That's just unbelievable.

 

Nice that you had an "in" with the timing.

 

And you like this course because???

You are a crazy woman Erika!!      Very impressive running on such a tough course.   I can't believe you were so excited to do an ultra on such a tough course - but you did and you did great!!!   Congratulations!!

Like everyone else, I'm so impressed by your strength as a runner and your determination in completing this course in an excellent time.  Those pictures are beautiful; they're a wonderful reminder for you of an excellent day!  Congratulations on your accomplishment.

Yes to what everyone else has said, but what about the obvious?

 

Our Erika completes a monster ultra in under 5:10 looking like a model.    Even had the wave!  If I didn't know better, I'd swear the fushia photo was akin to that cookie mix commercial from some years ago, the one where the woman whips up the cookies and then stops to dust some flour on her face so as to look as if she's been slaving away in the kitchen.   You look better than Jessica Lange did at the Emmys.

 

OK, now that I have revealed the shallow, vapid person I am by focusing on externals, --allow me to offer my hugest congrats.  I've yet to do an Ultra, and if I ever do one, it won't be on a course like that.  Absolutely remarkable and inspiring.  And a wonderful report--I almost felt as if I were right there with you.  (except in the ice bath--I left for my hotel room just before that happened.)

 

So one question, frugal girl, why'd you keep the shirt you planned to toss?

 

grins,

A

Hilarious!  But we have to ask Ribs: is there a fine for wearing an extra shirt around your neck with the sleeves flapping?    Bet you didn't look like a model then!

_{if I do another one (???). It'll be on an easier course, for sure!!}

 

Erika,

 

Congratulations on such a competitive Equinox ultra-marathon.  I knew all along that you could do it without any problem and finish feeling amazingly strong and able to run well the last half mile with abandon to boot. 

 

Thanks though for the face plant revelation as that’s one part I relate to real well.

 

With regard to finding an easier 50K for the next time, while there are many tough longer ones, e.g. White River 50 mile with 8,000 feet of ascent/descent up/down two mountains, Leadville 100 miler way up in the Rockies, etc., no 50K I’ve ever heard of seems anywhere near the Equinox in tricky underfooting all the way and almost constant ascending/descending.

 

If, by chance, there are any though, I recommend them for your next ultra-marathon.

 

Otherwise, maybe the Equinox will be the one event really worthy of a goddess reunion sometime as more and more marathon goddesses are becoming ultra-queens too at various of their marthon levels.

.

arf (16) / francesca (1) / posie (10) / holly (6) / fazig (__) / erika (15)/ amy (115-pending) / queenie (16-pending)

 

ps - do you think you could put in a good word to your timing friend about someone else’s time back in 1994 too? 

 

It would mean a lot. Thanks.

 

===========================================

PRIVATE MESSAGE TO AMY

 

Dear Amy -

 

Thanks for the flour analogy.  If not for the two dozen references to "up", "down" and "hill", Erika did it so well, you'd never know it was on one of the toughest marathon, and now 50K, courses in the country..

 

In particular, the Equinox was designed in 1963 by some Olympic-caliber skiers at the University of Alaska who wanted the hardest possible course for pre-season training/warm-up they could find in the otherwise pretty mountainless environs of Fairbanks. 

 

They also wanted tricky (now called “technical”) underfooting with as many rocks, roots and snags to trip them up as much as possible to improve coordination and balance for skiing. 

 

Willing help came from a Swede ski coach so tough as nails that even Bill Bowerman of Nike/Oregon/Hayward Field fame once characterized him as needlessly harsh and thoughtless when Bill’s brother came under his tutelage for the skiing duathlon in the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics.

 

When our high school ski coach got us scholarships for his x-c ski retreats in Anchorage, the only praise I ever got was for racing once so hard to be coughing up blood at the end. He won the Mt. Marathon in Seward over the Fourth of July several times and, I must admit, doing it myself in later years was even more pleasurably fulfilling because of knowing I was doing what he had done. 

 

Another Equinox founder, who won it during all the years he was attending the UA, had a twenty mile running commute for 15 or 20 years in Anchorage pretty much all year round in weather that Shakleton would have thought was good and won the Midnight Sun Marathon many times too.

 

In those days, a couple of the x-c ski women would turn out for the Equinox but they were mostly of Olympic caliber too. 

 

Therefore, I was actually a little concerned when Erika, a rare pure non-skier runner up there in the northland, announced her intention to take on 31 miles of Equinox as her first ultramarathon.

 

I especially felt sorry for Erika undertaking what seemed like the impossible the same as I felt sorry for Ichiro the other day when, with the Yankos leading 2-1, famed closer Mariano Rivera struck out the first two Mariner batters in the bottom of the ninth and Mike Sweeney doubled on the next pitch leaving the hapless Ichiro, who I like so much, to have to be Rivera’s next victim.

 

However, just as Erika scored a home run in her ultra, Ichiro hit the next pitch out of the park for his first-ever sayonara home run. He, and we, will remember it the rest of our lives.

 

Similarly, when Erika hit her home run Equinox 50K Ultra, it won’t be just for her to remember in future years but also for the rest of us who love that slippery, narrow, rutted trail with its carpet and canopy of yellow birch leaves so much too. 

 

In particular, when I see so much youthful running around me nowaday without a care in the world about sore knees, extra pounds, etc. and get melancholy about the running I used to be able to do, or at least have convinced myself that I used to be able to do, it’s invariably the Equinox that comes to mind to sooth about what used to be possible.

 

I know that, since I could never have run even the Equinox Marathon like Erika ran the Ultra option, it makes no sense but, somehow, her account, especially about those parts of the trail I can never forget either, allows me to dream that, if circumstances were different, yes, even I could have run that way too. 

Amica, you are from the Badlands country in South Dakota where runners take on challenges that they end up even getting new names for,, e.g. www.marathonman.org Jerry Dunn whom I admire greatly (though never met).  Amy, you run on those same Black Hills trails and, if you weren’t doing so much other good in your life, you’d have time to take on whatever running challenges you wanted to too. 

 

You haven’t done an ultra yet but the Equinox Ultra 50K is one of those opportunities for the accomplishment of a lifetime, one to look back on in the future and know that doing it even just once can neer be taken away.

 

I sincerely hope that, if circumstances allow, you will give serious consideration to your first ultra being with Erika at the Equinox.  Maybe some of the other goddesses and guys too. You know I would be there too if I could.

 

Thank you.

 

- jon

Absolutely fantastic, Erika.  That profile is incredible.  What a boon that you were able to train on that trail.  It paid off handsomely.  So next year - 5 hrs even??????