It was a historic day of racing on the 2024 JFK 50 Mile, a historic American ultramarathon, the place Rachel Drake and David Sinclair set big new ladies’s and males’s course data.
On Saturday, November 23, at 6:30 a.m. native time, runners took off from downtown Boonsboro, Maryland, for the race’s 62nd version. It’s one of many U.S.’s oldest ultras, and quick athletes have examined themselves for over a half-century on its unchanging course. This historical past tends to attract elite runners searching for 50-mile PRs, podium locations, and if potential, course data.
Leaving downtown Boonsboro beneath the duvet of near-darkness, runners received a fast 2.5 miles of street earlier than becoming a member of the rocky and rooty Appalachian Trail for 13 miles. Emerging from the path and with the technical difficulties behind them, the course follows 26.2 miles alongside the largely flat C&O Canal towpath earlier than taking nation roads with a number of rolling hills for the ultimate eight miles to the end. The course is steeped in historical past, passing by Civil War battlefields and utilizing the canal system that introduced commerce and commerce west within the early 1800s.
Aside from the primary part on the Appalachian Trail, this is among the quickest extremely programs round, and the instances mirror that.
Started in 1963, the preliminary occasion was a part of a sequence began by President John F. Kennedy to enhance the health of his navy officers and Americans usually. More than 50 years earlier, President Theodore Roosevelt had required that his navy officers have the ability to cowl 50 miles on foot in 20 hours, and Kennedy wished to revive the usual. The present JFK 50 Mile is the one race of Kennedy’s sequence to proceed. In addition to celebrating all runners, together with elites, it strongly emphasizes its navy roots.
Speaking of elite runners, after simply 5:08:26 of racing, Sinclair got here away with the lads’s win, shattering the earlier course document of 5:18:40 by greater than 10 minutes. The prior document was set by Hayden Hawks in 2020.
Drake did the identical within the ladies’s occasion, ending in 5:57:32, main line to line, and setting a brand new course document by over eight minutes. She bested Sarah Biehl’s time of 6:05:42, which was set in 2022.
Read on for extra race particulars.
2024 JFK 50 Mile Women’s Race
With greater than 1,200 runners leaving downtown Boonsboro collectively in the dead of night, the ladies’s subject cut up up practically instantly. Rachel Drake led the cost from the gun, reaching the Weverton checkpoint on the finish of the tough Appalachian Trail section at mile 15.1 in 1:57:50. Mary Denholm adopted simply over a minute again.
Robyn Lesh’s timing chip didn’t register right here, so we don’t have her actual cut up, however she got here by in a strong third place. Valérie Arsenault (Canada), who positioned third at this race final yr, was about eight minutes behind in fourth. Britta Clark was about 14 minutes off the lead in fifth. With the slowest a part of the course behind them, it might now come right down to flat and quick pace.
Rachel Drake profitable the 2024 JFK 50 Mile ladies’s race and setting a brand new course document. Photo: H3 Photography
Showing that she will be able to run flatter and sooner terrain along with technical path, Drake, who positioned eighth on the Western States 100 this yr, continued to steer at Antietam at mile 27.1 with 3:18:53 elapsed. Denholm was a mere two minutes behind and effectively inside putting distance with the race solely a bit greater than half over by way of distance. Arsenault trailed by 11 minutes to spherical out the highest three.
Drake was nonetheless on the entrance of the ladies’s subject at Taylor’s Landing at mile 38.4 with 4:35:51 elapsed, with Denholm now just below 9 minutes behind. At this level, it was clear that Drake was on tempo for a giant course document. Arsenault was operating steadily in third, quarter-hour again from the chief. Lesh ran in fourth right here, round 22 minutes off the lead. Lindsay Prescott made a transfer to maneuver up into fifth, 35 minutes again.
