I was ultra lucky to be able to spectate at Chuckanut 50K, all while being a fan of our sport - ultra running. Back in November, when Hal Koerner, Jimmy Dean Freeman, and I talked about creating a league for ultra racing, we all agreed that "having fun" was going to be the most important ingredient to our creation.
First of all, Thank you Krissy for letting us play in the 20th annual Chuckanut event!
I am going to get right to the winner of the URRL at Chuckanut 50K -
TEAM BEND (Jeff Browning, Max King, Chase Parnell)
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| Scary resemblance to First Prize, right? - "The Browning Owl Bobblehead" - Photo by Jean Pommier |
I believe the first words out of Jeff's mouth we're, "We own you Southern Oregon!" to this guy...
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| Hal replied, "We let you have it because the owl looked so much like you, Jeff" |
Hal was presented with nice flowers from his team.
No seriously, Rogue Valley Runners we're presented the Mushroom with St. Paddy's bow-tie seen below next to Gangster Toshi Hosaka and yours truly. Third Prize to Quicksilver was a Snail with Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies.
The other teams were:
Tamalpa Runners (Dave Mackey, Brett Rivers, and Katz/Wang/Polischuk)
By the way congrats to Larissa and Brett who got engaged over the weekend too!
Rain City Ultra Running (Adam Hewey, Brian Morrison, Jon Robinson)
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| Getting warmed up for the start. |
Other thanks goes out to Bryon Powell for letting myself and Toshi Hosaka's wifey (Judy) hang with him as we raced to cover the race: Bryon doing his thing while I shot video to make a little diddy.
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| Bryon Powell "tweeting" for all you to follow the excitement. We were at the base of Chinscraper waiting for leaders. |
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| Judy heading back down Chinscraper. |
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| Found myself on my Arse more than my feet on Chinscraper wearing these.... |
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| Love my Brooks Pure Flow on the snow. |
I can't believe how much schwag that Krissy tossed out. Scott Jurek as Post-race Party MC was kickass! And, always good to see Tropical John Medinger, Lisa Henson, and Tia Bodington from UltraRunning Magazine.
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| John Medinger and Jean Pommier |
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| St Patrick and St Gregory |
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| "Ultra Violets" I forgot their names, but know they worked their booty's off for Chuckanut. |
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| Scott Presenting First Female to Ellie Greenwood. |
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| Gary Gellin, Tim Olson, and Jean Pommier |
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| Ellie Greenwood and I just taking our own pic. She had her cake and eats it too ;-) |
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| RVR's Jenn Shelton and Hayden Teachout (His new nickname is "Titsout" because he ran his first Ultra without putting bandaids on his nipples and bled out. See video later) |
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| Toshi and Judy on the dance floor. |
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| Fashion Star League coming soon... |
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| So much cake to eat... |
The after party was a perfect ending to a perfect event. I was able to buy a new sweathshirt from Boundary Bay Brewery.
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| A Benefit for Ales! A perfect color for this Saint Patrick's Day Celebration |
No need to give you turn by turn description or lead change recap, because that has been done. Put this on your list for next year.
Enter the URRL or Ultra Runners Racing League. Our vision is to have clubs, teams, organizations or groups from a certain locale race within a unique set of rules decided upon by the captains of each tam in a challenge. 2012 is about trying different scoring methods with "team challenges" at ultra marathon events on the west coast... for now. We hope to grow in all parts of North America. Drop us a line as lets get your club or team up and running with us. Next Races are Lake Sonoma 50M, Leona Divide 50M, Miwok 100K, and Western States 100M.
So far we have 9 teams...
Washington:
Rain City Ultra Running
Oregon:
Team Bend and Rogue Valley Runners
California:
SoCal Coyotes, Tamalpa Runners, Quicksilver Running Club, Ultra Runner Podcast, SLO Runners, and San Diego Bad Rats.
The first challenge was offered up by Quicksilver Running Club to Rogue Valley Runners. Hal and I had decide to race 3 and score 3 based upon time scoring. His team was going to be Hal, Tim Olson, and Erik Skaggs. Oh $#&%! Nice friendly bet of crazy gifts and beers would be handed out after the race. Well, as we started communicating more, we now had Rod Bien's "Team Bend" added to the mix. Rod couldn't make the trip, so he sent Max King, Jeff Browning, and newbie Chase Parnell (Remember this name). With 9 teams made up of Elite runners, front runners, mid-packers, and finishers. Teams are encouraged to grow teams of runners that you not only want to run with but party with too!
Yours in good health,
Greg Lanctot
www.greglanctot.com
