Thousands of runners competed in The North Face Endurance Challenge Championships starting in Sausalito and ending in picturesque Crissy Field in the San Francisco Bay Area this past weekend. In its eleventh year, the race boasts a $30,000 prize purse for top finishers, magnificent views of the Pacific coastline and an incredible international field of elite runners.
The new finish line locale brought a festival atmosphere to Crissy Field with music by The National Parks, Foxtail Brigade Band and DJ Umami as well as local food trucks, Sierra Nevada-hosted beer tent, a recovery area and lawn games.
The Gore-Tex 50 Mile Challenge on Saturday boasted an impressive competitive field, with a number of elite athletes battling to finish the 2017 season on top.
On the women’s side, Sweden’s Ida Nilsson was the first female finisher for the second year in a row with a time of 7:07:56, followed closely behind by this year’s Ultra-Trail Courmayeur-Champex-Chamonix (CCC) champion and The North Face Team Athlete Clare Gallagher of Boulder, CO with a time of 7:12:01. Rounding out the podium in third, Megan Kimmel of Aspen, CO finished with a time of 7:19:20.
For the men’s side, Tim Frerik of Flagstaff, AZ took home the win with a time of 6:02:27 after battling it out with The North Face Team Athlete Zach Miller. Miller, a back-to-back defending GORE-TEX 50 Mile Champion from 2015 to 2016 and resident of Pikes Peak, CO, finished in a close second with a time of 6:15:25. Not far behind Miller was Hayden Hawks of Saint George, UT with a time of 6:20:40.
Registration is already open for the first three The North Face Endurance Challenge Series events in 2018 in Washington D.C. (April 28 – 29), New York (May 5-6) and Massachusetts (June 9-10). All races feature 50-Mile, 50k, Marathon, Marathon Relay, Half Marathon, 10k and 5k distances. All other events in the series will open in January 2018. For more information, visit thenorthface.com/endurancechallenge
Photo courtesy The North Face
