Featured Running Event - The Endurance Trials

The Endurance Trials was an endurance event (as you could guess by the name) held on March 3 at West City Park in Festus, MO.  This was the inaugural event and drew at least 70 participants across all categories.  That is a phenomenal turnout for any endurance event, especially one in its very first year.

The location is the very scenic town park called West City Park.  From the course, one can see a train raised up in a hill, houses on a hill, a train just past the not-yet-blooming trees and bushes, 2 ponds, a large open grassy field, lots of trees, and some ballfields.  This is as Midwest as it can get - and that's a good thing!!!  If one wants to get a microcosm of a Midwest park, this would be it, perfectly.  The course even traverses a bridge between the 2 ponds.  To complete the scene, there were even people fishing in both ponds throughout the event.  Also on the property was a large playground area.  This was perfect for family members cheering on participants while trying to keep the young ones from getting bored watching grown adults run in circles for absolutely no apparent reason.

The event consisted of a 12-hour solo, 12-hour relay, 6-hour solo, 6-hour relay, and 1-hour solo.  With 3 staggered start times.  The 12-hour started at 5:00am, officially the earliest I've ever started a race, and the first 90 minutes or so required a headlamp.  The 6-hour started at 11:00am and finished with the 12-hour.  The 1-hour started at 9:00am.  Like any endurance race, everybody will be running at different speeds at different times.  It's very much like an endurance sports car race, and everybody needs to be aware of everybody else.  Communication is key - raising hand when slowing and the occasional "on your left" - and the very often said "great job".  With the staggered start times this added even more adventure as fresh legs met weary legs. Again, this adds to the excitement of the event, and in some cases also lends encouragement to the already road-weary participants.  In my case, I was near the finish line when the 1-hour started - so I used that for a quick fuel/rest stop, cheered on the start of their race, and fell in behind them - and kept up for about a lap.

The course was paved street with one decent sized hill and a gradual incline/decline for the rest of the .76 mile loop, where runners briefly jogged onto the grass to cross the scoring mat, and then back to the pavement.

Those are the specifics, now for the intangibles. 

For most of the 12-hours, starting with sunrise, music was played, and it could be heard throughout the loop, based on wind and outside noise.  The best part, and it worked out perfectly for where I was on the course, approaching the start/finish line - when the sun started to rise - the music was turned on - and it started with The Beatles "Here Comes The Sun".  That was a perfect touch!!!!

There was plenty of food at the aid station - brownies, cookies, bananas, oranges, energy bars, Trailwind drink, pop and ginger ale, cooked breakfast sandwiches and later cooked lunch sandwiches, chips, and a huge assortment.  The goodies table was at least 10 yards long!!

The positive attitude of the volunteers, the participants, and the timing company was phenomenal.  Like most endurance races, there were plenty of friendships made, plenty of on-course conversations with other participants, and tons and tons of encouragement from other participants as they passed or were passed.  It's one big family out there!!!

As mentioned earlier, this was the inaugural event, and from a participant point of view - it went off PERFECTLY.  All 3 races started exactly on-time.  There were no scoring errors, there was no confusion over the "rules" or setup, there was plenty of food and drink and porta-potties, and music.  I mean, this looked like something that had been established for 10 years!!!

Great job to everybody involved.  I highly recommend this event to any endurance runner/walker.