Drake continued to steer on the dam on the finish of the canal part, mile 41.8, in 5:00:32 with greater than a seven-minute hole on second-place Denholm, and a 15-minute hole on Arsenault. Lesh stayed in fourth, now 19 minutes off the lead, and Prescott remained in fifth, about 38 minutes again. It was simply over eight miles to go for Drake to nab a brand new document, and Denholm hung within the steadiness of operating beneath the prior document, too.
In the top, Rachel Drake set a brand new ladies’s course document by over eight minutes with a ending time of 5:57:32, which additionally positioned her tenth total within the subject.
Mary Denholm took a ridiculously robust second in 6:04:15, additionally beneath the prior course document. Valérie Arsenault repeated her third-place efficiency in 6:15:59, beating her earlier time by practically 20 minutes. In the top, 4 ladies would end in beneath 6:30, a time that solely 10 ladies within the race’s six-plus many years of historical past had achieved earlier than.
2024 JFK 50 Mile Women’s Results
- Rachel Drake – 5:57:32
- Mary Denholm – 6:04:15
- Valérie Arsenault (Canada) – 6:15:59
- Robyn Lesh – 6:21:55
- Britta Clark – 6:44:25
- Lindsay Prescott – 6:47:18
- Emily Harrison Torrence – 6:49:03
- Mindy Kaufman – 6:54:51
- Karin Strickland – 6:59:22
- Porter Burgess – 7:09:43
2024 JFK 50 Mile Men’s Race
Leaving downtown Boonsboro beneath streetlights, the lads’s subject didn’t waste any time setting a quick tempo. While the lead group was nonetheless big as they approached the Appalachian Trail 2.5 miles in, a gaggle of 5, consisting of David Sinclair, Eli Hemming, Ryan Sullivan, Matthew Seidel, and Tracen Knopp had emerged by the top of the path, the extra technical part of the course, 15.1 miles in on the Weverton checkpoint. Sinclair led the cost right here in 1:43:58, and the remainder of the highest 5 have been inside 90 seconds earlier than some larger gaps opened to the remainder of the sector.
Hemming, winner of this yr’s OCC, and Sinclair, winner of the 2024 and 2022 Speedgoat 50k, pulled away from the remainder of the sector alongside the C&O Canal towpath, reaching the Antietam checkpoint at mile 27.1 collectively in 2:53:05. Seidel, fourth place within the race in 2022, adopted in third, three and a half minutes again. Sullivan and Knopp trailed the leaders by just below six and seven minutes, respectively.
Sinclair was in the end the grasp of the canal part, reaching Taylor’s Landing help station at mile 38.4 first in 4:00:36. Hemming was 5 minutes behind, and Seidel was an additional 4 minutes in arrears. Sullivan and Knopp stored themselves in competition, 12 and 14 minutes behind the chief.
David Sinclair profitable the 2024 JFK 50 Mile males’s race and setting a brand new course document. Photo: H3 Photography
By the dam on the finish of the canal part, three and a half miles later at mile 41.8, Sinclair’s lead over Hemming was practically seven minutes, whereas the remainder of the gaps between second and fifth stayed practically the identical. From right here, Hemming would fade earlier than in the end ending fifth.
It was clear early on that Sinclair would have a shot on the course document if he might preserve his tempo, and because the race reached its ultimate actual property he continued to make time on the document. With a ultimate time of 5:08:26, David Sinclair minimize practically 10 minutes off the prior document.
After fairly a spot, Ryan Sullivan got here in subsequent to take second with a end time of 5:27:40. Matt Seidel was third, simply two minutes again in 5:29:34.
2024 JFK 50 Mile Men’s Results
- David Sinclair – 5:08:26
- Ryan Sullivan – 5:27:40
- Matthew Seidel – 5:29:34
- Tracen Knopp – 5:31:15
- Eli Hemming – 5:33:09
- Ferdinand-Clovis Airault – 5:35:37
- Josh Park – 5:45:12
- Ryan Clifford – 5:56:38
- Benjamin Linne – 5:56:49
- Andrew Simpson – 5:57:38