Revision of and END-SURE delivers.... from Mon, 06/30/2014 - 12:12

The first inaugural Extreme North Dakota Sandhills Ultra Run Experience is over.  And truth be told, it will probably be a quite a few years before we have another one like this.  It was, well, brutal.  While the first half of the course was 'runnable' (if you call doing the old man shuffle at 5 mph - 8 kph running) and offered better than expected trail conditions, the last 13+ miles more than made up for it.  Snow depths in this section ranged from 6-24 inches and the conditions were such that running more than a few steps at a time was nearly impossible.  Out of the 32 solo runners that braved the nasty driving conditions during the friday storm to make it to the race, only 19 finished, with the biggest number of withdrawls happening at remote CP 3, 6.5 miles from the end of the race.  Racers arrived at the checkpoint in various stages of suffering - early stages of hypothermia, extreme exhaustion, and lots of concern about frostbitten toes.  Congrats to all the racers whether you finished or not - it was a huge undertaking under cold and difficult circumstances.  

And a big thank you to the fantastic volunteers that pulled it off - Rachel U (going above and beyond at CP 1), Carmen Peck and family (lead volunteer and CP 2), Ted and Beek (providing warmth and humor at remote CP 3), Jim Larson (shuttle driver), Jenna Mehring (Finish Line and shuttle), Mason Mehring (food), Alex and Cole Mehring (snowmobile, course setting, lots of other stuff), Greg Ames (snowmobile), Wes Peck (photos), and Grant Mehring for taking over director duties and keeping his calm until the end, and letting me actually run one.  

Preliminary results  follow (pieced together from Twitter updates).  Times to CP's for all racers will be available in final results, but here are the finishers -  

  1. Alain Foidart  (8 hrs 26 minutes)
  2. Craig Desjarlais (??)
  3. Ryan Wagner (8 hrs 42 min)
  4. Andy Magness (8 hrs 42 min)
  5. "original Steve" - Relay (??)
  6. Caleb Kobilansky (10 hrs)
  7. Chad B (10 hrs 10 min)
  8. Dallas Sigurdur (10 hrs 16 min)
  9. Joel Vettel (10 hrs, 50 min)
  10. Dale Nesbitt (11 hrs 18 min)
  11. Dan Tracy (11 hrs, 25 min)
  12. Dave Simmons (11 hrs 33 min)
  13. Craig Isakson (11 hrs, 46 min)
  14. Tammy Magness (12 hrs, 7 min)
  15. Joel Larson (12 hrs, 10 min)
  16. Alison Kelly (12 hrs 30 min)
  17. Jason Braunberger (12 hrs 46 min)
  18. Melissa Eibner (14 hrs 44 min)
  19. William Murtha (14 hrs 44 min)
  20. Dan Salyers (15 hrs 20 min)

 

 

Comments

Heather Schlagel's picture
Submitted by Heather Schlagel (not verified) on Sun, 03/17/2013 - 13:22

Way to go finishers, totally awesome! Great job to all the participants who tried! Thank you volunteers!
Dale Nesbitt's picture
Submitted by Dale Nesbitt (not verified) on Mon, 03/18/2013 - 08:51

Craig's last name is Desjarlais. My last name is Nesbitt (two T's)
Craig Desjarlais's picture
Submitted by Craig Desjarlais (not verified) on Mon, 03/18/2013 - 16:08

I see no finish time for me (??). Thought I was somewhere in the middle between 1st and 2nd. Craig