The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Main County Jail team, for the second straight year, won the 26th Challenge Cup Relay, in a grueling, 120-mile foot race from rural Baker, Calif., to downtown Las Vegas this past weekend.
A runner competing for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office team was exhausted and needed assistance from medical personnel, after finishing her leg in the 26th Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay Saturday, at the 10th relay point, based in Pahrump. Her team finished 244th (out of 251). HORACE LANGFORD JR. / PVT
And for the second consecutive year, the California Highway Patrol team from Sacramento was the runnerup, finishing 18 minutes, 25 second behind, or about an average of a minute a stage.
It was a 120-mile, 20-stage event featuring more than 5,100 runners representing law enforcement agencies, three countries and two continents.
They started Saturday at Baker High School, then trekked through the Mojave Desert in California, through mountain passes at the California-Nevada border, down the main streets (Highways 372 and 160) of Pahrump and through the Spring Mountains pass, before going down the hill into urban Las Vegas, finally finishing at the Hilton Hotel early Sunday morning.
The winning time was 12 hours, 53 minutes, 2 seconds, with the runnerup team completing the course in 13:11:27. Third place FBI of Los Angeles was clocked in 13:59.28.
Completing the top five were Santa Ana, Calif., PD, fourth in 14:03:03, and Riverside County Sheriff's Department No. 1, fifth in 14:15:22.
For the second consecutive race, the Nye County Sheriff's Office competed, finishing 246th (out of 251 teams) in 21:29:43. Nye improved on its 2009 time of 21:56:26.
Also competing were teams from:
* U.S. Border Patrol No. 1, eighth in 14:41:45;
* Navajo Division of Public Safety, 13th in 15:04:58;
* Hamburg, Germany, Police, 22nd in 15:27:08;
* U.S. Secret Service, 23rd in 15:28:51;
* FBI San Francisco, a team that included both men and women, 32nd in 15:45:34;
* IRS/CI Pacific Region, 35th in 15:49:03;
* Albuquerque Police Department, 45th in 16:05.59;
* LASD Women, first in that division and 95th overall, in 17:02:55;
* Federal Air Marshal, Los Angeles, 56th in 16:17:25;
* Washoe County (Nevada) Sheriff's Department, 73rd in 16:39.50;
* U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, 96th in 17:03:20;
* U.S. Department of Labor, 149th in 18:00:36;
* Calgary (Canada) Police Service, 165th in 18:53:59;
* Immigration Customs Enforcement, 227th in 20:13:16, and
* Alameda County Sheriff, 251st and last, in an unofficial time of 20:14.21.
A total of 30 teams competed in the Open Division; 23 represented various stations and 11 were comprised of women only.
