Broken Arrow Ascent 2024: Rob Houghton Conquers the M60-69 Field

• Rob Houghton, 67, wins in 1:04:14 (29:33/mi avg), finishing more than 2:25 clear of runner-up Theo Wirth.
• Tight battle for 3rd: David Long (1:11:12) and Gary Deacon (1:11:21) were separated by just 9 seconds — but the places are clear, Long edging ahead.
• Houghton surged on the final climb: he moved from 138th to 108th among men on the Snow King→Finish segment, posting the 104th-fastest split on that stretch in the men's field.
• 21 finishers completed the M60-69 race, ranging from Houghton's 1:04:14 down to just over 2:08 at the back.

Rob Houghton made the M60-69 race look almost straightforward — almost. At 67, the Murphys, CA runner went out and held a 29:33/mi average up a course climbing to nearly 8,000 feet in the thin Sierra Nevada air and 91°F heat. He wasn't just leading his field; he was actively hunting down runners ahead of him, gaining 30 places among the men on the final Snow King push to the finish. That kind of late momentum at altitude and in that heat is no accident.

Theo Wirth of Roseville, CA claimed 2nd in 1:06:39, running his own disciplined race at 30:39/mi. The gap to Houghton — 2 minutes and 25 seconds — was substantial, but Wirth was never seriously threatened from behind, finishing comfortably clear of the 3rd-place battle unfolding behind him.

That battle was the race's sharpest subplot. David Long (Los Osos, CA) and Gary Deacon (Sonora, CA) crossed in 1:11:12 and 1:11:21 respectively — 9 seconds apart after more than 70 minutes of racing on a relentless ascent. Deacon had actually been running ahead of Long earlier in the race (135th among men vs. Long's 179th at one checkpoint), but Long reeled him in and pulled clear on the Snow King segment, where Long's split ranked 150th in the men's field to Deacon's 157th. A small but decisive difference when the margins are this fine.

Glenn Ross rounded out the top five in 1:13:06, while the middle of the field — from David Montague through Jim Correll (1:16:40 and 1:16:41, a near-identical finish) — showed just how competitive this group was across the board. Phil Adrian, at 69 the eldest named finisher, came home 14th in 1:30:36 — a genuine achievement on a course that spares no one.