F70+ at Tahoe Rim Trail 50K: Vreeland Leads Three Remarkable Finishes

• Beverly Vreeland, 70, wins the F70+ field in 10:11:54 (19:42/mi), climbing from 57th to 47th among women across the race.
• Cathy Mason, 75, finishes 2nd in 16:35:11 — more than six hours back, but covering every mile of the same high-altitude course.
• Patricia Carroll, 76, completes the field in 3rd at 19:12:54 (37:06/mi), making the trip from Waipahu, HI to finish a 50K topping out near 9,000 feet.
• The F70+ group placed 47th, 75th, and 76th among all women — three finishers spread across the back half of the women's field, each earning it.

Three women, ages 70 to 76, finished a 50-kilometer mountain race in the Sierra Nevada at elevations ranging from roughly 4,900 to 9,000 feet. That alone is the story — but Beverly Vreeland made it a competitive one. Running a 19:42/mi average, she moved steadily through the women's field across all five segments, gaining ten places overall and posting the 38th-fastest women's split on the Waterfall-to-Finish closing stretch. That's not just surviving the course — that's racing it.

Cathy Mason, at 75, and Patricia Carroll, at 76, ran their own races at the back of the women's field. Mason held a steady 75th–77th position among women throughout, finishing in 16:35:11. Carroll, the oldest finisher in the group, tracked just one place behind Mason for most of the race — both women posted their best relative splits on the Snow Valley Peak–to–Hobart segment, with Mason clocking the 76th-fastest and Carroll the 77th-fastest women's time there. The gap between them at the finish was just over 37 minutes, with Carroll crossing in 19:12:54.

At a race that asks every finisher to cover serious mountain terrain in thin air, the F70+ field answered with three completions. Vreeland took the win decisively; Mason and Carroll simply refused to stop. All three earned their finisher's belt buckle the hard way.