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窪蹋勛圖厙 magazine, October 1994
Endurance: Get With it, Guys
By Todd Balf (with Greg Child and Dan Dickison)
Last July, Ann Trason won her sixth straight Western States 100 women’s title, beat all but one of the men, and bettered her own course record by 37 minutes. And by all accounts she coasted the last seven miles, knowing that she didn’t have a chance to overtake the ultimate winner, Tim Twietmeyer. The 1992 Western States champ, Twietmeyer won in 16 hours, 51 minutes; Trason’s
time was 17:37. Meanwhile, the usually top-notch field was somewhat diminished by a few no-shows–most notably, the Tarahumara Indian runners, including the 39-year-old winner of the 1993 Leadville Trail 100, Victoriano Churro. According to race director Norman Klein, the Tarahumara had planned to be at the Western States but at the last moment were charmed away by an alpine
ultramarathon in Davos, Switzerland. As for Tom Johnson, the Western States course record holder, he was busy leading a surprisingly strong U.S. men’s team at the 100-kilometer World Challenge in Lake Saroma, Japan. He finished in 6:41:40, less than three minutes off the American record. The U.S. team, which in addition to Johnson included Rich Hanna of Sacramento, California, and
Bryan Hacker of Bloomington, Indiana, took third in the team standings, the best finish by a U.S. team at the 100k Worlds since the early eighties.
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