Broken Arrow 46K: Houghton Dominates M60-69 at 69

• Rob Houghton, age 69, wins in 6:48:39 — a 14:18/mi avg across a course ranging from 6,200 to 8,800 ft, finishing 1:30:20 clear of 2nd place.
• Tightest battle of the day: Simon Boag (2nd, 8:18:59) and Snowbeard Hudelson (3rd, 8:23:13) finished just 4:14 apart, with Doug Mayer (4th, 8:27:52) another 4:39 back — three men separated by under nine minutes across 46K of mountain terrain.
• Strongest closing segment: Houghton posted the 102nd-fastest High Camp 1→Village split among all women — a meaningful benchmark — while Boag (168th) and Hudelson (178th) ran that final stretch at a noticeably slower clip.
• Full field of 14 completed the course, from Houghton's 6:48:39 to James Sagen's 11:12:16.

Rob Houghton, at 69 years old, didn't just win the M60-69 field — he lapped it. His 6:48:39 finish at 14:18/mi through the thin air above Palisades Tahoe left the entire field more than 90 minutes behind. Running in a cohort that spans ages 60 to 69, Houghton is the oldest finisher here and the fastest by a margin that makes this less a race and more a category of his own. His moves through the men's field told the same story: steadily climbing from 131st to 113th across checkpoints, picking off competitors throughout the day.

Behind him, the real drama was a three-man chase for the podium. Simon Boag (Crystal Bay, NV) came in 2nd at 8:18:59, with Snowbeard Hudelson (Davis, CA) just 4:14 back in 3rd at 8:23:13, and Doug Mayer — all the way from Chamonix, France — 4th at 8:27:52. That's less than nine minutes across three finishers on a course this demanding. Notably, Hudelson actually tracked slightly better through the mid-race checkpoints than Boag, but Boag's stronger High Camp 1→Village closing leg — 168th-fastest versus Hudelson's 178th — was enough to hold the gap and secure 2nd. Mayer's 206th-fastest split on that same segment shows he faded relative to both.

Paul Sweeney (5th, 9:00:42) was the last finisher under nine hours, running 18:55/mi and posting the 225th-fastest KT 2→Siberia 2 split. From there, Taki Hiraoka (6th, 9:25:21) through James Sagen (14th, 11:12:16) spread across nearly two hours, with Ken Brunt (9th, 9:53:42) and Avinash Gusain (10th, 10:22:39) among those who kept pushing through the back half of this unforgiving high-altitude course. All 14 starters finished — no small feat on a 46K that asks this much of legs and lungs above 7,500 feet.