Woods and Kimmel Win Mountain Cup Race #3
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Canton, Georgia’s Assault on Garland Mountain rounds out Mountain Cup double header last Saturday
Photo courtesy of Everett Russell / La Sportiva.
This past weekend featured a double header in the 2014 La Sportiva Mountain Cup, with races occurring in both Olympia, Washington, and Canton, Georgia. As a counterpart to the horrendous weather in Olympia’s Hillbilly Half Marathon, the Assault on Garland Mountain 9.6-miler in Canton saw clear skies and a forecast calling for highs in the upper 60s.
The race is put on by Mountain Goat Adventures, which host a number of trail runs, mountain-bike races and off-road duathlons.
Ryan Woods, 34, of Boone, North Carolina, opened a nearly three-minute gap over second place and took the win in 56:53. Megan Kimmel, 33, of Silverton, Colorado, meanwhile, continued her streak of dominance—having won the first Mountain Cup race, Moab’s Red Hot 33K—by taking the women’s win in 1:05, nearly five minutes ahead of the next female finisher.
Race director Lisa Randall added a fun, bonus element to the race by hiding four beach balls out on, or near, the course. Finding and returning a ball resulted in a free pair of La Sportiva shoes; unsurprisingly, all four beach balls were recovered by runners scrambling through creeks or down gullies keen on the scavenger hunt aspect of the race.
The next Mountain Cup race will be Hell’s Hills 25K in Smithville, Texas, on April 5, 2014.