A peek at the USATF National Masters 5K XC Championships

Every stakeholder brought exactly what was expected, and a great time was had by almost all despite adversarial externalities

Boulder hosted a national championship event on Saturday, and considering what a small niche it filled and how far most Americans have to travel to get here, overall attendance was fantastic.

The men’s and women’s championship races were for masters (40 and over) only. Every year, old people who still insist on racing on cross-country courses already have the USATF Club Nationals in early December to shoot for, and the more individuals-focused USATF National Championships over the winter also include masters races. (The 2022 Club Nats are in Golden Gate Park on December 10, while the 2023 Open Nationals are on January 21 in Richmond, Virginia,)

So, the fact that 274 men and women showed up to run a high-altitude 5K on a challenging course in advance of those two events is encouraging, at least from the perspective that a certain number of older Americans simply can’t help but seek out these kinds of competitive experiences knowing full well every year is statistically likely to be uglier than the last from a pure-numbers standpoint.

The event was managed by T.E.A.M. of Boulder and Lee Troop, and before the 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. women’s and men’s championship races, a series of open events, most of them for kids, went off (results). Troop is best known as one of the most rugged competitors in the history of running as well as a coach of the most committed and resilient elite runners you’ll find, but his bread and butter is putting on running events that people like to come to. And he’s a master at this. He’s had to be creative, as Boulder has filled up with snooty douchebags who won’t let him hold road races in their neighborhoods, forcing them all into industrial and office parks. And he charges amazingly low entry fees.

People still love these races, but I like imagining what Troop could accomplish if he operated in a city just as beautiful but with a more permissive citizenry. (I’m kidding; beautiful places always fill up with imperious assholes whose threshold for being grossly inconvenienced starts well before being asked to move their cars off the street for a single morning.)

Situating the National Masters 5K Championships and associated community races in Harlow Platts Park, while not unprecedented and something of an easy call given the expansive layout, was genius. Even people who have lived here all their lives are wowed by the sight of the Flatirons of Green Mountain, the unnamed similar formations on Bear Mountain, and the NCAR research facility perched on little Table Mountain in between, all looming majestically close. Those rocks and their grandeur, by themselves, have inexorably driven the average home price in Boulder to over one million dollars (but not currently rising, I bet).

I have no plans to ever again compete in an event requiring USATF membership. I did entertain ideas of running the community 5K until about Wednesday, when I realized that I would take a pass, and that by doing so I was admitting that I have no interest in racing at all. Here was something made for old people three miles from my front door, and it was another big chorus of nnnnaaaahhhhh fuck that noise! from the dank advisory committee ever stalking around in what’s left of my head, curb-stomping what’s left of my spirit and willingness to engage in anything requiring both basic balls and humility.

That settled, I took Rosie to watch and take some pictures and video. I can’t say I regretted skipping this for one second, because it turned out to be a warm and gusty day. On a standard late-October day, a shade-free layout wouldn’t have exacted nearly the toll it did on people, but it made for some serious discomfort.

The star on the course map shows where I was standing when I took the video of the lead women embedded below it—right at the top of a nasty hill the runners climbed twice. You can hear Rosie offering her usual soulful input.

The lead runner on the right, Ann Kirkpatrick, wound up winning in 19:21 (results), while the woman alongside her. Jessica Hruska, took second in 19:52. Melody Fairchild, a lifelong resident of Boulder who still holds the Balboa Park course record (16:39.8) from her win at the 1990 Foot Locker National Championships and ran 34:41 and 34:32 at the Bolder Boulder when she was 16 and 17 years old—and it’s impossible to appreciate how fast that is unless you’ve raced the course—wound up third (she’s in fourth or fifth in this video).

Now 49, Fairchild has never stopped being either a competitor or a relentlessly positive force for the sport. If someone were to ask me “Are you a runner too?” immediately after speaking to Melody for the first time, I would have no choice but to turn red and slink away without an answer. That she would never claim credit for how she’s been a steadying influence on countless young people—not just girls—locally and beyond is part of what makes her special.

56-year-old Trina Painter placed fourth in 20:45, Making no adjustments at all for the altitude, the 75-degree heat, the wind, and the spongy, serpentine, and rolling course, that time is worth around 16:31 for a runner in her prime. I have serious doubts that even than a half-dozen American women could run that fast on Troop’s slyly sadistic layout in any conditions. Kirkpatrick, who’s 40, ran 17:32 on the roads in Fort Collins (only slightly lower in elevation than Boulder) and a 2:37:51 marathon at age 37.

I moved east a couple hundred yards to take photos of the men’s start and to capture the leaders when they were running downhill rather than climbing.

Chris Gomez, a nurse practitioner from Flagstaff, Arizona, held off Anthony Bruns of the Boulder Road Runners by three seconds, 16:35 to 16:38. Bruns has done some 50K trail races, so I doubt he was fazed by the discomfort level he endured on Saturday. In eighth was Chris Grauch, also of the BRR and the only man over 50 to crack the top twenty overall.

If you were looking for results yesterday, they were available by 3 p.m. But Troop doesn’t have ownership of the championship-race results, USATF does. And although there was chatter about a screw-up in the team results, I suspect that USATF simply doesn’t employ anyone who works on weekends unless they’re actually at a competition site. Some intern probably logged on this morning and groaned, “Great, more shit I gotta do now,” before patiently executing the short series of steps that would make the results widely available to people with computers and smartphones.

I was pleased I went. I met up both before and after the race with two 50+ members of my old club, the Central Mass Striders. Both asked for advice about racing at altitude beforehand, but they might as well have waited until afterward because both wound up walking at times, and one of them passed someone else walking in the process. Though both were reduced to trembling fools in the immediate aftermath, they had a good time. I can’t verify that either is still alive, though. One of them commented on Boulder’s unlikely density of beautiful women, but he may have been checking out the Impalas.

One of the most enthusiastic spectators was running around banging a cowbell. Even though she was the only one doing so, this would have been unremarkable had she also not been wearing a cloth face mask. She was also the only one at the meet I noticed who masked up for the proceedings, and the wind was practically blowing her mask off her face. Whether she lives up the street from me or was with one of the California teams is a push.

Still, her enthusiasm was real, and she had a lot of company. The park is nestled between South Boulder Community Park, Fairview High School, and Southern Hills Middle School, and is a great draw on any sunny day. I’m not sure how many of the people watching the race were intentional spectators, but it was a day of tough racing, rebel yells, talking smack to other people who were already 40 during the Clinton Administration, and letting the collective flow of the day dictate itself.