Patterson sets new CR in Holiday Lake win

Bethany Patterson and Martha Nelson scored the top two spots among female finishers at the Holiday Lake 50K++ on Valentine’s Day, with Patterson adding a new course record on top of the win.

Patterson shaved 23 seconds off fellow VHTRC’er Holly Bugin’s 2013 time of 4:23:04, edging out Nelson by less than a minute after the two ran together and pushed the pace for much of the 32-plus mile course. Nelson ended up claiming second with a time of 4:23:26, just 22 seconds slower than Bugin’s previous course record.

Among the men, the top VHTRC finishers were Brad Hinton and John Andersen, who claimed 9th and 10th in the field with times of 4:07:16 and 4:14:53. This was Hinton’s second running of Holiday Lake, and his second time placing in the Top 10. For Andersen, this was also a second visit to the two-loop course, and a substantial improvement after a 5:33:23 finish good enough for 13th overall in the snow/ice/mud slogfest of 2014.

Among other solid VHTRC performances, Sophie Speidel finished just outside the Top 10 in the women’s division, but added another age group win to her growing collection.

Several other VHTRC members turned out to run or volunteer at this first race in Horton’s Lynchburg Ultra Series and The Beast series. Many racked up new PRs – or at least vindicated their slower 2014 times – on a slightly modified version of the Holiday Lake course that still clocks in at well over 32 miles in length.

Preliminary results can be found here.