Dewey Peacock Victorious at Jim Bridger Run

Congratulations to Team Inov-8's Dewey Peacock on his 1st place finish at the Jim Bridger Race located in Bozeman, MT. Despite the post-hole snow, Dewey prevailed on the wicked course. Sounded like Chippewa 50km race conditions! You can read his race report below.

Jim Bridger 10 Mile Run Race Report w/ Newspaper Link

http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2008/06/15/sports/20trail.txt

This is definitely one of the more premiere trail runs in Bozeman, attracting a large turnout of all types of runners. It’s put on by the local ski team, so you get a very strong mix of trail/mountain runners, road runners, and the local ski talents. For anyone who races in competitive cross country ski areas know that trail races are frequently dominated or at least well represented by ski racers. We have plenty of talent here in Bozeman, with numerous skiers with national titles to there name. Something about 20+ hours of training a week apparently leads to a high fitness level, weird…
The race itself runs as a loop from one trailhead across some dirt roads and up to another trailhead. From that point it’s all single-track trails that climbs up and up, eventually linking up to the original trail head with miles of fast downhill running. It climbs 2000+ feet, and seems to just get steeper and steeper until it finally levels out, leading to my always favorite downhill section that you can just scream down. I’ve placed 3rd, 4th, and 2nd respectively in the three years I’ve ran it, and certainly was looking forward to racing it again this year.
This year was definitely looking to be exciting, because apparently Bozeman is a coastal city in Northern Greenland, and it snowed constantly for the week leading up to the race. We’ve had a very crazy spring, and as you can see from the picture below (taken Wednesday before the Saturday race on the same course), the race was to be a bit different this year. Although it turned out to be an absolutely sunny and beautiful day, about 3-4 miles of the race course was completely covered in snow, with no visible tracks or even trail at times.

To shorten this recap up, I won the race with a comfortable lead, and saw no one from about 2.5 miles on. Unfortunately this meant that I post-holed through tons of snow and had to navigate from my memory of the trail. Only getting off trail a few times, I was able to coast my way into being one of the very few people who have won this race (although probably with slowest winning time in its history!). The usual winner was noticeably absent, but I’ve been a lot closer to him in races lately and would have certainly appreciated the competition. It’s funny to have won this race, because it draws enough attention locally that I’ve got more phone calls and congratulations from people than almost any other thing I’ve accomplished in my life (shows you the priorities in a mountain town!). .
I wore my Mudroc 280’s for the first time hoping that they would be able to grip well on snow and wet terrain, and hopefully dry quickly over the 3 creek crossings in the race. They worked absolutely great, and I feel these not only have the best trail-feel, but the most flexible feel of all the racing models I’ve worn. They are definitely great for any terrain that needs some bite, and they don’t collect any mud or dirt like so many other trail shoes do. These would be perfect shoes for running the many trail races in my hometown back in the wet Southeast Alaska where mud and windy trails are aplenty. Now it’s all about recovering for the 1st USATF Montana Trail Championship, June 28th!