Announcing a Blog Partnership with The North Face Endurance Challenge Series

In late June, I was approached by a representative from The North Face Endurance Challenge Series inquiring about a blog partnership as a result of my race reports for their D.C event (2012 50k report, 2013 50M report).  If you're not familiar the North Face Endurance Challenge Series is a race series comprised of six locations (New York, Washington DC, Missouri (cancelled), Wisconsin, Georgia, and California) offering seven race distances at each location (50 mile, 50k, marathon and relay option, half-marathon, 10k, and 5k) which are predominately trail running events with the exception of Missouri.

Proudly showing off my DC North Face Endurance Challenge 50 miler shirt!

I was pretty flattered and really excited about the opportunity of participating in additional events because I had great experiences, both performance and atmosphere wise, at their D.C race the past two years.  However, the logistics of traveling to their remaining events (Wisconsin, Georgia, and the championship in San Francisco) would be difficult because of previous commitments around some of those dates.  The Wisconsin race, September 14-15th, happens to fall on the day of my sister's wedding and is out of the question for obvious reasons although I wish she would have considered the ECS race calendar when picking her date (kidding).  The Georgia race is only two weeks after, September 28-29, but would be difficult to travel to as I'll be missing the Friday just two weeks prior and I begin my student teaching observation this fall with a mandatory 150 hours to be completed on Mondays and Fridays during the semester.  The inability to participate at Wisconsin and Georgia meant the championship race was my only option, which actually works out best because it falls at the end of the semester but not in the middle of exams.  Further, I had a stack of frequent flier miles remaining from when I worked at Siemens that needed to be used, and I will able to fly round trip for free, well aside from the $25 processing fee and taxes.  Not a bad deal.

All signed up for the championship race in San Francisco!

I mentioned in my last Where's Waldo Wednesday that I signed up for the North Face Endurance Challenge Series Championship in San Francisco and would explain the details further in another post.  Well here they are!

Now as part of the partnership, there are some perks for you guys!

• Free registration code (Qty: 1) - I get to give away a registration code to a follower who posts pictures via Instragram using the race hashtag (i.e #ECSWisconsin or #ECSGeorgia) of their training leading up to a race, either Wisconsin or Georgia.  The details will be in a separate post (August 10th).
• 15% registration discount (Qty: UNLIMITED!) - Want a discount on your race entry to either the Wisconsin on Georgia North Face ECS race?  Well look no further, enter the promo code: BSHER13 case sensitive at registration, and you'll receive 15% off!
• Interview with a North Face Athlete -  You might be saying to yourself, "how does that benefit me?" and I know how much you guys love to hear what I have to say but sometimes it's good to mix it up, so I hope to do a separate post race blog about the interview experience.
• Awesome pre and post race blog entries! Well, I suppose you would probably get these regardless of whether or not there was a partnership.

I'm really looking forward to my first destination race and all of the preparation and training leading up to it.  I opted to race the 50k because I want to enjoy my first destination race and not worry about distance.  My fall schedule has Iron Mountain (30 miler) at the end of August, THE Marine Corps marathon at the end of October, and then this race in December, which I think will be a nice build.

If you're considering racing either in Wisconsin or Georgia, check out my past race reports from the DC event to get a feel of the series.  If you do decide to register, make sure to use the promo codes above to save yourself 15% and check back in the second week of August for details about a free entry (actually you'll be refunded your entry fee if you win so you have to be planning on racing one of the two events).