2021 Peterson Ridge Rumble Recap!

by Chase Parnell — April 12, 2021

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Alright, I don’t really want to beat a dead horse with Peterson Ridge Rumble after all that Twitter and instagram coverage during the race, but then again, not everyone is on the socials, or perhaps more so, some people still like to READ. So I’ll hit the highlights and spotlight a little bit of action from each race. Nikki and I had a blast out there, zipping around, trying to capture everything we could.

Men’s 20 Miler

Bend’s Colton Gale came away with a pretty dominant win. Alastair Thurlbeck was hot on his tail most of the day, but Colton ran confidently, showed up, and ran the 8th fastest time (2:06:14) in the race’s 19 year history! After the race, he said he brought the climbing legs and ran strong all the way up to the turnaround, but then faltered the last few miles, unable to close like he wanted due to a bit of a hip-flexor flare up. Colton has some good momentum going, definitely want to follow along to see what he does next!

Colton with the winning finish and shirt/mask combo:

Here’s how the top ten played out:

Women’s 20 Miler

Dani Moreno put on a clinic out there. She went out strong and hung tough the entire run. I really think she’s one of the top short course mountain/ultra/trail runners out there right now. There have been a lot of fast women to run this exact course (the 20 mile course changes very little year to year) and Dani knocked five minutes off the existing course record, running 2:14:40. Unreal. After the race, Dani spoke kindly of our little Oregon trail running scene. Good thing because she’s coming back in August to run the United States Mountain Running Championships at the Gnar Gnar 6 miler at Mount Hood, trying to qualify for the world championships! After seeing what she did today, I like her chances.

Quickly getting dropped by Dani:

How the top ten shook out:

Men’s 40 Miler

This one had a little more drama with Jeff Stern and Brett Hornig battling it out deep into the race. Jeff took the race out hot and ran like a champ but told me after the race that Brett ultimately ended up gapping him on the climbs on the back half of the course. Knowing that Brett lives and trains in Ashland, with all the vert from the doorstep, it didn’t surprise me that that’s where he separated. Both of these guys ran super strong, setting themselves up for what should be a really great 2021 season. Hornig kept the pedal down and hammered his way to a 3:55:38, a new course record, although this year’s course was shorter than in years past. Regardless, smoking fast.

The start. Jeff wasn’t messing around, Yassine Diboun with the “Yo!”:

Top ten finishers:

Women’s 40 Miler

Keely Henninger somewhat surprisingly had some company in the early miles in Natalie Chirgwin of Ashland. Keely slowly started to separate and strung out a nice win in course record fashion (again, shorter course) but even if it was the full shebang, I have to think she would’ve dipped under the record anyway. Keely finished in 4:13:08, 13 minutes up on Natalie who hung tough the entire day. Keely is building up to Western States and if today was any indication, I’m thinking she’ll be ready to make a big splash in what I believe will be her 100 mile debut. She’s even attending the Western States training camp so she’ll be familiar with the course and ready to roll. Can’t wait.

Here’s a little clip of Keely chasing the overall leaders, saying she wanted company!

Top ten women:

See, kept it short and sweet. Shout out to race director, Sean Meissner, for letting us get out on the course and share all these stories with you all. Link to full results here. Nikki and I learned a lot about how to cover a race in person. It was essentially our first time! And let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it looks! The logistics and timing of everything will make your head spin, especially with two different race distances. Next time we might need to wrangle a couple volunteers to hang out at certain strategic locations that we can’t possibly get to but that are important to capture to provide the full race story arc. We didn’t even see the 40 mile runners after mile 13 until the finish! Gahhhh!! Next time we shall be better. Thanks for following along and we can’t wait to do this again!

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