Posted by Tom Jennings on January 24, 2009 at 07:39:19:
Greetings everyone from northwest PA ! I'm organizing a new trail race at historic Oil Creek State Park, located between Titusville and Oil City PA - in the valley where the world's first oil boom began in 1859 when Colonel Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well.
The race website has the details for the 10Kish (distance TBD) solo & 4 person team races, fun run / hike and the solo 50K, 50 & 100 mile trail races - all run simultaneously Oct 10 - 11, 2009. All races will begin on Saturday Oct 10th (5 AM for the 50 and 100 mile races, 7 AM for the 50K, and 8 AM for the 10Kish races.
Cutoff times are very generous so that you can come will your spouse or running friends and all will leave happy:
10Kish - no time limit
50K - 12 hour time limit - 23:11 min / mile pace (7 AM - 7 PM - during daylight hours)
50 miler - 32 hour time limit = 38:24 / mile
100 miler - 32 hour time limit = 19:12 / mile
All ultra distance runners will receive a heavy and high quality belt buckle (and another option may be offered for those that may not want the traditional trail ultra award). 100 mile finishers will receive a GOLD colored buckle, 50 mile finishers will receive a SILVER buckle, and the BRONZE buckle will go to the 50K finishers.
A pre-race pasta and meeting - with many door prizes from our national sponsors of Montrail, Hammer Nutrition, Teva, Nathan HPL, TrailRunner magazine, CW-X, Road ID, La Sportiva, ZombieRunner.com, etc. - will be held on Friday evening from 5:30 PM until 7:30 PM tentatively. I want everyone to be able to get a good night's sleep before taking on this beautiful and rugged single-track Gerard Hiking Trail ! :-)
Pending final approval to use the very new and modern Titusville Middle School for our race headquarters / start / finish line, showers will be available for most of the weekend for the nominal fee of $5 for the custodial staff that will be devoting their weekend to the race.
Proceeds of the race will go to the "Over-the-Hill Gang" volunteer group that established the Gerard hiking trail (Ray Gerard, deceased founder) in 1981 and has maintained the trail ever since out of their own pockets.
The park is very easy to get to and is just 1 hour to 2.5 hours from 4 major airports - Erie PA (ERI - 45 miles), Pittsburgh (PIT), Cleveland-Hopkins (CLE), and Buffalo-Niagara (BUF).
I hope to see you and your spouse / running friends on Oct 10th weekend !
Tom Jennings, Race Director
Oil Creek 100 Trail Runs - OilCreek100.org / OC100.org