Tyman Smart ran away with the title Saturday morning.
A year ago the names James Gregory, David Cardenas, and Tyman Smart filled three of the top four spots at the National High School Trail Championships.
That day Gregory nabbed his second consecutive title in 33:21, while Central's Cardenas and Smart went 3-4, both running 34:15.
This year they filled the top five - but in a different order, and a few more decided to join in and have big runs of their own.
Call it a Remix.
This year Smart out-smarted the field with a mid-race push that resembled a Tour de France style attack. The future Western Mountaineer telescoped away from his pursuers, which included defending champ Gregory, 5A 800 State champ - and teammate/future Adams State rival - Cardenas, as well as Colin Szuch and William Ledden.
Smart cruised downhill during the final mile of the 5.4 mile race to tally the fastest finish in the race's short history. Smart's 32:50 won the event by nearly 30 seconds, as Gregory took the runner-up spot this year in 33:18, and Szuch added to Smart's shocker in the results with a stellar third place finish in 33:32.
Ledden finished fourth in 33:38, and Cardenas rounded out the top five in 33:54.86, once again sharing the same exact time as someone else - Henry Murphy finished sixth in the same exact clocking.
While Gregory may have been denied his title defense, he didn't leave Salida without gold - his squad Brolic Lambz took the team title with 18 points, which was just three mere points ahead of Peak Performance. Warrior Distance took third based on time, as they too compiled 21 points, but Peak got the nod with their 1:42:36 combined time, which was 33 seconds faster than Warrior.
Like the boy's race, the girl's field was loaded.
It was perhaps the most high-quality competition outside of the season, as sister's Joslin Blair and Samantha Blair toed the line along with Lanie Szuch, Isabella Prosceno, Tatum Miller, and Hope Stark.
The Blair sister's were quick to make this an in-house competition, as they simply ran away from the field. Joslin took the W back to the Blair household, running 38:53, which was well over two minutes faster than Soleil Gaylord's 2018 winning time of 41:15, while Samantha was just ten seconds back in 39:03.
And then, silence.
For a minute at least, or 59 seconds to be exact.
2018 runner-up Szuch ran 40:02, which was over a minute and 40 seconds faster than her last year, but she finished third on this day - like her brother, which shed a bright spotlight on how competitive this year's race really was.
And then there was Fairview's Kinsey Hall.
The great thing about this mid-summer distance races is that it hints at who's setting themselves up for a big fall, and while Colorado knows the names "Blair", and "Szuch," keep an eye out for "Hall" - and not Anna Hall, Kinsey Hall.
Hall finished fourth in 41:35 - a time that would've finished second in last year's race by 20 seconds.
Stark finished fifth, running 42:33, while Prosceno and Miller went 6-7.
In the team competition there was no competing with the Blairs and Eagle Valley Track Club. They tallied a combined 23 points to beat the team with perhaps the most clever name: Knight Time Running, who finished second with 37 points. Pagosa Springs High took third with 52 points.