Just had a short e-mail from a very excited Vajin Armstrong, on route to New York after his win at the American River 50 mile in the weekend. Now you might be wondering why we are covering Vajin’s race at the AR50 and why we are so excited about the result this past weekend. Well, here are a few reasons-
- there was a course change in 2009 so it is now between a mile and 1.5 miles longer than when Anton Krupicka won it, so Vajin’s 5hr53 time is pretty comparable to Tony’s time
- it’s also more than 2mins quicker than Dave Mackey’s time from last year
- it’s only 3mins slower than Geoff Roes ran in 2010 (just before he set the Western States 100mile course record)
- it is the first time an international runner has won the American River 50 in their 30year history
photo- ultrarunnerpodcast.com
Here is what Vajin had to say-
Hi Grant,
good to see that in the small world of Ultra running, news spreads fast.
Very happy with both my performance and the way the race played out. It’s also good to know that I could still go a fair bit quicker. It’s awesome just to be able to compare my performance with those guys and see how we all stack up. Definitely a much better performance than my run at Tarawera, my legs were feeling good all day and I was really flowing on the trails.
Great event and I got to meet a bunch of great people like Ellie Greenwood and Greg Soderlund (WS race director). Super cool atmosphere post race and nice weather made for a great day out.
Cheers,
Vajin
