Broken Arrow 46K M20-29: Small Holds On as Five Men Finish Within a Minute

• Jeshurun Small (Golden, CO) wins in 4:11:14 (8:47/mi), edging a field of 38 where the top five were separated by just 1:47.
• Brian Whitfield and Cade Michael finished 2nd and 3rd in 4:11:41 and 4:12:04 — a gap of just 23 seconds between them, with Coleman Cragun (4th, 4:12:13) only 9 seconds further back.
• Cole Campbell made the biggest move in the field, climbing from 19th among the men at the first checkpoint all the way to 5th at the finish in 4:13:01 — nearly 16 minutes faster than his 6th-place finish here in 2024 (4:29:32).
• Gordon Gianniny returned to Broken Arrow and improved his 2024 result, going from 9th in 4:41:19 to 9th again in 4:35:48 — same place, 5:31 faster.

The headline story in the M20-29 field is how close — and how chaotic — the top of the race was. Jeshurun Small led early, then slipped to 5th among the men by the second checkpoint, then surged back to the front before settling into 5th again across the final two segments. That early burst was real: he posted the 2nd-fastest split on the High Camp 1→Village leg among all the men. When the dust settled on the cold, rain-soaked course at Palisades Tahoe — 50°F, light rain, 10 mph wind — Small's 4:11:14 held up for the win by just 27 seconds over the field.

Brian Whitfield told a different story: methodical and relentless. Starting 12th among the men, he moved up one position at a time through nearly every checkpoint, finishing 6th overall among the men with a 2nd-fastest split on the High Camp 2→Finish leg to seal 2nd place in 4:11:41. Cade Michael (4:12:04) and Coleman Cragun (4:12:13) rounded out the podium and 4th, with Michael's 3rd-fastest Snow King 1→KT 1 split and Cragun's 3rd-fastest First Half split showing how different paths led to nearly the same finish time.

Cole Campbell's charge was the most dramatic of the day. He was 19th at the opening checkpoint and kept climbing — 17th, 12th, 8th — eventually finishing 5th in 4:13:01, backed by the 3rd-fastest High Camp 2→Finish split in the field. That's a 16:31 improvement over his 2024 time here, and a finish that nearly cracked the podium. Behind the top five, Nicholas Turco (6th, 4:19:23) was the next man in, followed by Liam Meirow (7th, 4:26:27) and Forrest Barton (8th, 4:27:26) — a cluster that kept the back half of the top ten competitive as well.