Women's Race Across the Sky: Hickory Hunts Down the Lead and Doesn't Let Go

• Mckendree Hickory wins in 19:28:15 — the fastest women's finish of the day, averaging 11:41/mi across 100 miles above 9,000 feet.
• Ailsa Macdonald led wire-to-nearly-wire, holding 1st place through six checkpoints before Hickory surged past in the final stretch to claim the title.
• Emma Wood ran the fastest women's split on the 45.6M→52.3M segment and climbed from 8th early to finish 3rd in 20:21:07 — a 48-second gap behind Jacquie Mannhard's 20:16:49 in 2nd.
• 96 women finished the "Race Across the Sky," every one of them earning hardware for crossing the line under 30 hours at altitude.

Ailsa Macdonald of Cochrane, AB, came out swinging. She held the top spot among women through the first checkpoint and never relinquished it through five more — a commanding front-runner's race at an average of 12:18/mi. She also posted the fastest women's split on the early 8.6M→20.5M segment, setting the tone before anyone else could find their legs on the climb toward Hope Pass. But Leadville has a way of reshuffling everything in the back half, and the woman who would eventually claim the title had been quietly, methodically working her way forward.

Mckendree Hickory of Steamboat Springs started the day in 6th place among women and spent most of the race in the hunt rather than the lead — sitting 3rd, then 4th, then 3rd again through the middle checkpoints. The decisive move came between miles 64.2 and 72.8, where she posted the fastest women's split of that segment, vaulting from 2nd to 1st and building a lead she would never surrender. She crossed in 19:28:15, nearly 49 minutes clear of Jacquie Mannhard, who held 2nd place for most of the race before briefly slipping to 4th and then battling back to finish 2nd in 20:16:49. Mannhard — the 2023 women's champion here — showed she knows this course, posting the 2nd-fastest women's split on that early 8.6M→20.5M stretch and grinding out a podium return.

Emma Wood, a Leadville local, ran a race that illustrated the patience this course demands. She was 8th among women early, climbed to 4th, then 3rd, dipped to 4th again, and finally locked in 3rd for good — finishing in 20:21:07, just 3:58 behind Mannhard, after running the fastest women's split on the 45.6M→52.3M segment. Macdonald, despite fading from 1st to 4th in the closing miles, still crossed in 20:29:57 for a hard-fought fourth place. Silke Koester rounded out the top five in 22:05:03, working her way up from 8th at mid-race with the 4th-fastest women's split on the late 78.7M→84.2M segment — a strong finish push in the final miles when most runners are simply trying to survive the altitude and the dark.