Silverton 1000

Last weekend, we were up in Silverton to help my daughter in a race. The Silverton 1000 is a new race this year. It is actually a number of races that take place simultaneously. The headline race is the 1000 which is where the runner has to run one mile each of 1000 consecutive hours. Also there were a 6 day race, a 72 hour race, a 48 hour race, and a 24 hour race.

Most multiday events like this take place on a loop course for the sake of logistics. These events have their history going back to the last 18th Century and early 19th Century when "pedestrians" would take bets and compete in multiday events or bet on time to cover distances between distant points (like from Chicago to New York) by foot.

The course here is a one mile loop at Kendell Mt. Ski Area. Unlike typical multiday events, where the course tends to be fairly flat, the course for this one was challenging with a 250+ ascent on the loop. I did a number of loops on the course and it was definately a challenge. Multiply that by 50/100/150/200 times and you have a tough challenge. It is one that would appeal to the
ultrarunner who races the mountain trails. But surprisingly, there were a number of entrants who were there just to enjoy the event and log whatever miles they wanted to do.

The effort put into making this a great event was awesome. A large tent provided the start/finish point for the loop. It was big enough for hold all the timing equipment, food, space to setup for each runner and shelter when needed. It was impressive to say the least. The use of chip timing and the display of your progress every loop was great. I remember at my 6-day effort the timing was manual using people to count your laps. Made me nervous that the laps were being counted correctly but the counters did a great job.

I really enjoyed the down home/family atmosphere of the event. A lot of effort went into making this a fun time for everyone there. I expect that this event will grow over time but I hope it maintains it low-key atmosphere. A good place to test yourself if you are just getting into ultrarunning.

Coleen was entered in the 48 hour event and finished with a 105 mile effort to place 1st in the 48 hour and 3rd overall mileage for all events.

Some links for this are: here and here

Some changes to my website

With the new API from Google, I have started to think about how to change how I present data on the farrunner.com website. Currently, I have static maps to show a trail in topo, street, terrain, satellite and so forth. I have put out a new style page for the Seven Bridges Trail using a preliminary google map to display some of the trail view types on a single, dynamic map. I hope this can present more data in a concise way than the current methods. Over the next couple of weeks, I plan on refining this page with new techniques. Any comments are appreciated.

Speaking of Seven Bridges, I wandered a bit further south of my normal haunts to check this trail out and it was worth it. There are a number of trails in this area that I hope to check out this fall and get onto the website. I apologize to those who are looking for longer distances, my time commitments have forced me to keep to the shorter trails. For longer distances, there are a lot of trails that can be linked together.

I hope every one enjoyed the summer and are looking forward to fall when the weather is a bit cooler. I find this the best time to hit the trails but watch the higher elevations, weather can change quickly. Several recent deaths in the hiking/climbing community bring home the point that it can be dangerous out there even for the most experienced. Most of the trails that I have mapped for the website are fairly safe but there are a few places where caution should be exercised.