzer’s 3:47:53 from 2009 still stands but, since we moved the start/finish to the Huntsman Institute last year, Kevin now holds the course record for the new start. Adrian hung on for second and Mick Jurynec came home strong for third. Kevin, Adrian, and Mick all joined Christian and Karl in the exclusive sub-4:00 club. Christian backed up last year’s effort with a strong run, finishing fourth and missing a sub-4:00 time by only a few minutes.
We had easily the fastest-ever group of women at Bosho. Meghan Woolley crushed Petra Pirc(now McDowell)’s ten-year-old course record of 4:38 with a smoking-hot time of 4:20:19. Second-place Emily Sullivan turned in the fourth-best women’s time ever at 4:41:05, and Suzanne Lewis came in third at 4:47:46. Wow!
There were plenty of other stories. A sampling: John Evans finished in a very strong 4:56:15, pushing hard to the finish for a very good reason; he was in time to make it to his son’s soccer game to watch him score his team’s first goal of the season. Jeremy Suwinski and Amie Blackham pulled off the much-heralded Boston-Bosho Double, finishing two classic marathons in one week (the other one is more famous but ours is harder!). Cheryl Meltzer showed that there is more than one good runner in the family by cranking out an impressive 5:29:30 finish. Trevor Jones came in a few minutes later, running BoSho as training for an upcoming ascent of Mt. Everest. Eve Davies and Mesa once again swept the human-canine division. And so on and so forth.
The run organizers (if you can call us that—maybe disorganizers would be more accurate) have lots of people to thank, and we apologize in advance that we certainly are missing someone, but among those to whom we are indebted are: Jay Aldous and Peter Lindgren for help with course marking; a whole slew of people for help at the Morris Meadow aid station, including Darcie Mueller and David Hayes; Jeff Stowell who provided the 5-gallon water cooler that was our indispensable dispenser of ice-cold water; and Jason Berry and Sheila Barnett who helped remove the course markings.
When Brian, Dan, and John ran the course the next day to clean up, (1) we found almost no trash—just a couple of stray wet rags near the Morris aid station—and (2) at the finish, Brian’s GPS read 26.22 and John’s 26.21. Do you think that we should get the course certified as a Boston qualifier? Well, maybe not.
Finally, thanks to all the runners. You are The Bomb. We look forward to seeing you next year at the 14th running.
Brian, John, Dan, and Bob