The North Face Endurance Challenge is fast approaching. If you’ve signed up a while ago, or are going to be a last-minute registrant, hopefully you’ve been training because the race happens on September 24th and 25th in Park City.
According to a press release, The North Face Endurance Challenge Series is the largest trail running event in the world. The series of weekend race festivals takes place between April and December in six locations across North America including Washington D.C., New York, Ontario, Wisconsin, Utah and California. Each event includes seven distances ranging from 5K to 50 miles and a Kid’s 1K race. Ultrarunning stars from The North Face athlete team, including Dean Karnazes, Rob Krar, Dylan Bowman and Rory Bosio, are expected to make appearances at events throughout the series.
The Endurance Challenge race series was born out of Karnazes’ 2006 quest to run 50 marathons, in 50 states, in 50 consecutive days. The North Face launched the race series the following year and it has since grown into a full-weekend festival with a challenge for every fitness level. The first year saw a total of 1,387 runners, and in 2015, the series hosted more than 16,000 runners over six weekends. In the nine years that Endurance Challenge has been in existence nearly 90,000 runners have participated.
“The Endurance Challenge motivates runners at all levels to experience the trails and challenge their physical limits,” said Katie Ramage, director of Sports Marketing at The North Face. “We are thrilled to bring the series back again this year and attract more people to the sport of trail running. We’ve seen urban marathon runners who have never run on trails and novice runners revel in the success of their first 5K.”
Each event will be held over two days, with the GORE-TEX® 50 Mile, 50K, Marathon, Marathon Relay and Kid’s 1K race held on Saturday, and the Half Marathon, 10K, 5K races and Kid’s 1K race
held on Sunday with support from sponsors, including GORE-TEX®, Repreve, Sierra Nevada Olomomo Nut Company and Tailwind Nutrition. The Endurance Challenge Championship offers largest prize purse in the sport of trail racing ($30,000 total), awarding $10,000 to the top male and female runners in the GORE-TEX® 50 Mile distance.
The Park City event happens on September 24-25 at Park City Mountain Resort. If you’d like to participate in any of the races, from 50 miles down to 5k, it’s not too late to register.
For more information about The North Face Endurance Challenge, visit online at https://www.thenorthface.com/get-outdoors/endurance-challenge.html
Looks like a fun way to see the country.