Sacramento Running News

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.

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Dakota Jones and Joelle Vaught set new course records on a muddy Lake Sonoma 50 Mile, yesterday.

Dakota Jones, of Durango, Colorado, ran 6:17:27, beating Hal Korner’s course record of 7:08:20 that was set in 2010. In fact, the field was stacked with so many ultra-talented ultrarunners, the top seven men, including the 4th place Hal Korner, were under the old course record.

On the women’s side, Joelle Vaught, of Boise, Idaho, set a new course record of 7:52:44, knocking more than 30 minutes off the 8:26:53 set by Devon Crosby-Helms in 2010. As with the men, the top women in this field were throwing down and six of them went under the old course record!

Tyler Stewart, of Novato, was the second woman with 7:56:30. You might remember that Stewart was the women’s winner in her ultrarunning debut at last month’s Way Too Cool 50K.

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