A Helena Good Time at the Don’t Fence Me In Trail Runs

This past weekend, the La Sportiva Mountain Cup traveled to its northern most destination in this year’s series when trail runners from across the country competed for Mountain Cup points in Helena, Montana’s Don’t Fence Me In Trail Run 30k. Those runners, along with 12k and 5k runners, were treated to great weather for getting out on the trails and for the Open Space fair that accompanied the races. As usual, the Mountain Cup’s elites burned up the trails and showed us what’s possible. This time they were joined by a few folks from the ultrarunning ranks.

The start of the 2011 Don't Fence Me In Trail Run 50k.

After kicking things off with our LSMC race coverage, we’ll take a look at the Mountain Cup standings. Next, we’ll move on to our La Sportiva shoe giveaway contest before calling for your comments and finishing up with the full La Sportiva Mountain Cup schedule.

The Race
Men’s Race
In just his second Mountain Cup race of the year, Jared Scott (2:14:58) is showing that he’s a force to be reckoned with in this year’s series … if that’s his goal. Matt Byrne (2:15:29), second place in last year’s Cup, made his 2011 series debut and showed he’s still in contention to win on any given day. Scott bested Byrne by a scant 31 seconds over course of 18.5 miles. That’s not even two seconds a mile! Missoulan Keifer Hahn (2:15:50) was even closer to Byrne, just 21 seconds back, follow by ultrarunner and fellow Missoulan Mike Foote (2:19:56) in fourth.

Bernie Boettcher (2:29:06), the trail racingest guy out there and third overall in last year’s Mountain Cup, didn’t have his A-game at Don’t Fence Me In, but still managed to finish 6th and take home some series points. Ultrarunner Damian Stoy finished 8th in 2:35:47.

Men’s Top Five

1. Jared Scott – 2:14:58
2. Matt Byrne – 2:15:29
3. Kiefer Hahn – 2:15:50
4. Mike Foote – 2:19:56
5. Devin Cowan – 2:23:04

Matt Byrne finishing second.

Women’s Race
No, we didn’t forget to edit this section since the last Mountain Cup race, the Dry Creek Half Marathon… it’s just that La Sportiva’s Megan Kimmel doesn’t miss a beat while Ashley Arnold (2:37:25) excels as she transitions back to shorter trail races from last year’s foray into ultras. (Arnold’s race report from placing third at last year’s Leadville.) Ultra-distance dominator Nikki Kimball (2:46:03) placed third a few minutes ahead of Kelly Webster (2:49:42). Mountain Cup regular Alison Bryant (2:58:17) continued her return from injury with a fifth place finish.

Women’s Top Five

1. Megan Kimmel – Time Unknown
2. Ashley Arnold – 2:37:35
3. Nikki Kimball – 2:46:03
4. Kelly Webster – 2:49:42
5. Alison Bryant – 2:58:17

Women's winner Megan Kimmel with Bernie Boettcher.

Full Results
Full results are not yet available. We’ll add that it’s possible someone may have been omitted from the above results. For instance, Megan Kimmel was not listed in the results we received, despite winning the women’s race.

La Sportiva Extras
La Sportiva raised $980 for the Prickly Pear Land Trust from Going the Distance tech tee sales.

The La Sportiva Standout award was presented to Martin Miller, a Helena local who has been a major part of organizing and preparing the event for its participants. Though he enjoys running the Don’t Fence Me In as frequently as possible,  but in an interesting twist to the Standout Award Martin was unable to run the race in 2011 because of his duties related to organizing the race.

La Sportiva Mountain Cup Standings
Here are the unofficial LSMC standings through 5 races.

Men
Ryan Woods and Jason Bryant, the early season Mountain Cup leaders, held on to the top two spots despite not racing Don’t Fence Me In. Jared Scott’s second series race of the year made the Mountain Cup even more exciting as both Woods and Bryant have run one more race than he has. Boettcher held on to fourth with a 10 point performance. Byrne missed the top 5 by a mere point and could quickly move up the standings should he decide to run more Mountain Cup races.

1. Ryan Woods – 64 points (3 races – Did not race Don’t Fence Me In)
2. Jason Bryant – 43 pt (3 races – Did not race Don’t Fence Me In)
3. Jared Scott – 39 pts (2 races – 22 pts from Don’t Fence Me In)
4. Bernie Boettcher – 29 pts (2 races – 10 pts from Don’t Fence Me In)
5. Waylon Calabrese – 20 pts (1 race – Did not race Don’t Fence Me In)

Women
Megan Kimmel built an even larger lead in the Mountain Cup standings while Ashley Arnold closed the gap between her and Rachel Cieslewicz to a mere five points with a race in hand. Alison Bryant moved into the top 5 for the first time this season. She’ll be in the mix as she continues to race and recover from her early season injury.

1. Megan Kimmel – 68 points (3 races – 24 pts from Don’t Fence Me In)
2. Rachel Cieslewicz – 43 pts (3 races – Did not race Don’t Fence Me In)
3. Ashley Arnold – 38 pts (2 races – 19 pts from Don’t Fence Me In)
4. Annette Bednosky – 35 pts (2 races – Did not race Don’t Fence Me In)
5. Alison Bryant – 28 pts (2 races – 11 pts from Don’t Fence Me In)

Official Mountain Cup standings can be found here.

iRunFar.com La Sportiva Mountain Cup Contest
The winner of last race’s Crosslite 2.0 giveaway is Johan from Quakertown, Pennsylvania!

A long, fast race course like Don’t Fence Me In would be a perfect place to sport the La Sportiva Wildcats. If you want to win some Wildcats? Simply leave your name and town (in the US or Canada) in a comment before we write about the next Mountain Cup race, the Jemez Half Marathon on May 21 in Los Alamos, New Mexico. As a reminder, if you enter to win the Wildcats you’ll also automatically be eligible to win the grand prize at the end of August. Read up on the iRunFar.com La Sportiva Mountain Cup giveaway grand prize.

Call for Comments
If you’ve ever run any of the Don’t Fence Me In Trail Runs, please leave a comment letting everyone know what you think about the race.

An award from the Don't Fence Me In Trail Run.

The La Sportiva Mountain Cup

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Filed under Races · Tagged with Ashley Arnold, La Sportiva Mountain Cup, Megan Kimmel

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