The North Face Endurance Challenge - San Francisco 2011

The North Face Endurance Challenge San Francisco has been a tradition for the past few years. It's a trail run in the Marin headlands. Pick your poison: 50 miles, 50 kilometers, marathon, half marathon, and 10 kilometers. I ran the half marathon in 2008 and 2009, and the marathon in 2010 (see last year's post) and 2011.

When i ran the marathon last year, i actually trained for the event. I signed up for 10 mile, half marathons, and even a road marathon leading up to the December trail run. Fast forward to this year: I did no training since the Hawaii half Ironman in June 2011.  In fact, my longest run before this run was 5.5 miles. A marathon is 26.2 miles, and this marathon is not for wimps.



 I went into this race thinking that i was only going to run about half the distance. My strategy was to just run from aid station to aid station, and when i felt too tired to go on i was going to drop out of the race. This relaxed mentality allowed me to have a great race, despite the lack of training. I finished the race only 4 seconds slower than last year.

My favorite photo from the race

Maybe if i train  next year, i'll run the 50 kilometer race :)