The 2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile bought underway Friday, September 16. The “hares and tortoises,” as race organizers playfully body opponents, began from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, at midday and eight a.m. native time, respectively.
They then clambered by means of the day, evening, and day once more over an exhaustive roundtrip by means of the mountain bike trails and dust roads encircling the city.
The circuit is nothing if not a rugged one: the race web site says a complete eight miles of it are paved, 86 are trails, and the rest include “tough jeep roads.” Over “about 101.5 miles,” runners ascend some 20,391 ft — then descend it, after all.
This 12 months, the climate featured closely, with waves of rain closely wetting the course, making it, at occasions, a humorous slip-and-slide.
For the hares, primarily consisting of extremely attuned professionals, there was loads at stake within the high-altitude race. Prize purses totaled $70,000, distributed equally between each the top-seven women and men. Every winner snagged $15,000, what collectively characterize one of many highest prize purses in ultrarunning.
Males’s leaders started to trickle into the end line simply earlier than daybreak on Saturday, September 17, with the highest girls a number of hours behind.
Within the males’s competitors, Richard Lockwood prevailed, breaking away from the remainder of the lads at a bit over midway, and by no means failing to relinquish his lead at any timed checkpoint over Arlen Glick in second place.
On the ladies’s facet, Annie Hughes tailed her opponents early earlier than taking the lead a couple of third of the way in which by means of the race, methodically including time on her chasers, and posting a decisive victory.
The beginning of the 2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile. All photographs: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile Males’s Race
Richard Lockwood by no means wavered within the punishing 100 miler, at occasions showing obstinate in his willpower to steer Glick. At Lengthy Lake, 24.3 miles in, the 2 ran collectively a couple of half minute off the lead tempo and 10 seconds aside. Six miles later at Summit Lake, they have been nonetheless within the thick of it collectively.
Richard Lockwood, 2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile champion.
But it surely was Avery Collins who bought off to a sizzling begin and led the sector by means of concerning the midway level. By Dry Lake at mile 44.5, he’d constructed his lead on the sector to over eight minutes. Nevertheless, by 64 miles into the race, Lockwood was in lockstep with Collins, and would take over the lead and run away with issues.
And by the second Lengthy Lake timing level at 89 miles, Lockwood led by what would possibly as nicely have been gentle years. Nobody ran inside an hour of his tempo by the end line.
Nick Elson (Canada) did lead Glick late, by as much as 79 seconds on the mile 95.8 mark, however couldn’t cling on for the rousing closing descent and completed third. Glick circled his podium end on the Western States 100 earlier this 12 months, and Elson debuted nicely in his first 100 miler.
Samuel Collins took fourth, and the opposite Collins, the early chief Avery, completed in fifth place.
2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile Males’s Outcomes
- Richard Lockwood — 18:01:44
- Arlen Glick — 19:04:02
- Nick Elson (Canada) — 19:12:06
- Samuel Collins — 19:30:50
- Avery Collins — 19:49:09
- Steven Cornelius — 19:54:09
Arlen Glick (left) would take second on the 2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile.
2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile Ladies’s Race
As has change into the case in each race she begins, this was the Annie Hughes present. Early on, Hughes let different girls take the race out, staying involved with the entrance of the pack earlier than taking up the lead by one third of the way in which by means of. Her good racing meant that, assist station by assist station, she grew her lead, splitting every part sooner than the remainder of the sector.
By the end line, she was some 100-plus-minutes away from some other lady. This makes a trio of massive victories in 2022 for Hughes, with wins on the Cocodona 250 Mile and the Excessive Lonesome 100 Mile along with right here.
Annie Hughes, 2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile champion.
The remainder of the highest girls’s area highlighted what’s so thrilling about girls’s ultrarunning proper now, some six or seven girls working almost collectively in a decent pack nicely away from the midway mark. In that group included eventual top-five finishers Tara Dower, Rachel Lemcke, Kasey Nobert, and Mary Baughman who have been simply minutes aside for thus lengthy.
By the point the ladies returned to the start-finish line, the race for the highest spots was nonetheless extremely shut, with second- and third-place Dower and Baughman underneath three minutes aside, and fifth- and sixth-place Lemcke and Sarah Boughner simply 21 seconds aside. As soon as a phenomenon solely seen in a lot shorter races, the down-to-the-wire duels at the moment are a factor of 100-mile mountain ultrarunning.
2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile Ladies’s Outcomes
- Annie Hughes — 21:26:00
- Tara Dower — 23:08:03
- Mary Baughman — 23:10:50
- Kacey Nobert — 23:36:10
- Rachel Lemcke — 23:52:15
- Sarah Boughner — 23:52:36
Tara Dower (left) on her strategy to taking second on the 2022 Run Rabbit Run 100 Mile.
