Broken Arrow 3.5K Ascent — F60-69: Karla Jones Leads the Way

• Karla Jones (Ventura, CA) won the F60-69 field in 43:22, running a 19:57/mi average up a course topping out near 8,000 feet.
• Nearly 4 minutes separated Jones from runner-up Vicky Oswald (47:14), with Meghan Canfield (51:36) and Betsy Nye (52:42) tightly grouped another four-plus minutes back.
• Christina Walsh-Curley, at 67 the oldest finisher in the field, crossed in 59:16 — the only F60-69 athlete to fade on the Snow King→Finish segment, slipping two spots among the women on that closing stretch.
• Nine women finished the ascent, with Bonnie Maccurdy (Olympic Valley, CA) completing the course in 1:44:58 to close out the field.

Karla Jones, 60, set the tone from the start and never let go. Her 43:22 on this high-elevation grind — thin air, 17 mph winds, and a course that climbs from roughly 6,300 to nearly 8,000 feet — was a commanding performance. Running at 19:57/mi on terrain like this is no stroll; it's a controlled assault on altitude, and Jones executed it cleanly.

Behind her, Vicky Oswald (47:14, 21:43/mi) made the most interesting move of the day, picking up two spots among the women on the Snow King→Finish segment to secure second. Oswald's stronger closing leg was the decisive difference between her and Canfield (51:36), who slipped a place on that same stretch. Betsy Nye (52:42) rounded out the top four just over a minute behind Canfield, the two running a similar pace through the upper mountain.

Carolyn Mahboubi (1:01:23), Piper Parkhouse (1:03:21), and Laurie Perrot (1:07:47) filled out the middle of the field, separated by a combined six and a half minutes across those three spots. Bonnie Maccurdy, racing from her home base in Olympic Valley — the closest to the course of anyone in the field — finished in 1:44:58, more than 37 minutes behind Perrot, but she got to the top all the same. Nine starters, nine finishers.