Meg Roussos / The BulletinDavid Sealand, center, is supported by teammates, (left to right) Luke Sparks, Cole Arenz, and Spencer Grant, at the finish line for the Cascade Lakes Relay in Riverbend Park in Bend on Saturday. Jesuit High School from Portland won the high school division.

Bend-based Sole Brothers set out on the Cascade Lakes Relay on Friday with a modest goal of besting last year’s time of 22 hours, 38 minutes and 3 seconds. That goal ended up being a bit easier than expected.

The Sole Brothers finished Saturday morning with a time of 21:48:33.03 — destroying the course record they set last year by 22:38.03.

Mario Mendoza, 28, of Bend, kicked off the race for the 12-man Sole Brothers team by setting a course record in the time trial: Mendoza blazed through the 7.36-mile trail in 33:54.7, averaging 4:36 per mile.

“On the time trial leg, I wanted to do well,” Mendoza said. “We got about a 4-minute lead after that. But it was harder than I thought. It was on a small paved trail that winded a lot.”

The Sole Brothers — made up of Ryan Wilson, 21, James Southam, 36, Jared Bassett, 24, Bradley Howk, 33, Jason Adams, 35, Tim Badley, 29, Ryan Bak, 32, Austin Baillie, 31, and Mendoza — averaged 6:04 per mile on the 216.6-mile course from Diamond Lake Resort to Bend.

Adams has captained the Sole Brothers since the Cascade Lakes Relay started in 2008. The team has always been in contention, but last year marked the team’s first win.

“I’ve been able to enjoy this year’s race a lot more,” Adams said. “I was getting married the next weekend after the race last year. So it was show up, win and leave. And this year, I get to soak it in more.”

The beginning stages of the time trial was the last time Sole Brothers were challenged by other teams as it bested the second place co-ed team, We Got the Runs from Corvallis, by nearly two hours. We Got the Runs was first in the mixed division.

We Got the Runs team captain Tyler Childers, 33, of Corvallis, said the race began on a low note after teammate Nate Smith dropped out due to an injury. But the team reorganized and finished in 24:05:56.04.

“We ran well,” Childers says. “One of our guys got injured on his first leg, so we had to do a little bit of reshuffling. But, we persevered, powered through and we were almost as fast as we were hoping.”

The CLR is composed of 37 stages, beginning at Diamond Lake Resort and winding its way through 8,110 feet of elevation gain, 9,686 feet of decent and ending at Riverbend Park. Each runner ran between 18 and 24 miles. The walking and high school divisions completed a 132-mile course.

Race director Carrie Douglass said the event was at capacity with 200 teams and approximately 2,400 competitors.

“Everything went really smoothly,” Douglass said. “We were really surprised that (Sole Brothers) beat the record by that much because they felt like they ran as fast as they could ever go last year. But we’re really excited when a local team wins.”

Lord of the Run, from Portland’s Jesuit High, won the high school division and also set a course record at 14:52:10.4. Jesuit senior and captain of the CLR team, 17-year-old David Sealand, said that midway through the run Summit High took a 20-minute lead.

“One of our runners went the wrong way, so we had to run three extra miles,” Sealand said. “They got 20 minutes ahead. On our ninth leg they were 15 minutes ahead. By the end of our 12th leg they were only 5 minutes ahead and on the next leg we finally passed them.”

Summit finished the race in 15:17:50.8, nearly 25 minutes behind Jesuit.

Douglass said this year’s event raised around $45,000 for local charities.

Sole Brothers member Bak, of Portland, said his team’s goal was to beat last year’s time, but realized toward the end of the race that would be done handidly.

“You never know what the competition is going to be until you get there,” Bak said. “So we felt that we needed to at least take the course record down by 15 to 20 minutes, and we’d be in the thick of it to win. But as it turned out we won it by a lot.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0375, 
eoller@bendbulletin.com