Salem, Oregon's
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Willamette Valley Road Runners (WVRR)
www.WVRoadrunners.org.

Jack Frost 5-Hour Race by Burke Schmidt

You have got to do this one next year. This is a real character builder. If you have toyed with the thought of doing an ultra trail run, this event will certainly let you know if such events are for you. For the past 5 years, there has been a race at Mary S. Young State Park called the Jack Frost Five Hour Race. The whole event is extremely simple in organization and execution, making it a quite personal race, since your non-running physical needs, food water and shelter, are accommodated frequently.

Eb Engelmann, Rob Rickard, Mick Evans, Pati Swearinger and Burke Schmidt all participated this year. The starting field this was small, around 50. You can run as either a single or as a two-person team. Usually there are 8 to 10 teams, this year only two.

The race begins in a parking lot at the "official crack in the pavement." You run for a short distance on the paved Park entrance road and then turn on to the course, a 1.6-mile loop of a great variety of conditions for such a short distance.

You begin the official course trail when you leave the paved roadway. It starts with slightly inclined gravel, puddled, trail which winds its way through a scenic wooded area. You eventually emerge in a cleared grass area where the trail winds its way along the edge of one of the park's borders. You then run for a short distance on a paved bike trail, through a covered picnic enclosure which is the official lap counting point, food, water stop, and storage point for any discarded clothing. Next landmark on the paved portion of the trail is the bathroom, handy since it is right next to the course.

From the bathroom, you continue on the paved bike trail for a short distance. The asphalt ends and you find yourself on gravel trails, which, this year, were relatively dry. The trail becomes a bit more rugged beginning with the tree roots you have to navigate and the ruts down the center of the trail caused by heavy rain run off. There are two gullies, one small one with a short downhill, a sharp turn at the bottom, a small wooden "bridge" and a quick uphill, followed by a level section and then a double switch-back which is quite a bit steeper followed by a rather tough series of uphill switch-backs. Most people walk the uphills in that area as you spend way too much energy running them, and energy conservation is definitely a necessity in this race.

After the two hilly sections, you then run through a wooded area on a trail, which has periodic puddles to navigate, or slosh through. There are gradual uphills through this section; however, it is the most relaxing part, as you know that you will be shortly crossing the road where you started.

The course is a bit short, but there is enough variety of terrain to make it quite interesting. There are challenges along the way, and often just figuring out how to pass a puddle without experiencing that cool flowing foot feeling is an issue. Ultra runners use gaiters to keep the gravel out of their shoes. The gaiters are a fabric, which goes around the shoes and looks something like spats, they are used most often in snow hiking and cross country skiing. This year gravel was an issue, maybe because it was a bit more dry than in the past.

A quite spicy soup, cookies, soft drinks, beer, and camaraderie marked the end since everyone finished at the same time. The finishers "medals' were nice handmade clay pieces with leather thongs instead of ribbons to hold them around your neck. All were glad to be done. Pati and Eb both won masters first places. The rest of us were quite glad to be done.

On the way back to Salem, Pati Swearinger said we should stop at the Woodburn Factory Outlet Mall and shop till we dropped, but we figured that we would drop before we got to the first store so we just drove on.