The 60th annual JFK 50 Mile features two Olympians

Running the JFK 50 Mile has been on Reid Coolsaet’s to-do list for almost half his life.

The 43-year-old from Ontario, Canada, is now less than a week away from finally giving it a go.

The 60th annual edition of America’s oldest and largest ultramarathon will be held Saturday, beginning at 6:30 a.m. in downtown Boonsboro and finishing at Springfield Middle School in Williamsport. The 50.2-mile course consists of the rugged Appalachian Trail, the flat C&O Canal towpath and rolling, paved roads.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for the last 20 years,” Coolsaet said. “Twenty years ago, I worked at a running store with two guys named Ryne Melcher and Clark Zealand. Ryne finished fourth as a 19-year-old at JFK, and Clark finished in the top three at JFK twice around those years as well.

“I worked with those guys and they were going down to JFK almost every year and doing well. And they would just talk about it all the time. And I was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got to do this race one day.’ But I ended up getting carried away with track and marathons.”

“Carried away” is one way to put it.

On the track, Coolsaet ran 13:21.53 for 5,000 meters and 27:56.92 for 10,000.

In the marathon, he was even better, running 2:10 three times and representing Canada at both the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics.

In the long and storied history of the JFK 50 Mile, the race has never had an Olympian.

This year, there are two.

Caitriona Jennings, a 2012 Olympic marathoner for Ireland, is one of the top contenders in the women’s field.

“We’ve always tried to get the best of the best to say, ‘Hey, if we’re going to run an ultra, we’re going to run JFK,’” said longtime race director Mike Spinnler. “Here we are, 60 years into it, drawing some Olympic athletes. It’s exciting.”

Coolsaet: ‘Hopefully I can pull them back on the towpath’

Coolsaet said he should be able to break the JFK masters (40-and-over) record — 5:51:28, set by Howard Nippert in 2005 — although beyond that, he’s not sure how fast he can go in his first 50-miler.

“I don’t really know what kind of time I can run,” he said. “I still feel like anything over 3 hours for me is pretty long. I think if it was a 50K, I’d feel really confident. At 80K (roughly 50 miles), there’s still a lot of unknown for me.

“I don’t really have a certain time goal. I don’t know, maybe 5:40.”

A finishing time of 5 hours, 40 minutes would have won 53 of the previous 59 JFKs.

In recent years, guys have run significantly faster.

In 2016, Jim Walmsley ran 5:21:29 to shatter the course record. In 2020, Hayden Hawks lowered it to 5:18:40. And last year, Adam Peterman won in 5:19:38 for the No. 2 all-time performance.

The most challenging part of the course — at least for road runners — is the 13-mile section on the rocky Appalachian Trail early in the race.

That’s why Coolsaet traveled to Boonsboro last month to get a preview, running the first 20 miles of the course.

“There are definitely sections (of the Appalachian Trail) that I find really tough to keep a good pace on, but there are other sections too that are pretty rugged, but runnable terrain,” he said. “If I don’t kill myself trying to keep up with faster trail runners, hopefully I can pull them back on the towpath.

“I noticed Hayden Hawks ran the AT five minutes slower than Peterman or Walmsley,” he added. “If he’s five minutes slower on the AT than those two guys and he’s got the fastest time, it kind of goes to show that you don’t need to maximize the first 25K.”

Another top contender this year is Matt Daniels, 34, of Superior, Colo. In 2020, in his only JFK attempt, Daniels ran with Hawks for more than half the race before dropping out with a calf injury.

The top returner from last year’s men’s race is Nick Arndt, 28, of Sawyer, Mich., who placed sixth in 5:56:14.

Jennings wants no regrets at JFK 50 Mile

Although Jennings represents Ireland in international competitions, she’s lived in Hong Kong for the past 3 1/2 years.

She’s coming to the U.S. solely to run the JFK 50.

“The JFK obviously has such a long reputation of being such an iconic race, I just feel like I should do it and see what it’s all about,” she said.

Sarah Cummings and Camille Herron, the last two JFK women’s champions, helped convince her to give it a try.

“I reached out to Sarah and Camille, trying to figure out if I should do it or not because it’s been on my radar for a while, but I was apprehensive about the trail section,” Jennings said. “I asked the two girls how difficult the trail was, and they both said, ‘Yeah, it’s difficult,’ but also that it was one of the best races they’ve ever done and that I should 100% do it.

“I’m ready to go out there and give it a good shot.”

Although Jennings is 42 and 10 years removed from her Olympic days, she said she’s never been fitter.

Her 2022 results also indicate that. In August, she placed third at the 100K World Championships in Germany in 7:07:16. And last month, she won the title at the European 50K Championships in Spain in 3:19:42.

“In my head, I’ve had a brilliant season, a really successful year, right up there with one of my best, so I don’t feel like I have a lot to lose, even if JFK doesn’t go as well as I’d like it to go,” Jennings said. “I still want to give it a shot and see. I don’t want that regret of wondering what it would’ve been like if I had run.”

The top returner from last year’s women’s race is Sarah Biehl, 28, of Columbus, Ohio, who placed second in 6:22:03 for the No. 4 performance in JFK history. Devon Yanko, 40, of Howard, Colo., who placed third last year in 6:31:12, also is returning.

Another top contender is YiOu Wang, 37, of San Rafael, Calif., who will be making her JFK debut.

“It’ll be exciting to have some good, fast girls to race against,” Jennings said.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: JFK 50 Mile features two Olympic runners