M60-69: Simon Boag Runs Away With It at Tahoe Rim

• Simon Boag, 60, wins in 7:59:27 (15:26/mi) — finishing 38 minutes clear of runner-up Kevin Schrage's 8:37:29.
• Tightest battle of the day: Schrage (8:37:29) and Ducerf Franck (8:44:20) were separated by just under seven minutes for 2nd and 3rd, with Kevin Brunson (9:00:00) another 15 minutes back in 4th.
• Kevin Brunson's wild ride: He ran as high as 2nd among the men early in the race before fading all the way to 49th among men at one checkpoint — the most dramatic positional swing in this group.
• 14 finishers conquered a course ranging from roughly 4,900 to nearly 9,000 feet, with Tim Murphy completing the journey in 12:46:35.

Simon Boag made this look as controlled as a 50K at altitude through the Sierra Nevada can look. The 60-year-old from Crystal Bay — racing, presumably, in his own backyard — steadily climbed the men's standings across every checkpoint, moving from 26th to 22nd among men by the finish. His most eye-catching segment came on Snow Valley Peak to Hobart, where he posted the 18th-fastest split in the field on that stretch — a serious move on a serious piece of terrain. At 15:26/mi for nearly eight hours above 6,900 feet of typical elevation, that's a performance that held together from start to finish.

Kevin Schrage (8:37:29) and Ducerf Franck (8:44:20) ran a quiet, grinding battle for 2nd and 3rd. Schrage, from Fort Bragg, CA, showed his best legs on the First Half, posting the 35th-fastest split in the field on that segment and holding his position among the men's field through to the line. Franck, making the trip all the way from Chamonix, matched Schrage's 35th-fastest split on Snow Valley Peak to Hobart — a fitting symmetry between two athletes who finished less than seven minutes apart after more than eight and a half hours of racing.

The real drama belonged to Kevin Brunson. The 67-year-old from Reno shot out to 2nd among men early — an extraordinary early position — before the race caught up with him, dropping him as far back as 49th among men at one checkpoint and settling at 43rd by the finish. He still crossed in 9:00:00 flat for 4th in the M60-69 field, which tells you something about the effort involved. Jesse Tuesday (5th, 9:10:24) rounded out the top five, while Ronald Bianco, Ronald Papke, Jing Li, and Masaaki Kamamada all pushed past the ten-hour mark — no small thing on a course that spends most of its miles above a mile and a half in the sky.