Jed Smith Ultra Classic M1-29: Cooper Ras Claims the Age Group in Dominant Fashion

• Cooper Ras won the M1-29 group in 6:07:37 (7:21/mi), nearly 20 minutes clear of runner-up Justin Kaufmann.
• Justin Kaufmann held 2nd in 6:27:19 (7:45/mi), finishing 24 seconds per mile slower than Ras across all 50 miles.
• Jesse Moore completed the three-man field in 9:19:08 — a full 3 hours 11 minutes behind Ras, running an 11:11/mi average.

In a three-man M1-29 field at the Jed Smith Ultra Classic, Cooper Ras made the result look almost routine. The 24-year-old from Costa Mesa ran 7:21 per mile for 50 miles on a foggy, humid Sacramento morning, finishing in 6:07:37 and holding 3rd among the men in the broader men's field from the midpoint of the race onward — a position he locked in and never relinquished through the final laps.

Justin Kaufmann of New York pushed the early men's standings, moving up to 3rd among men after the Out & Back before settling back to 4th by the finish. His 6:27:19 was a solid performance — 7:45/mi over 50 miles is no small thing — but Ras had simply built too much of a cushion. The gap between them, 19 minutes and 42 seconds, tells the story of a race where the age group's outcome was decided well before the final miles.

Jesse Moore, 26, from Martinez, CA, had a different kind of day. Running 11:11/mi, he came home in 9:19:08 — more than three hours behind Ras — but he did make moves late, climbing from 15th to 11th among the men over the final segments and posting the 9th-fastest split in the field on the Lap 7–Lap 8 stretch. In a 50-miler, finishing is never a given, and Moore's late surge showed he was still racing all the way to the line.