The Las Vegas group of Dirtbags recently traveled over to Bryce Canyon to take on the full Under the Rim Trail: 27 miles with 6,500′ of vertical gain. With temps reaching the mid 90’s and very little water along the route, this was one tough outing, especially the last climb to reach Rainbow Point. Most of the Dirtbags finished in about 7.5 hours being slowed down to filter water when it was available. Sounds like a great adventure!
Looks like another hot and humid Arkansas group run took place last week. The Dirtbags headed up Mt. Kessler near Fayetteville.
Out of the SE Michigan crew, Jessica Bohn took on the Western States Endurance Run after being one of the lucky lottery picks. At one point the race webcast showed she dropped, however, it turned out to be a mistake and she was still out on the course. With the help of her brother Stephen and teammate Laura Huffschmidt, Jessica battled her way to a 29:51:24 finishing time to earn herself a coveted belt buckle! Way to go Jessica!
Name: Julie Blanda
DBR Ambassador: Asheville, NC until June 28th. Now on the road, heading to Colorado.
Instagram: julierunstrails
Blog: Juliestrailsandtrials
Favorite Trail: Art Loeb Trail, Pisgah National Forest, Brevard, NC. A 33ish mile point to point trail heading from 2200’ climbing to 6200’, with cumulative elevation change of over 16,000’. Before I left WNC, a group of friends and I completed this trail as a self-supported ultra. This trail has everything from rain forest conditions to exposed balds with epic views!
Favorite Race: Born to Run 50k. It was great meeting so many friends, hugging everyone, and I went away with awesome memories!! It is a must do race every single year!
Favorite Running Fuel: (gels, etc.) Honey Stinger gels, oranges and pretzels are in my pack on long runs
Favorite Beer: Pisgah Pale Ale (Pisgah Brewing Co., Black Mountain, NC)
Favorite Post-run/race Food: A very cold beer and a veggie pizza
Favorite Shoes: Montrail Bajadas
Bucket List Race: UTMB
You know you’re a Dirtbag when: When you are a 38 year old working professional and you leave it all behind, pack up the Subaru with gear and the dogs, and head to Colorado with no job and no place to live to volunteer and crew at some iconic races and train for your late year 50 mile races!
Famous runner crush: I crush hard on Sally McRae. She keeps crushing it, never giving up! And those quads
Three words that describe your running: Always moving forward. On the trails and in life!
A few of the Dirtbags from the Guatemalan Team, including Ambassador Diego Alejos, went out for a training run last Saturday planning a rout up Acatenango volcano, however, nearby Fuego Volcano was in full eruption. To avoid any potential hazards, the group decided to head to Pacaya Volcano. While it is an active volcano, it hasn’t ´t seen any major eruptions since 2010.
According to Diego, training on Pacaya is quite surreal due to its landscape: after a 2.5-mile ascent through dense tropical forest you come up on the plateau which is covered in volcanic sand with very little vegetation…falling down is not recommended! Once you are at the top of the volcano you get to see some awesome sights and some very nice runnable sections. The highlight of the day is definitely the descent.
Finally, a quick congrats to my fellow Dirtbag from Boise Mark Austin for an impressive 13th overall at Western States (17:35:27)! Certainly well deserved for such a hard working runner!
As always, check back next week for more Dirtbag Ambassador & Team news!