Nikki’s 2020 Race Calendar
by Nikki Parnell — February 14, 2020
This has taken me a little while to put together. Mostly because I’m a crappy planner when it comes to anything in the future. That could be due to mom-brain fog, which is when your brain feels detached from your body, like you physically cannot think in that moment let alone months down the road. Or it could just be how I’m genetically wired. I go with the flow, I wait and see how the chips fall. I am not type-A though sometimes I wish I leaned more in that direction. Life might be more clean and ordered and that’d be nice. Anyways, I digress. Here is what I’m running this year:
Mastondon 10ish Miler (OR) – March 1st
Just the fact that it has “ish” in the name means that it will be awesome. It’s a high dessert classic of sorts and is a short race through fun, windy trails and ancient juniper trees. It’s put on by Super Dave – one of the coolest people in the Bend race scene. It’ll be fun to have the chance to shake out the legs and push hard so early in the year. I’m not really sure where I’m at fitness wise right now. I feel pretty good and I’m trying to be consistent with running 5-6 days a week. I go to our local TPG (Tuesday Night Performance Group) workout every week, I try to add in some speed (bursts or tempos) on one other run during the week, and I try to do a long run on the weekend. I’ll have fun and work hard, win-win.
Peterson Ridge Rumble 20 miler (OR) – April 26th
I’m so excited for this distance! Long but not that long. It’s a gentle uphill on the way out and a gentle downhill on the way back. I hope to try and be speedy at this one. Whatever that looks like. This race is in Sisters, OR and runs through the Peterson Ridge trail system which I haven’t run much of so it will be fun to bop around this forest. Plus, I looooovveee Sisters. It just has a special place in my heart – small town, cute coffee shops, bakeries, bookstore and it’s close to the mountains.
Twilight Series (OR) – April 29, May 6, & May 13
These are short trail races ranging from 4.3 miles to 6.1 miles. They’re all on Wednesday evenings, start at 6:30pm, and your top two race scores go towards your overall score at the end of the series for rewards and prizes! The first race is at Maston Trailhead, the second is at Smith Rock State Park around my favorite trail, Misery Ridge, and the third race is at Pilot Butte (our near and dear to us hill a mile away from our house!). Side note: If you haven’t followed Treeline Journal from the beginning, Chase ran for 24 hours up and down Pilot Butte back in September. Janessa Taylor and Trevor Hostetler, the owners of Alpine Running who are putting on this trail series, came out at various hours of the night to run with Chase during that adventure. Needless to say, they’re awesome people and I’m really looking forward to having race pace efforts each week with other runners in a fun, local setting! They will be great quality workouts! Plus, my mom jumped on board right away and signed herself and my dad up for coming out to these races and watching the kids while Chase and I run. Yay for babysitters and Chase and I being able to run “together” (I’ll be way behind as usual but we’ll still be out there running through twilight together!)
Ochoco 50k (OR) – May 24th
I can’t wait to see this course! This race is also put on by Alpine Running and is known for being a fun, challenging, and well-organized event! This 50k is outside of Prineville, OR in the Ochoco Mountains and a lot of runners I know have done this race and have really enjoyed it (including Chase, who is my go-to for all things racing advice). I’ve seen a tiny glimpse of it while crewing Chase at this event last year but I want to witness the mix of forest and meadows and wildflowers and mountain summits for myself! There is 6,250 ft of elevation gain. I ran 5:43 at Deception Pass 50k in December, which had 4,500 ft of gain. I’m hoping to do this one under 6 hours and really try to be ready physically to push hard, dig deep on the climbs and enjoy the views. Plus, I know this race will help me build fitness for my next race where I will need all the help I can get!
Swiss Alps 100k (CH) – August 14th
Welp, I’m a bit in over my head for this race. I’m probably biting off more than I can chew…but I think it’s going to taste so good! 65 miles, 22,000 feet of elevation gain, possibly 24 hours of running and endless gorgeous views coupled with European towns and Swiss cows. If you want to read more about how this race came about and my decision to do it, read here! I’m so excited for the adventure and stories this is going to bring my way, I’m excited to test out my new hiking poles I got for Christmas, and also I might pee my pants from the enormity of this undertaking.
In Summary
You’ll notice a couple things about my races. First, they’re all local to Central Oregon besides the major 100k in Switzerland. That’s just a huge outlier for me in every category in general. But I love our local running scene – the runners we have in Bend, the race companies, it’s all so fun and I’m excited to stay close to home and enjoy OR trails. Plus all my races build into each other nicely as I work hard this year to keep bumping up my mileage for the long ultra. Next you’ll notice that I don’t have much of a race plan after the 100k. And Chase doesn’t have anything planned after his European race in July either. We’re going to be spending about 50 days in September/ October hiking in the Lake District of England so that will be our adventure and active recovery time after our front loaded race season. Then there will be holidays and catching up with family and friends. Maybe we’ll hop in some more local shorter races, who knows. We’ll see how it all shakes out! I’m feeling really positive about our plan thus far and I’m ticking a lot of race boxes I wanted to check off!
So that’s my race calendar! Let us know if you’ll be at any of these events, we’d love to meet you / say hi! Happy training everyone, I think 2020 is going to be EPIC!