Fresh Feet Haul Ass at Haulin’ Aspen

Not since the Barr Trail Mountain Race have locals dominated a La Sportiva Mountain Cup race as much as they did at the Haulin’ Aspen Half Marathon in Bend, Oregon on Sunday. That may be due in part to many of the top Mountain Cup contenders running the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase the previous day and some running BOTH races. Tired legs may have been too much to overcome on what might be the fastest race in the series. Read on for more about the course, the race, the La Sportiva Mountain Cup, the iRunFar.com La Sportiva giveaway.

The Course
According to Sean Meissner, a local trail runner on Montrail’s squad, the Haulin’ Aspen half marathon course is fairly easy for a trail race and even relatively easy in comparison to the marathon course. The times on the day would seem to confirm this intel. The race climbs a mere 1,300′ in 8 miles before descending the same amount in five miles through the Deschutes National Forest to the finish. For those interested, there’s a race map and course description on the race website.

The Race
As we mentioned earlier, a number of runners ran both the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase AND Haulin’ Aspen. We’ll throw those names out there before we go on: Caitlin Smith, Bernie Boettcher, and Jason Bryant. Keep those names in mind when looking at the results – these folks ran some impressive back-to-back races!

This time, ladies first, and the first lady was Caitlin Smith (1:30:02)! After placing second at Jupiter Peak the day before, Caitlin jumped in the car with Jason Bryant and drove up to Bend. Not only did Caitlin beat the next women by over five minutes, she was a heck of a lot closer to Jason and Bernie than she was the previous day. This woman is ready for the TransRockies Run, for sure! Erica Pohl (1:35:39) of Corvallis, Oregon placed second. There was a tight race for third woman with Lindsay Peters (1:38:13) beating out 12 year-old (!) Piper McDonald (1:38:19) by just six seconds. Mallory Gordon (1:39:15) finished another minute back to finish fifth.

Unlike the Eldora Trail 10k last week, where masters runners showed the youngsters how tackle mountains, youth was the flavor of the day at Haulin’ Aspen. The top five women on the day were aged 28, 33, 28, 12, and 24. The first master’s woman was Dorothy Shearn of Anchorage, Alaska. She was the seventh woman to cross the line.

Competitive nordic skier Santi Ocariz (22 y/o) of Green Bay, Wisconsin blazed the course with a blistering 1:16:42. Jeff Matson (1:18:2o) and Andy Martin (1:18:37) were the only runners who could stay within two minutes of Santi to earn second and third, respectively. Fourth was claimed by Jakob Lindaas (1:21:37), who just graduated high school in Minnesota where he was a top cross country runner. From the looks of it, Jakob is ready to tackle the collegiate ranks this fall! What can we say about 46 year old Bernie Boettcher (1:25:55) ?! After placing third in stiff competition at Jupiter Peak he bounced back for fifth place and top master at Haulin’ Aspen.

Full results of the half marathon are available.

We’ve found two good reads on the race:

• Buzz Burrell wrote up an excellent summary that covers both Haulin’ Aspen and the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase. Buzz has the inside track on the La Sportiva Mountain Runners and includes some great first hand reports in his post. Thanks, Buzz!
• The Bend Bulletin did a piece focused exclusively on the Haulin’ Aspen races.

La Sportiva Mountain Cup Standings
Eight of ten Mountain Cup races are in the history books. While some runners are certainly solidifying their place in the standings, there’s plenty left to figure out. For now, we’ll just fill you in on the changes in the standing due to the Haulin’ Aspen results.

• The big move on Sunday was Caitlin Smith (98 pts) moving ahead of Megan Kimmel (91 pts) with the 20 points she earned for her win at Haulin’ Aspen.
• First through third in the men’s standings remain the same – Shiloh Mielke (88 pts), Jason Bryant (68 pts), and Matt Byrne (58 pts). The only change is that Bryant moved 3 points closer to Mielke and 3 points further ahead of Byrne. (Having run six series races, Bryant’s points from his lowest scoring race (7 pts at Barr Trail) are no longer counted.)
• Bernie Boettcher (47 pts) moved up another spot from a fifth place tie with fellow masters leader Simon Gutierrez to sole possession of fourth place (moving ahead of Tom Haxton) and sole possession of the masters Mountain Cup lead.
• Santi Ocariz (24 pts) moved into a tie for eighth with Matt Carpenter after earning 20 points for the win and two points each for beating top-10 Mountain Cup runners Boettcher and Bryant. Santi’s ascent knocked Joseph Gray, Alex Nichols, Noah Hoffman, and Jeffrey Matson (all with 21 points) out of top-10 into a four way tie for 11th.

La Sportiva has posted Mountain Cup standings to date.

iRunFar.com La Sportiva Mountain Cup Contest
Will Thomas of Fall City, Washington you’ve got yourself a pair of La Sportiva Wildcats. Now go hit the pine-needled single track before the autumn rains come!

Looking for a great light-weight generalist trail shoe for your next trail half marathon? Look no further than the La Sportiva Fireblade. Lace ‘em up and burn it up. (Read iRunFar’s Fireblade review) Jonesing for your own pair of Fireblades for the trails, just leave your name and town (in the US or Canada) in a comment before we write about the Half Wit Half Marathon next week. As a reminder, if you enter to win the pair of Fireblades you’ll automatically be eligible to win the grand prize at the end of August. We’ll have more info on the grand prize later this week.

Fireblades were the cool down shoe of choice
for La Sportiva Mountain Runners at the Jupiter Peak Steeplechase

Call for Comments
If you ran the Haulin’ Aspen Half or Full Marathons, please leave a comment letting everyone know how you did and what you think about the race. Past racers are invited to comment, too!

The La Sportiva Mountain Cup

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Bryon Powell is the Editor-in-Chief of iRunFar.com, which he founded five years ago. Also the author of Relentless Forward Progress: A Guide to Running Ultramarathons and a contributing editor at Trail Runner magazine, he's quickly approaching 10 years as an ultrarunner and 20 years as a trail runner. These days he calls Park City, Utah and its trails home.
All posts by Bryon Powell