M60-69: Howard Norton Dominates from Down Under

• Howard Norton (1st, 1:07:00) finished 8 minutes and 7 seconds ahead of runner-up Richard Kirby — a commanding margin that was never really in doubt.
• Evan Smith (3rd, 1:16:00) posted the 28th-fastest Snow King→Finish split in the field, catching and passing Kirby on that final segment to claim the final podium spot by just 53 seconds.
• Richard Kirby (2nd, 1:15:07) faded on the closing segment — dropping from 47th to 58th among men — as Smith ran him down with a noticeably faster finish split.
• 17 finishers completed the M60-69 race across a spread of 1 hour, 38 minutes and 51 seconds, from Norton's 1:07:00 to Scott Newton's 2:45:51.

Howard Norton made the trip from Norwood, Australia worth every kilometer. Running at 9:48/mi on a course topping out near 7,500 feet — in 87°F heat, no less — the 63-year-old was in a class of his own among the M60-69 field. His margin of more than eight minutes over second place wasn't the result of a late surge; he held 32nd among men from the start through the finish, steady and untouchable throughout.

Behind him, the race for the podium was where the real drama played out. Richard Kirby of Heber City, UT held second place through most of the race, but the closing Snow King→Finish segment proved costly. His 97th-fastest split on that stretch told the story of a man running out of gas, and Evan Smith — a local from Olympic Valley, CA — was right there to take advantage. Smith's 28th-fastest closing split in the entire field was a genuine surge, and his 11:07/mi average was enough to reel Kirby in and land third by 53 seconds at 1:16:00.

Further back, Rick Santos (4th, 1:21:22) and John Clark (5th, 1:22:52) were separated by just 90 seconds, with Clark — running from Palmer, AK — fading slightly on the back half to finish 85th among men. The middle of the field, from Mark Johnson's 1:29:39 in 6th through James Sagen's 1:37:42 in 10th, was a genuine cluster, with each finisher within a few minutes of the next. Scott Newton (17th, 2:45:51) closed out the field at 24:16/mi — a reminder that on a high-altitude course baking in late-June heat, simply finishing is its own kind of result.