After another three week break, the La Sportiva Mountain Cup made its closest approach to La Sportiva's North American headquarters with the Eldora Trail 10k. The race is run out of the Eldora Nordic Center, a private area on which competitors may on run on race day. This limited access by locals may have helped level the playing field for out-of-towners ... at least in the men's field, which was stacked! Regardless of where competitors were from the elevation of between 9,200' and 10,800' was surely enough to have visitors and locals gasping for breath. The Race No fooling around today - we'll go straight to the results! Matt Byrne of Philadelphia, PA (38:46) finally won race in this year's Mountain Cup after being runner up at Rock2Rock Run and the Mountain Washington Road Run. We continue to be impressed with Byrne's ability to tear it up at altitude while living at essentially sea level. As with Mount Washington, Coloradoan master mountain mauler Simon Gutierrez (39:11) finished a spot behind Byrne. Shiloh Mielke (40:46) finished third a full two minutes behind Byrne. Two locals from Golden, Colorado, Tim Waggoner (40:59) and Bill Fauselow (41:19), ran impressive races to finish fourth and fifth.

La Sportiva runner Bernie Boettcher (41:32) was sixth overall. That was only good enough third master behind Gutierrez and Fauselow. 46-year old Andy Ames (42:35) put four masters in the top eight showing that you don't need to be young to run fast in the mountains.

Meghan Kimmel (43:49) ran away with the women's race and has now won two of the three La Sportiva Mountain Cup races that she's entered. Laura Horfeli (45:51), the top womens master, finished more than two minutes back of Kimmel. Nicole Hunt (47:34) and Maggie Conley (47:43) had a tight race for third and fourth. Susan Nuzum (47:57), second masters woman, wasn't far back in fifth. Lisa Goldsmith (48:42) was sixth and the third master. Apparently experience helps the women at Eldora, as well. Series competitor Rachel Cieslewicz (51:48) was the eighth woman across the line.

Complete Race Results: http://www.digdeepsports.com/lasportivaeldora10k/trail10kresults.html