Broken Arrow 23K F40-49: Care Bear Runs Away With It

• Care Bear (46, Truckee) wins in 2:44:52 — nearly six minutes clear of 2nd place, averaging 11:32/mi across a course that climbs to nearly 9,000 feet.
• Closest battle on the day: Jessica Hamilton (3:09:05, 5th) and Kendra Bell (3:09:13, 6th) split by just 8 seconds — Hamilton clawing back ground with the 44th-fastest women's split on the High Camp→Finish segment to edge ahead.
• Hamilton's weekend double: Racing the Iron Face Challenge 5 Mile earlier, she placed 2nd among women there — then backed it up with a top-5 finish here. Gibson Kelley (13th, 3:44:00) also doubled, placing 7th among women in the IFC 5 Mile.
• Karen Barnes (49, Alameda) posts the 39th-fastest women's split on KT 22→Siberia en route to a 2:50:41 runner-up finish — the strongest individual segment mark among the top finishers named.

Care Bear — local to Truckee and no stranger to this terrain — was simply in a different race from the field. Her 2:44:52 at 11:32/mi pace across a course that rarely dips below 6,200 feet is the kind of performance that makes the result feel settled from the gun. She held 36th among women at multiple checkpoints, consistent and controlled, and her 33rd-fastest women's split on the High Camp→Finish stretch confirmed she never let off the gas when others were fading in the thin air above Palisades Tahoe.

Karen Barnes (2:50:41) claimed 2nd in the F40-49 field with her own composed effort, running 11:57/mi and posting a solid KT 22→Siberia split. Behind her, Jenni Backholm (3:06:26) and Amy Shertzer (3:07:14) were separated by just 48 seconds at the finish — Shertzer running the 50th-fastest women's split on High Camp→Finish to close within striking distance, though Backholm held 3rd.

The race's best story below the podium belongs to Jessica Hamilton (Tahoe City). She'd already run to 2nd among women in the Iron Face Challenge 5 Mile, then came back to this 23K and ground out a 3:09:05 — moving from 63rd among women at the first checkpoint all the way to 55th by the finish, with the 44th-fastest women's High Camp→Finish split sealing 5th place in the F40-49 field by just 8 seconds over Kendra Bell (3:09:13, 6th). Two races, two podium-or-near finishes — that's a weekend.