M30-39 at Broken Arrow 18K: Klinger holds off Brackett in a 20-second thriller

• Neil Klinger (Verdi, NV) wins M30-39 in 1:55:33 (10:20/mi), the fastest time in the field.
• Caleb Brackett pushes him all the way — just 20 seconds back at 1:55:53, with the 2nd-fastest closing split from High Camp to the finish line.
• Travis Lavin completes the podium in 2:01:51, nearly six minutes clear of 4th, making the top three a race within a race.
• The M30-39 field drew 92 finishers across a course climbing from 6,202 to 8,820 feet — no small ask on a warm June morning at altitude.

Neil Klinger ran a composed, measured race from the gun. Tracking 4th among the men through the first three checkpoints, he held that position all the way to the finish — never surging wildly, never fading — and the 10:20/mi average across nearly two hours at altitude tells you how controlled that effort was. His 4th-fastest split on the Snow King to KT 22 segment shows he wasn't coasting through the technical middle section either.

Caleb Brackett had other ideas. The Bend, OR runner was running 7th among the men early and climbed to 6th, where he stayed. What makes his race compelling is where he found his best gear: the 2nd-fastest split from High Camp to the finish among all men is a serious closing move on a course that punishes anyone who goes out too hard. He threw everything at Klinger in the final stretch and came up 20 seconds short. On a 1:55 race, that's razor-thin.

Travis Lavin (Reno, NV) ran his own clean race — 7th among men at one point, settling into 7th at the finish — and his 7th-fastest split on the KT 22 to Siberia segment shows he was competitive in the technical middle of the course. His 2:01:51 put him nearly six minutes ahead of 4th-place Florent Dechard, making the podium a closed chapter well before the finish line.

Behind the top three, Dechard and Jared Lopez (2:06:22 and 2:07:13) traded positions throughout — both logging strong High Camp-to-finish splits — before settling 4th and 5th. The gap from 5th to 6th (Derek Yarra, 2:10:29) opened up another three-plus minutes, but 92 finishers navigating 8,820 feet of Sierra Nevada terrain in conditions like these deserve every bit of credit the clock gives them.