M30-39 Ascent: Thomas Holds Off a Fast-Closing Field

• Darren Thomas wins the M30-39 Ascent in 40:47 (18:45/mi avg), edging David Sinclair by 20 seconds and Brian Eimstad by 35.
• David Sinclair's double: Sinclair took 2nd here in 41:07 — the same weekend he claimed 1st in the Men's 46K, making him one of the event's standout multi-race performers.
• Andrew Douglas (5th, 42:15) also raced the 23K, finishing 7th in the Men's race — two Broken Arrow races, two top-10 results.
• Brian Eimstad's closing surge: running the 12th-fastest split in the field on the Snow King→Finish segment, Eimstad climbed from 24th among men to 14th — the biggest positional gain in the top five.

Darren Thomas set the pace across 99 finishers in the M30-39 field, crossing in 40:47 at an 18:45/mi average — no small feat on a course that climbs through thin air between roughly 6,300 and 8,000 feet, with 91°F heat and a 14 mph wind adding to the punishment. Thomas held his position through the Snow King→Finish segment, posting the 11th-fastest split in the field on that stretch, and kept enough in reserve to fend off a determined chase.

That chase came from several directions. David Sinclair (41:07) had already banked a win in the Men's 46K earlier in the weekend, and he nearly doubled down here — the 20-second gap to Thomas was real, but so was the audacity of backing up a 46K with a top-two Ascent finish. Brian Eimstad (41:22) was the field's great mover in the top group, clawing from 24th to 14th among men overall before finishing 3rd in M30-39 with the 12th-fastest Snow King split in the field. Joseph Demoor rounded out the podium in 4th at 41:45, while Andrew Douglas — also fresh off a 7th-place finish in the Men's 23K — came home 5th in 42:15.

Behind the top five, the drop-off was meaningful. Andy Wacker (6th, 43:56) and Torstein Tengsareid (7th, 44:45) were separated by 49 seconds but both more than a minute and a half off Douglas's pace. The field stretched further from there, with Trevor Halsted (8th, 45:14), Michael Moore (9th, 45:37), and Ondrej Fejfar (10th, 46:01) completing a competitive top ten across a 99-strong M30-39 field that clearly brought its best to Palisades Tahoe.