Eli and Tabor Hemming Dominate Adidas Terrex 20K at GoPro Mountain Games

Fifty-nine runners. One new course. Two Hemmings taking the top spots.

That’s the summary of the Adidas Terrex 20K on Sunday, the final day of the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail. Eli and Tabor Hemming, a married couple who are arguably two of the best sub-ultra trail runners on the planet, didn’t just participate; they dominated. Eli finished the new one-lap course in 1 hour, 24 minutes, and 46.1 seconds. Tabor, his wife, crossed the line in 1:43:44.6.

It’s a nice logistical setup for a winning couple. “It does make it a nice drive home,” Tabor said. “You’re both in a good mood.”

The course itself was a revelation. The previous layout had been beaten down into submission; this new one-lap design forced runners to confront a steep 2,000-foot climb to Mid-Vail and a descent that turned out to be more trail than service road. Eli had scouted the terrain. He saw the field. He saw the strategy.

“I saw a lot of (Colorado School of) Mines guys and I was like, these track guys have some leg speed,” Eli said. “And I didn’t know what the top of the course looked like.”

He figured the descent would be fast. He was right. He also figured there would be more trail than expected. He was right again. “Loved the new course,” he added.

But the Hemmings weren’t operating in a vacuum. The start line was packed with former high school and NCAA track stars looking to prove they could handle the dirt. Eli’s plan was simple: separate from the pack on the climb, hold the lead on the descent. It worked. But the chase was fierce, led by Dylan Blair, a recent Eagle Valley High School graduate.

Blair, 18, was an anomaly. He had been focused on the 1600 and 3200-meter track distances all spring. He was training about 35 miles per week. Eli was training roughly 80 miles more. On paper, that’s a massive disparity. In practice, Blair gunned it from the start.

“Being track training right now, I can get off hard, and I got off hard and I was like, ‘man I am feeling great’ — at least the first 500 meters,” Blair said.

Then came the reality check. “And then a quarter mile later, I turned around to say to (my brother) Tyler (Blair), ‘dude, I’m lactic already.’”

Blair ran a 7:20 first mile. He felt like he died during the second mile, sliding to fourth place. But he found a second wind. By the time the course hit its high point at 9,900 feet, the former Devil had moved into second. He was cutting into Eli’s advantage, running hard on the downhill, when a nasty fall halted his momentum.

“I was walking for two minutes,” Blair said. “It really hurt.”

That fall cost him the win. Paul Knight, who finished runner-up at the NCAA DII national championships just two weeks prior, slid by Blair for second place. Knight’s final time was 1:26:50.5. Blair finished at 1:27:00.9. Less than a second separated them, but the fall was the difference between a podium finish and a near-miss.

For the locals, the results were less about global glory and more about proximity. Heather Pugh, 36, of Eagle, finished 14th in 2:10:25.5. She was the top local finisher. Carmen Graves took second in the women’s race with a time of 1:46:42.7, while Brianne Nelson rounded out the podium at 1:53:02.3.

The event was a party, as Eli noted. “The whole week is a big party, so, we can’t miss it.” But for the runners, it was a brutal test of endurance and strategy. The new course favored those who could handle the unexpected mix of trail and road, and those who could survive the initial surge of track-trained athletes.

The Hemmings won. The drive home was short. The rest of the field went home with bruises, broken bones, or just broken pride. That’s the cost of admission at the GoPro Mountain Games.