It’s a bit late in coming, but the ultra team has gotten a nice start on the season with a few races. Davy Crockett had a nice 10:30-ish race at the Desert Rats 50 miler in Fruita, CO, coming in 27th. Eve Davies did a great job at the very steep and rocky Zane Grey 50 miler in Payson, AZ, winning the masters and coming in 4th overall!
I can tell you more about the BoSho, the BSTM, the one and only Bonneville Shoreline Trail Marathon, since I was there. This race is not at particularly high elevation, but the hills are relentless and brutal, until you get to the last one. The last hill I’ll call Uncle Funk, and it is just plain ridiculous and it is at the top of another sizable climb, and about a third of it is in a stream. But I guess some of us will do anything for adventure.
It had been raining for a couple of days before the race this year, which took out any remaining snow, but also made for a seriously goopy mess. It was forecast to dump on race day as well, so I didn’t expect much in the way of fast times. But then the one and only Karl Meltzer came to prove me way wrong.
At the start Meltzer took off, never to be seen again by the rest of us. We would only see him again at the finish, which he did in an astounding 3:47:52, a course record and almost half an hour before the rest of us. So for the mortals I ran with it was not a record breaking day. The weather was actually pretty good all through the race. It was overcast and looked threatening but fortunately never rained much.
I saw Shane Martin before the start, and I had planned on starting out with him, but somehow missed him there. Within the first couple minutes I saw Davy Crockett, but he had to drop out after a while due to a nasty rolled ankle and helped out with the aid station instead. The non-Meltzer race leaders started out at a decent pace as we dropped down into City Creek Canyon and back up the other side of the canyon.
As we curved around toward North Salt Lake on the Shoreline Trail, it got really foggy, so much so that I couldn’t see more than about 50 feet ahead. In those conditions I followed Ty Draney and Kevin Shilling and we all bypassed the turnoff that takes you back up a big hill and back to City Creek. Once we saw houses, we realized we had gone too far, and had probably added on a mile or so. That was frustrating but I didn’t mind too much since it’s always nice to have people to catch up to rather than running alone for much of the race.
There was quite a bit of place-trading for the next 10 miles. I met Ron Greenwood on the trail there, who is a Sojourner that usually sticks to the road marathons but is getting ready for the Squaw Peak 50 this year. I got to run with Kevin for much of the next portion of the race, which helped me to forget how tired I was getting. After a while I realized that the reason he was not leaving me in the dust (mud, that is) was that he had run a 2:45 at the Boston Marathon earlier that week, and was still tired from it. Sheesh.
Kevin dropped out before Uncle Funk, and fortunately I was able to hold onto my position until the end. My 4:34 was almost 20 minutes slower than I had previously done, but not bad considering the mud and detour. I was totally happy with 5th place, with the deep field we had this year. Ron ended up 7th and Shane ended up 8th, and Sojourner Joe Martel took 14th place. For as mild sounding of a name this race has, it never fails to provide an epic experience.
Mountain Team member Karl Jarvis won the first annual Sapper Joe 50K at Camp Williams, a National Guard training site in between Salt Lake and Utah Valleys. Marcee Christian raced as well against really tough competition on a course which is rarely flat and includes some grueling hills. This portion of the Traverse Mountains is not available to civilians except for this race. The 30K version of the race is also very difficult and an excellent marathon training race or introduction to ultramarathons. The race was really well organized – think military efficiency. Check out the race site 
