M70-74 at UTMB: Mackenzie Holds On as Both Septuagenarians Beat the Clock

• Cameron Mackenzie, 73, took the M70-74 win in 27:42:59 (24:47/mi), finishing with 23 minutes and 54 seconds to spare before UTMB's brutal 28-hour cutoff.
• Antonio German Salceda Sanchez, 70, crossed in 28:06:53 — but his 55th-fastest men's split on the Vallorcine Entrée→Vallorcine Sortie segment was a genuine late-race surge that nearly closed the gap.
• The margin between the two finishers was 23 minutes 54 seconds across 108 kilometers of Italian, Swiss, and French mountain terrain.
• Both men completed 6,200+ meters of elevation gain — a feat that would humble athletes half their age.

There were only two finishers in the M70-74 field at this year's UTMB Ultra Trail, but what they accomplished deserves to be told plainly: two men in their seventies ran through the night, over the Alps, from Courmayeur to Chamonix, and both of them made it. Cameron Mackenzie, 73, led wire to wire, his gender place tracking a steady climb through the men's field — from 1,426th after the first checkpoint all the way to 1,056th by La Flégère, a relentless forward march through a field of thousands.

Salceda Sanchez, 70, ran a different kind of race. He actually moved the other direction through the early checkpoints, slipping from 1,210th to 1,287th by mid-race — but then found something on the back half. His 55th-fastest men's split on the Vallorcine Entrée→Vallorcine Sortie segment was a legitimate burst of speed in the context of a men's field this size, and he clawed from 1,157th to 1,088th in the final stretch. He finished in 28:06:53, averaging 25:08 per mile — a noticeably harder effort than Mackenzie's 24:47 pace, and one that reflects just how much he had to dig to close the race out.

The 71°F heat and 74% humidity on race day made for thick, draining conditions, and at elevations pushing toward 8,000 feet, the thinner air adds a tax that compounds over 27 or 28 hours of movement. Both men paid it in full. Mackenzie wins the M70-74 title; Salceda Sanchez finishes second. In a field with a 28-hour time limit, both earned every second of their finish.