We drove to Marin today to the North Face Endurance Challenge to find out the kids race had been cancelled today....it in no way prevented us from having a blast, though!!
The finish area was so torn up....really just a mud pit w/ a few fire pits burning to keep finishers warm...most vendors and booths either did not show at all, or packed it up early....it looked nothing like the amazingness of last year....but nor did the weather. Conditions were pretty bad out there today, lots of stories about people struggling to get up trails because the kept sliding backwards, even a few broken bones. With conditions forecasted to get even worse tonight and tomorrow, they just announced they have cancelled all runs tomorrow - 13.1, 10k, 5k, kids run.
I'll post pictures later tonight...but the kids had a total blast!! The announcer even introduced them and invited them to do belly slides across the finish line, and of course they did. The whole area was basically a slip n slide of mud, and of the finishers we saw, at least half either fell on their backsides at the finish line, or just chose to dive face first and slide across.
I know there are disappointed runners out there about tomorrows races, but the trails were thrashed out there today....I can only imagine what they would be like after the pounding they are supposed to take tonight, not to mention the high wind warnings and flash flooding watches.
Congrats to all who ran today!!
AND, to all you CIM'ers....have fun tomorrow!!
We heard about this just before going to bed Saturday night. I had no fear of CIM getting cancelled, but when I was woken up by a howling wind and fierce rain, I started to have my doubts. The first thing I did when the alarm went off was to check their website and make sure they hadn't cancelled. I'm sure a LOT of road runners think they should have cancelled - Erin said it was like a trail race with many "creek" crossings and flooded intersections to deal with - but all my trail runners came through fine, and smiled a lot. It was cold and brutally windy and rainy for the first four hours or so. Then the sun came out and Diane finished in a sleeveless top. An amazing day!
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