Scott and Cueller Victorious at Vail Hill Climb

By the time a race gets to it’s 35th running, you know it’s a top notch event and such is the case with the Vail Hill Climb, the eight race in this year’s La Sportiva Mountain Cup. The field was befitting this storied race. Not only were many Mountain Cup regulars there, but so were Anita Ortiz, Simon Gutierrez, Ricky Gates, and many others who charged up 2,500′ of Vail Mountain over the course of 7.5 miles.

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
After a wrong turn cost him a win a few weeks ago at the Jemez Half Marathon, Jared Scott redeemed himself by being the first up Vail Mountain. Matt Byrne and Peter Maksimow battled it out for second place, but with Maksimow was able to hold on to his slight lead after mile 7 across the finish line.

Men’s Top Three (sorry, after the top three finishers, race results are listed by age group only)

1. Jared Scott – 50:32
2. Peter Maksimow – 51:43
3. Matt Byrne – 52:06

Women’s Race
Rachel Cueller from Albuquerque, New Mexico took top spot for the ladies with women’s Mountain Cup leader Megan Kimmel close behind. Cynthia Arnold finished a little over two minutes behind Megan to secure third place.

Women’s Top Three (sorry, after the top three finishers, race results are listed by age group only)

1. Rachel Cueller – 59:48
2. Megan Kimmel – 1:01:12
3. Cynthia Arnold – 1:03:48

Full Results
Full results (pdf) are available.

La Sportiva Mountain Cup Standings
Women
On the women’s side, Megan Kimmel will be this year’s La Sportiva Mountain Cup champ. Going into Vail, she had a huge lead and she added 21 series points by finishing second and ahead of a few series competitors. The only other major change is Cynthia Arnold pulling into a tie for fifth with Alison Bryant. It’s worth noting that with only two races left, just one point separates second (Rachel Cieslewicz) from third (Ashley Arnold) and then another one point separates fourth (Annette Bednosky) from the two ladies tied for fifth. That means there’s plenty of racing left among the women!

Rankings through Vail Hill Climb

• 1. Megan Kimmel – 112 points (5 races – 21 pts from Vail)
• 2. Rachel Cieslewicz – 58 pts (4 races – Did not race Vail)
• 3. Ashley Arnold – 57 pts (3 races – Did not race Vail)
• 4. Annette Bednosky – 46 pts (3 scoring races – No pts from Vail)
• T-5. Alison Bryant – 45 pts (3 races – Did not race Vail)
• T-5. Cynthia Arnold – 45 pts (3 races – 17 pts from Vail)

Men
There’s also lots of racing left among the men. By winning at Vail, Jared Scott added 20 points, plus six more bonus points by beating Matt Byrne, Bernie Boettcher, and Ryan Woods. Ryan Woods did pick up 13 points to hold onto the lead, but Scott is now more or less even with Woods when you keep in mind Scott has run one less race than Woods. That assumes, of course, the Scott will run two more races and Woods will run one more. Matt Byrne jumped up into fourth with a 19 point day and he’s now in striking distance of higher places, as well.  All in all, things just got VERY interesting in the men’s Mountain Cup standings with only two races to go.

Rankings through Vail Hill Climb

1. Ryan Woods – 77  points (4 races – 13 pts from Vail)
2. Jared Scott – 65 pts (3 scoring races – 26 pts from Vail)
3. Jason Bryant – 58 pts (4 races – Did not race Vail)
4. Matt Byrne – 57 pts (3 races – 19 pts from Vail)
5. Bernie Boettcher – 51 pts (3 scoring races – No pts from Vail)

Official Mountain Cup standings can be found here.

iRunFar.com La Sportiva Mountain Cup Contest
Tom C of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, you’ve just won yourself a pair of La Sportiva Electrons (iRF review) with MorphoDynamic technology. Enjoy!

We’re going away from the tradition of awarding the most course appropriate La Sportiva’s for this race. Instead, we’re giving away a pair of La Sportiva Crosslite 2.0s. Why? Because iRunFar editor Bryon Powell just wore them for the first 20 miles of the Western States 100 and they were so awesome he felt like he was cheating.

If you’d like to win and try out the La Sportiva Crosslite 2.0 yourself? Simply leave your name and town (in the US or Canada) in a comment before we write about the next Mountain Cup race, the La Sportiva Table Rock race on July 23rd. As a reminder, if you enter to win the Crosslite 2.0 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 the Vail Hill Climb, please leave a comment letting everyone know what you think about the event.

The La Sportiva Mountain Cup

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Filed under Contests, Races · Tagged with La Sportiva Mountain Cup

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