Monday, July 16, 2007

We did it! Thank you to everyone for making the first annual El Scorcho 25K/50K endurance run a success!

I'll be posting a race director's report here once I catch up on sleep, as well as lots of photos.

In the meantime, here's an article about the run from this morning's Fort Worth Star Telegram:

Midnight run was a shot in the dark
By RICKY TREON
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

More than 200 runners ran under the lights in the inaugural El Scorcho at Fort Worth's Trinity Park.

By 11:30 p.m. Saturday, more than 225 people were gathered in Trinity Park, waiting for the clock to reach 12.

They were there for Ryan Valdez's birthday party. But instead of beer, chips and dip, everyone brought sports drinks, oranges and bug spray.

It was a midnight jog through the park. Or, to be more specific, a midnight ultramarathon in July.

The appropriately named El Scorcho 25K/50K started as a laughable idea dreamed up by Valdez and his buddy Jason Constantino during a long run together. Both are ultramarathoners, so Valdez posed the idea of running 30 miles before today, his 30th birthday."Jason was the only guy crazy enough to say, 'Sure, sounds like a good idea,'" Valdez said. "You brainstorm when you run for three or four hours at a time, and by the end we thought maybe we could turn this into just a small little event."

With a guest list of 30 or 40 people, tops. After all, they thought, how many people would be far enough out of their minds to run on one of the hottest days of the year?

That's exactly what James and Jim Newsom, who own and operate Fort Worth Running Company, said when Valdez first e-mailed them the idea for El Scorcho and asked for organizational help. But a midnight run seemed crazy enough to work."From a safety standpoint, we wanted to make sure nobody died," James Newsom said. "So we knew we wanted to run it at night, and we figured midnight was as good a time as any."

Jim Newsom also helped Valdez find a suitable charity for his event, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

With a clear plan and someone to help him, Valdez decided to get word out about his project by putting up a Web site and a blog.

That and some word-of-mouth were enough to rope in more than 200 runners, including first-time ultramarathoners such as Robin Hudson of Tulsa.

Like many runners in Trinity Park, Hudson learned of El Scorcho on an Internet message board. She then e-mailed Teresa Ellington, and soon the Tulsa Area Trail and Ultra Runners, or TATURs, were in on the action.

"Where else could you go with this many people around and enjoy yourself and be goofy?" Ellington said. "We're just enjoying the camaraderie. It's nice."

Although the 225 runners made for a great party, it was all Valdez, a lawyer with the Cantey Hanger firm, could handle."I'm a first-time race director, so I'm doing what I can here," Valdez said. "I was not expecting it to be this crazy."

Although he'd been at Trinity Park for hours, and he'd likely be there until 9 a.m. cleaning up, Valdez was excited and already thinking about next year.

At 11:50 p.m., Valdez thanked everyone for coming, then began herding runners toward the 3.1-mile course's start/finish line.

Then at midnight he thanked everyone for coming and watched as the gun signaled the start of his "grassroots ultramarathon."

It was big. It was fun. And it was one heck of a birthday party.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Just over 18 hours until the start of the inaugural El Scorcho 25K/50K endurance run. 9 months in the making, and it's finally here. I still remember running with Jason back in November and throwing out the idea of going for a 30 mile run on my 30th birthday. Somehow, that notion morphed into an organized race with over 200 entrants and 30 volunteers. We've obtained park permits, insurance policies, and extra portapotties. And at the end of the day (night?) we'll be making a nice donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Last night, we had an information Q&A session about El Scorcho at Double Dave's, the pizza joint next door to Fort Worth Running Company. About 20 or so runners showed up, including Sid, a dedicated fella who drove to Fort Worth from South Caroline for the run.

It was fun chatting with the runners and hearing their stories. We (Jason, James, Jim, and I) gave a short presentation about where the idea for our crazy all-night ultramrathon came from and then fielded inquiries ranging from the location of the aid stations to the number of portapotties to a description of the course. Everyone was visibly excited about the event.

At the conclusion of the meeting (around 8 p.m.) I bid everyone farewell, reminding them to get plenty of sleep before the start of the race--which began in 28 hours!

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Wow! Less than a week until El Scorcho!

Everybody check out the Dallas Morning News for the next several days. We got a call from Debbie Fetterman, the running columnist for the paper. Looks like they're going to do an article on our little run. Very cool!

Monday, July 2, 2007

So the question was just posed:

"Is the course underwater?"

Hmmm... not yet. The Trinity River is high and the trail is definitely muddier than anticipated. we've still got just under two weeks until race day. Here's hoping this system eventually moves on and stops dumping truckloads of rain on North Texas.

For those of you coming to run and/or volunteer, be ready to slosh around a bit.