BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON – June 6th, 2009
Tuesday June 2nd my teammate Peter sends me an e-mail with the following link http://www2.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge and the comment – “are you in or not?”
Hmmm- let me see it’s Tuesday and you are asking if I want to run a 50K trail running race on Saturday up in Bellingham, WA.
So I followed the link and found the course was rated as follows…
Technical Terrain:
Overall Difficulty:
Scenery:
Ok well at least there were only 4 out of 5 stars for the elevation change!
It sounded like a good challenge and a course full of suffering and maybe a nice view or two thrown in so I decided I was up for it.
June 6th, 2009
Race morning was cloudy and in the low 50’s and our race start time was 7am.
There was a good field of runners (110 or so) and Peter made the comment you will have some competition today.
Hey wasn’t this supposed to be a training race – why are we talking about competition?!
And we were off…the first few miles we maintained a good pace where we could easily carry on a conversation.
Around mile 4 I noticed a blue flag off to our right (blue flagging was the route we were supposed to follow) but there were runners ahead of us still running down the fire road.
I guess all the adventure racing came in handy as this was our turn but about 6 people had missed it – we yelled at them to get them back on track and off we went.
The morning was extremely humid so keeping on top of our salt intake was key and we did a good job of doing so.
On a 2 mile out and back (around the 6/7 mile mark) Peter started calling out some of the people we would pass later in the race – sure enough he was right.
I had been sitting in 4th place for the early part of the race but after mile 7 found myself in 2nd place – Peter assured me (even this early on) this is where I would stay.
After the aid station at approximately mile 18 the course got a bit harder with a long single track climb.
We were slow and steady but passed multiple people and had a guy from Salt Lake City join us up this push.
At around mile 20 Peter decided to take off as we were entering a long single track descent which he can do much quicker than me.
Brian (SLC man) and Peter took off and I assumed at this point I would not see them again…
Right before the 23ish mile aid station a tiny, compact man went flying by me on the trail.
Later I would find out this man was the 50 mile champion and he ended up beating the rest of the field by over an hour – amazing!
Anyway after leaving this aid station I headed onto another single track trail and within 5 minutes was lying flat on my face.
The trail had become very technical and my foot caught a root and wham! I slide into home plate safe!
I brushed myself off – looked at my bloody knees and hands and told myself to get going.
Within a ½ mile I was staring up at an incredible hard ascent.
One that went up 800 feet in 0.8 miles and was a rooty, rocky, scramble…
This climb was brutal and to have it come around the 25 mile marker made it even harder – the race director had to have a little evil side to place this climb where it was.
I caught back up to SLC Brian near the top of the ascent and we then spent the last few miles together to the finish.
Luckily most of the rest of the course was downhill single track and fire roads so the going was a bit easier.
After the last aid station there was 2.8 miles to go and I felt strong and knew it would be a nice run into the finish.
One of the volunteers told me as I left the aid station that it was all downhill from here.
Yeah – I’ve heard that one before.
I never believe when some says anything like – A. you are almost there or B. it’s all downhill from here.
I prepared myself for another uphill.
Sure enough after about a mile of downhill the fire road ticked back up for another ½ mile or so.
The last mile consisted of some tight twisty single track back down toward Lutherwood camp.
Finally – I could hear the loud speaker of the announcer and knew I was coming into the finishing stretch.
No matter how many times I’ve crossed a finish line during a race – I never tire of that euphoric feeling from reaching it…
The North Face Endurance Challenge presented by Gore-tex (our sponsor!) was a great event that allowed runners of all abilities to compete.
They had options of 10K, ½ marathon, 50K, and 50 miler.
Great goodies bags and a really nice festival like atmosphere for the finish.
I was happy that I had decided on June 2nd that I was indeed “in” for this race...
Stats:
Peter finished in 4th place men’s/1st in his age group in 5:13.
Right before he left me on the descent at mile 20 he waited on me for about 1 minute (to catch up to him) to give me salt tablets.
1 extra minute would have nabbed him 3rd place.
Julie finished in 2nd place women’s/ 9th overall in 5:30.
Julie Leasure
June 7, 2009
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