M40-49 Ultra 100K: Wealing Runs Down the Field to Take the Title

• Seth Wealing (11:40:10, 11:16/mi) won the M40-49 race at age 47, surging from 7th among men at the first checkpoint all the way to 3rd before the finish — posting the 4th-fastest split on the Bull Wheel→Diamond Peak segment in the process.
• Mathieu Dardenne made the most dramatic climb of the day, moving from 27th among men early on to 8th by the finish in 12:12:39 — a relentless, patient charge across 62 miles of high-altitude trail.
• Ben Fields ran the opposite arc, slipping from 3rd among men to 9th by the finish (12:27:33), but still claimed 3rd in the M40-49 field — his early pace simply couldn't be sustained over the back half.
• The top three finished within 47 minutes of each other; 4th through 20th spanned nearly four and a half hours, underlining just how wide the field spread across this demanding course.

Seth Wealing, 47, out of Golden, CO, delivered the most complete performance in the M40-49 field, crossing in 11:40:10 at an 11:16/mi average — a remarkable clip across a course that climbs and descends between roughly 4,900 and 9,000 feet. He was as high as 3rd among men mid-race before settling back briefly, then reasserting himself to finish 3rd among men overall. His 4th-fastest split on the Bull Wheel→Diamond Peak stretch showed he still had something left when others were fading. At 47, he was the oldest of the top three finishers in the M40-49 field — and the fastest.

Mathieu Dardenne, 40, of San Francisco, ran a masterclass in pacing. Starting conservatively — 27th among men at the first checkpoint — he methodically picked off competitors all day, reaching 8th among men by the finish in 12:12:39. His 7th-fastest split on Snow Valley Peak 2→Hobart 3 was the engine of that late charge. Ben Fields (12:27:33) ran the counter-narrative: fast out of the gate at 3rd among men, he gradually worked his way back to 9th in the men's field, though his early investment was enough to hold 3rd in the M40-49 standings.

Jake Lawrence (13:21:16) and Jayson Welden (13:36:47) rounded out the top five. Lawrence, racing on home turf in South Lake Tahoe, faded from 10th among men to 18th over the second half — the high-elevation miles between 9,000 feet clearly taking their toll. Welden, out of Reno, ran a steadier if slower race, holding close to his position from mid-race onward and posting the 16th-fastest split on the Waterfall→Finish stretch. Josh Murphree (14:30:20) through Cameron Duggan (17:35:17) filled out the listed finishers, with 27 more completing the 100K and earning every hard-won mile of this Sierra Nevada sufferfest.