First-time StumpJumpers Jason and Alison Bryant made it a husband-wife sweep of the top spots in the 50-kilometer trail race Saturday.
The Elkin, N.C., couple were first and 18th overall out of 125 finishers in the 31-mile race beginning and ending at Signal Mountain Middle/High School. Jason, 38, finished in 4 hours, 21 minutes, 1 second, compared to 4:26:28 for runner-up Mark Lundblad of Swannanoa, N.C.
Alison, 31, finished in 5:11:00, way ahead of the second- and third-place female finishers in the Rock/Creek Trail Series event. Roxanne Zobava and Jennifer Rinderle were 41st and 44th overall in 5:40:29 and 5:41:50.
Chattanooga’s Jack McAfee won the 11-mile race by 16 seconds in 1:22:13, and former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga runner Lanni Marchant was the women’s winner by nearly 17 minutes and sixth overall in 1:28:33. It had 293 finishers.
Chattanoogan Nick Selbo was third in the 50k in 4:30:56 after finishing second last year. Nathan Yanko of San Francisco; Owen Bradley of Birmingham; Andy Anderson of Truckee, Calif.; Bryan Dayton of Boulder, Colo.; Brandon Sullivan of Clarksville, Tenn., and Lance Steele of Ringgold completed the top 10.
Last year’s winner, 22-year-old Josh Wheeler, set out to beat four hours and led until deep in the race, but his pace got to him and he wound up walking and was 21st in 5:12:50. He set the course record of 4:15:00 in 2009.
“I had my mind set on beating four hours, and I nailed it all the way through Suck Creek. But then something happened,” Wheeler said later, managing a smile. “That happens sometimes in this sport. But it’s a nice day for a hike.”
Jason Bryant said he knew Wheeler was about eight minutes ahead of him a third of the way through the race and still about seven minutes ahead at about the 20-mile mark.
“The next stop, though, it was three and a half, and I knew I was OK,” Bryant said. “I was behind a few people the first time through Indian Rock, but God helped me focus on running my race early and not trying to run with the leaders. Regardless of who’s in the race, run your race and don’t try to run theirs.”
His wife of three and a half years had signed up for the StumpJump 50k, and people from La Sportiva, his sponsor, asked him to represent the company at the accompanying expo. Since he was going to be on site anyway, he decided to run also.
“I’d heard a good bit about the race,” Jason said. “[Lindblad] had done the 11-miler and told me it was a good trail course. It is a nice one.”
The Bryants live on Jason’s family farm not too far from Mount Airy. He met Alison, a transplanted Michigan resident who moved to Chapel Hill in 2003, at a December 2003 road race in Winston-Salem. She later had knee surgery and now runs only trail courses. He began trail runs in 2006 and ultras the next year.
They also doubled up as the winners of a 12-hour race in July 2009 in West Virginia.
“You always want to be the winner,” Alison said. “I was just trying to run as fast as I can.”