M60-69 at Broken Arrow 46K: Houghton Reigns Supreme at 69

• Rob Houghton, 69, wins in 6:48:39 (14:18/mi) — more than 1 hour 30 minutes clear of second place, the largest margin in the M60-69 field.
• Simon Boag edges Snowbeard Hudelson for 2nd — 8:18:59 to 8:23:13, a gap of just 4 minutes 14 seconds after more than eight hours of racing.
• Doug Mayer rounds out the podium with an 8:27:52 finish — only 9 minutes behind Boag across the full 46K.
• 14 finishers completed the course, with James Sagen closing it out in 11:12:16.

Rob Houghton didn't just win M60-69 — he lapped the field. At 69, the oldest competitor in the group, he crossed in 6:48:39 at a 14:18/mi average over a course that climbs through air as thin as 8,833 feet above sea level. His nearest rival wouldn't finish for another hour and a half. Houghton's progression through the men's field tells the same story: he moved from 131st to 113th among men over the course of the race, steadily picking off competitors as others faded on the long back half. On the High Camp 1 to Village segment, he posted the 102nd-fastest split in the field — a strong closing punch when many runners were running on fumes.

Behind him, the race for the podium was genuinely absorbing. Simon Boag (60, Crystal Bay, NV) and Snowbeard Hudelson (60, Davis, CA) were locked together for much of the day — their gender-place progressions tracked almost identically through the middle checkpoints — before Boag pulled clear by 4 minutes 14 seconds at the line. Doug Mayer (61), based in Chamonix, brought the podium home in 8:27:52, just 9 minutes back. Notably, Mayer's High Camp 1→Village split ranked 206th in the field, compared to Boag's 168th and Hudelson's 178th — a small but telling gap on that final stretch.

Paul Sweeney (60, Truckee) was the story of the second half, climbing from 381st to 278th among men between the opening checkpoint and the finish — a sustained surge that earned him 5th in M60-69 at 9:00:42. The back of the field showed the full weight of the course: six finishers came in between 9:45 and 11:13, with James Sagen (67) wrapping up the M60-69 race in 11:12:16 — over four and a half hours after Houghton had already called it a day.