Stage 2 is in the books, and what a stage it was! H+P saw our ultimates continue to perform well holding 2nd place in the men’s competition, and 1st and 3rd in the women’s competition. The relay teams saw a little bit of a shake-up, as H+P now holds placings 1-4 OA with 7 teams in the top 10.
RELAY
Brendan Hancock may not have had the race he wanted, but he still came in with a stellar 56:23 finish, launching the In-betweeners into 2nd OA. With Ahmed Ahmed being hit with an injury, Aaron Grant was kind enough to step up last minute and race with the Millennials, posting a strong 1:01 and holding their place in 1st OA with an 8:03 lead on the In-Betweeners.
Brian McGrath was up for the Masters men, conquering an injury to post a 1:07 losing some time on the 2016 team- but good enough to keep them 13 minutes ahead event record pace. This also held the teams position on the OA podium as they now sit 3rd OA.
Suffering a sprained ankle in close proximity to ENDURrun, Catherine Schmidt was forced to drop out last minute. Erin Fox of Tri-City Track stepped up to the plate and ran an amazing 1:00:32- good for the OA win out of women relay-ers. This also put the ladies in 4th place OA and within 7:05 of record pace set in 2016.
Christine was up for the masters women’s team, posting an amazing 1:11, holding their lead over the two mixed teams (1, 2), and keeping this talented squad in 6th OA, a mere 5 minutes out of the top 5!
Jonathan (1:14) and Matt (1:19) posted strong runs for Mixed-2 and Mixed-1 respectively! Mixed-2 now holds a strong 11:48 lead over Mixed-1- but Mixed 1 still has many of their best runners still to come!
On the shoulders of Mike Hewitson’s 1:21 (Funatics 1) vs. Heidi’s great 1:31 (Funatics 2), the Funatics-1 have pushed their lead to a whopping 26 minutes in that challenge! Funatics-1 will need this lead as the all-stars of Funatics-2 are still to come!
ULTIMATE
Nick Burt has an outstanding 56:09, strongly holding his place in 2nd OA, and building upon his lead on 2012 Dave. Vicki posted the fastest ultimate women’s time of the day, running 1:02 growing ever so slightly on her lead atop the podium. Val Hobson is still strongly within striking distance after a solid 1:03:43, holding her place in 3rd OA. These two powerhouse competitors are separated by a mere 3:18 with 5 stages to go.
Thaddeus Homewood continues to impress, this time running 1:03 for the 15K, holding his place in 8th OA, inching closer to 7th place. He also has a commanding lead of 10:26 on 2015 Thaddeus. Andrew, as steady as ever came in with 1:24 and sits 25th OA. Will continues to push the limits as he races his 2013 self. He was a mere 33s off of his 15K time from that year, and now sets 3:18 back of an event PB!
Up next…the widow maker…30K of trails…
