M40-49: Ryan Joy Dominates Broken Arrow's High-Altitude Battlefield

• Ryan Joy wins in 1:36:30, averaging 19:18/mi across a course that sits above 6,200 feet — nearly seven minutes clear of runner-up Jared Sindt.
• Sindt, Mugg, and Lo packed into 1:43 of each other, with just 41 seconds separating 2nd through 4th place.
• The top six all finished under 1:55, then a significant gap opened — the 7th-place finisher crossed more than 47 minutes behind 6th.

Ryan Joy turned this into a statement performance. The 43-year-old from Camas, WA, crossed in 1:36:30 at a 19:18/mi average — a pace that demands respect on a course ranging up to 7,191 feet where thinner air compounds every climb. He didn't just win; he built a margin of 6:51 over second place, which on a course this demanding reads less like a gap and more like a different race entirely.

Behind Joy, the real drama played out between Jared Sindt, Patrick Mugg, and Gary Lo. Sindt (45, Auburn, CA) held second in 1:43:21, with Mugg (47, Latham, NY) just 41 seconds back at 1:44:02, and Lo (44, El Cerrito, CA) another 62 seconds behind at 1:45:04. Three athletes separated by fewer than 103 seconds — any one of them could have swapped places with a single strong push or a momentary fade. Ryan McGuire (43, Folsom, CA) and Noah Pitts (42, South Lake Tahoe, CA) rounded out a tight top six, finishing at 1:50:49 and 1:54:34 respectively.

The field then split sharply. Brian Campbell, Aaron Welch, and Anthony Belotto — 7th, 8th, and 9th — came home between 2:42 and 2:51, a cluster of their own but separated from the top six by nearly 48 minutes. Welch and Belotto were separated by just 1:40, a tight finish at the back of the M40-49 field that mirrored the battle happening up front. Nine finishers, a clear winner, and a podium fight that went down to the final minutes — this group left nothing easy on Tahoe's high-elevation terrain.