Ultra-runners tackled running streams, rocky trails, steep climbs and descents in the Santa Barbara front country for the 35-mile Nine Trails Endurance Run last Saturday.
An impressive field of nationally known ultra-runners competed in the early season event of their sport.
The overall winner was Jim Walmsley of Flagstaff, Ariz., in a course-record time of 5 hours, 12 minutes. He won last year’s prestigious Western States 100 in the Sierra Nevada foothills in a record-time of 14 hours, 30 minutes.
Flagstaff’s Jared Hazen, champion of the JFK 50 miler in snowy Boonsborn, Md., in November, finished second on Saturday in 5:23.
Santa Barbara’s Kris Brown, a 10th-place finisher at the Western States 100, came in third in 5:29.
All three men beat the previous course record of 5:35, set in 1994.
Taylor Nowlin, who is relatively new to the ultra-running national scene, was the women’s champion in 6:24.
Sandi Nypaver of Boulder, Colo. was second in 6:30 and Jade DeLa Rosa of Bellingham, Wash., came in third in 6:58.
Nowlin, who lives in Crested Butte, Colo., broke the record for the fastest-known time on the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim run, a 40-mile course that takes runners from the Canyon’s South Rim down to the bottom, up to the North Rim,and back. She was timed in 7 hours, 25 minutes.