Records Fall Hard at Way Too Cool 50K
Erin Wachter enjoying the perfect trail conditions. (Photo courtesy Erin Wachter)
What’s the recipe for course records and fast times on a long-running trail race? Perfect conditions and and a stacked field, clearly.
Sadly, I wasn’t able to be out there in person for this year’s Way Too Cool 50K, but as the results were coming in via text and Twitter, it was immediately apparent that something special and amazing had taken place.
First off, Patrick Smyth’s winning time of 3:04:48 is insane. That is a sub-6:00 pace over a hilly trail run, and a four minute improvement over Max King’s record 3:08:50 that was set in 2013.
Ryan Bak was second in 3:10:20, and Tim Tollefson’s 3:20:20 earned him third. In an average year, those would have been winning times.
Unfortunately for them, this was not an average year–by any measure.
There were 33 runners with a sub-4:00 finish! Even more remarkable, there were three women breaking this barrier.
Megan Roche’s winning time of 3:41:56 crushed the course record 3:49:37 set in 2012 by Tyler Stewart. Second woman Stephanie Howe also dipped under the old record with a 3:47:14.
Yiou Wang was third in another speedy time of 3:51:08.
In all, three of the top-ten fastest men’s times and four of the top-ten fastest women’s times on this course were run this year, including Anna Mae Flynn’s 4th place time of 4:00:37. Simply amazing.