The Park City Endurance 100 mile race is this Saturday, Aug 26. This is quite possibly the finest (and hardest) one day MTB event on the planet. Roughly 95% singletrack, never highly technical, but never non-technical either – riders are continually paying attention or paying the consequences. Fueling it tough on this course. It’s got over 18,000 feet of climbing. It occurs mostly between 7,000 and 9,200 feet. Yep, it’s a good’n.
This year the race has some extra status: it’s the final stop of the Rocky Mountain Ultra series, it’s the 5th stop of the National Ultra MTB series, and it’s the final event of the E100 series. There are going to be some fast riders coming from all over to snag those points for the various series.
On the mens side, Thane Wright and Kip Biese are among the guys vying for top honors in the RMU series (and Kip may have his eye on the national series as well); singlespeeders Dan Jansen and Rich Dillon are in the national series hunt (and if Kenny Jones and Florida Rich show up they will have their hands full), and yours truly has set a goal to wrap the E100 series overall. It doesn’t look like Tinker will make it this year. I don’t think he’s raced since RAAM – and who could blame him for that!
The womens field looks strong as well. The riders I’m aware of include Monique Sawicki (that’s really cool!!!), Hillary Harrison from Whistler, CA – she was very strong at TransRockies – and of course that crack head LyndaW.
There will also be many riders who hope to complete the event – no small task. The 6am start has us in the dark for 20-30 minutes, and leaving the last aid after 5pm requires lights – that will likely happen to more than half the field if history repeats itself. It’s a massive undertaking and requires your ‘A’ game simply to finish…respect to all those who have prepared and will line up Sat morning.
Am I ready? I thnk so, but I’m really in uncharted territory. It’ll either be a PB performance, or I’ll go down in flames… TR was a 2000 TSS week, and since then I haven’t done much, so TSB is high. But I’ll shut up now and let the legs do the talking.