15th Annual Mountain Run Sees Record Number of Finishes

SILVERTON – First-time Hardrock 100 runner Kyle Skaggs has broken the Hardrock record, posting a time of 23 hours, 23 minutes and 30 seconds, in the annual 100-mile endurance run that snakes through the San Juan mountains. Skaggs is the first to ever finish the grueling course in less than 24 hours.

With slippers on his feet and a relaxed attitude, Skaggs crossed through the finish line hours ahead of the rest of the pack.

When 24-year-old Skaggs came through Ouray at 2:30 p.m. Friday afternoon, July 11, the air was abuzz with excitement. Skaggs, the lead runner, was already two hours ahead of everyone else in the race and hours ahead of any time from previous races. Spectators watched with amazement as the 24-year-old Skaggs looked like he had run only a few miles or a couple of hours. In fact, he was 43.9 miles into the race and had been running since 6 a.m., eight and a half hours. Throughout the rest of the course, volunteers operating the aid stations were barely ready for him when he came through hours ahead of schedule.

As night fell in Ouray (the low point on the race at 7,870 feet), most runners were just leaving Ouray’s Fellin Park. Miles later, a gentle twinkling of headlights shone high above town as runners headed up the treacherous Bear Creek Trail on their way to the Grouse aid station near Engineer Pass. Most runners would continue up and over Handies Peak, the high point of the route at 14,048 feet, late at night on weary legs.

While the majority of runners were battling fatigue, darkness and mental battles to continue late into the night, Skaggs was nearing the course end.

Due to the heavy snowpack this year, the 2008 race was not expected to be a record-breaking run. When The Watch interviewed Race Director Dale Garland last week, he was fairly confident that no new course records would be set. The race “won’t be as slow as some years, but probably not as fast as last year’s,” he said. In 2007, Scott Jurek set a course record at 26:08:34. In the first 10 years of the race, it was thought that breaking the 30-hour mark would be impossible. In 2000, runner Kirk Apt broke that barrier with a winning time of 29:35:00.

Just before 3 a.m., Skaggs, looking tired but strong, came through the Cunningham aid station, 91.8 miles into the race. A bleary-eyed crew met him there and cheered him on to what would likely be a new course record. At the finish linen in Silverton, a few hearty souls looked on as Skaggs crossed the finish line and kissed the Hardrock boulder, signifying a new chapter in the race’s history. His running shoes, mere slippers, were tattered and the soles had fallen off. After a few minutes of photos and celebrating, he lay down for a nap.

Six hours later, the three lead runners behind Skaggs made their way into town. They would have been nearly an hour earlier, but late in the night they got lost. Missing a trail marker, they took a wrong turn and struggled through willows deep in a remote creek drainage searching for the trail. Scott Jaime, of Colorado, came in second at 29:50:53, with Telluride’s Ricky Denesik close behind at 30:21:23. Utah runner Jared Campbell finished fourth, followed by Arizona runner Nick Coury. In sixth place, Diana Finkel led the women’s pack at 31:09:40. Hardrock legends Kirk Apt and John DeWalt would both finish again, making this the 14th finish for Apt and the 13th for the 72-year-old DeWalt. In all, a record 98 runners crossed the finish line, putting an end to the 15th Hardrock 100.