This year The North Face is sponsoring a trail running series called the Endurance Challenge. The series consists of 4 races, three regional races and one championship race. The regional races offer winners of the 50 mile division to win $1000/US and a trip to The North Face Endurance Challenge Championship in San Francisco in December, where the top male and female 50-mile runners each take home $10,000. So far the website has provided very little info on the results of the the first two races that have already been held (actually no information), you would think that this would be an important factor in marketing these races but it seems they need a webmaster (Hey North Face I just finished my contract and I am looking for a gig I have 6 years experience). The next race is being held in the Seattle area on October 6th which in theory should be competitive seeing that some of the best ultra runners in the US are from that region but I have not heard of anyone planning on racing this event (please comment if you think this is going to be competitive). Regardless I hope to making the trip down to run the 50km event and hopefully race in the 50 mile in San Francisco in December.
What’s up with The North Face Endurance Challenge?
September 7th, 2007 · 2 Comments
Tags: Trail Running · Ultra Marathon · Ultra Running
2 responses so far ↓
1 Steven Long // Sep 11, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Yeah, the whole thing has been difficult to follow. Can you race in the SF event even though you did not race any of the other events. SF seems to be the Championship but who qualifies?
2 Scott // Sep 12, 2007 at 7:03 am
Hey Steve,
Yes qualifying makes that impression. I can’t see why they would do it though. I am pretty keen to race in the 50mile in San Fran just because I hear the trails are amazing down there and also for the level of competition you would think all the big guns would be there for this which would be cool to see how long I could hold onto them.
I notice them did some updates to their site with results from the first race:
http://www.thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge/experience.html
I do think it is great that The North Face is putting in this effort to promote Ultra and trail running though.