2008 South Mountain 50K Report

The skies were clear , the weather was as close at it gets to perfect for December, and South Mountain was just a superlative setting for Saturday's South Mountain 50k. We had more folks show up for this than in the last few years, with nine folks going the entire distance. With the start at Buena Vista, however, dropping after just the West out and back resulted in 5.2 more miles than last couple of years (about 21 miles from BV to San Juan point and back) Many folks managed to find something a bit shorter for their own tastes and current training goals.
A special Thank You to volunteers Matt Kalina (for manning the Pima Canyon aid station, where he was a welcome sight for those dry and dusty runners heading for the East turnaround) and for Aid Station newbie Michael Chen for doing nothing short of an outstanding job, at the West turnaround at the end of San Juan road, according to reports from the runners on the course.
We had several runners bring donations; Thank you to Honey for coke and mountain dew, Liz for the bananas, Sun Chips and pretzels, Brett for the home made chocolate chip cookies and Betsy and Keene Johnson for the wonderful homemade pumpkin bread. This is a fun tradition on the first weekend of December, where there just seems to be perfect weather (70's in December; need I go on?) And a good time was had by all. We also had enough folding chairs amongst us to have quite a circle to chat, tell stories, make plans and reminisce about all the collective good times on the trails. I hope to see everyone out there next year; though if we get any bigger, we may lose our `informal' status.
Finally, a sad goodbye for those of us from the Valley – Gary Culver is moving away :-( We wish Gary a fun time with the move and maybe an invite to runs some trails in his new stomping ground.
Happy Trails,
Robert

The FULL 50k Time – correct in a relative sense…
Paul Bonnett 5:27
Honey Albrecht 5:47
Liz Everly 6:05
Joe Galope 6:21
Chuck Spurling 6:26
Brian Weineke 7:15
Melissa Masteller 7:27
Debbie Leftwich 7:34
Aaron Mascarella 7:40
Shorter distances:
Laura Nagy
Brett
Carol
Betsy and Keene Johnson
Jamil Coury
Nick Coury
Nathan Coury
Gary Culver
John and Angie Bechtel
Lindsay Cavner got a ride out from her husband
Cliff Anderson ran from Pima Canyon to Buena Vista and back, ready to help out any of the final runners if they got into any trouble
Linda Van Tilbourg and Karen Berrigan ran from Pima Canyon to Telegraph Pass and back for a `25k' fun run of their own.