Broken Arrow Skyrace Ascent — M60-69: Scholl Wins a Close One at the Top

• Shawn Scholl (age 61, Kremmling, CO) took the M60-69 title in 1:00:25 (16:44/mi), edging Richard Kirby by just 15 seconds.
• The podium was tightly packed: just 42 seconds separated 1st through 3rd, with Rob Houghton (age 69) rounding it out in 1:01:07.
• Paul Sweeney (4th, 1:04:30) made the most decisive closing move of any top finisher, gaining 21 spots in the men's field on the final KT 22→Finish segment.
• The field of 25 spanned nearly 40 minutes from front to back, with 15 listed finishers breaking the 1:22 mark.

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Shawn Scholl made the trip from Kremmling, Colorado — itself sitting above 7,000 feet — and looked comfortable at altitude, crossing in 1:00:25 at a 16:44/mi clip over terrain that climbs from 6,257 to 8,845 feet. Richard Kirby (age 67, Heber City, UT) pushed him every step of the way, finishing just 15 seconds back in 1:00:40. That's a genuine battle at this level, on this course, at this elevation. Kirby's Heber City base also sits well above sea level, and neither man showed any sign of wilting in the thinner air.

The real story of the podium, though, may be Rob Houghton. At 69 — the oldest finisher in the top three — Houghton came in 3rd in 1:01:07, just 42 seconds off the win. He also posted the strongest closing split of the top three, recording the 129th-fastest KT 22→Finish split among all men compared to Kirby's 141st and Scholl's 139th. Houghton was moving toward people at the end, not away from them.

Fourth-place Paul Sweeney (age 60, Truckee, CA) delivered the most dramatic finish-segment surge in the group, climbing 21 positions in the men's field on the final leg to land in 1:04:30. His 126th-fastest closing split among men was the best of anyone in the M60-69 top five — a strong reminder that local knowledge (Truckee sits just minutes from Palisades Tahoe) may carry real weight on a course like this.

Behind the podium, the race spread out considerably. Stacey Sell (5th, 1:08:55) and Theo Wirth (6th, 1:09:50) were separated by under a minute, while the gap from 6th to 20th stretched across another 30-plus minutes. A 25-strong field of men in their 60s racing above 8,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada — that's the real headline underneath the results.