Pere Marquette Endurance Trail Run

This race was not a team event, ROCK racing competed individually in it. The race is advertised as; and has earned the reputation of being ‘The toughest trail run in the Midwest’. This was the 21st consecutive year the race has been put on by the Metro Tri Club. After this many years of putting it on, the club has race execution and mgmt down to an exact science. All this combines to make it one of the most popular races in the area. It is limited to 625 racers and sold out in less than 11 hours this year. This year at start time it was 30 degrees, and the trail had plenty of icy areas to steer around.

The race is 7.5 miles of trail through Pere Marquette State Park, and contains 4 ‘hills’. There is always debate about which hill is biggest and/or toughest. We’ve settled on hill 3 being the toughest. Hill 1 is long and rocky, but it’s early in the run and you are still fresh. Hill 2 is long, but there are spots to recover. Hill 3 goes on and on and on and never gives you a recovery. Hill 4 is easily the steepest, and one section even has stone steps placed randomly into the hill side, but it not long.

The tri club maintains a great ‘results; page for this race, with all years available. Here are ROCK Racings results:

Newbie Chuck:

And 13 time race veteran Robin: