SCE Places 3rd in North Face Endurance Challenge Marathon Relay

Report by Leslie Haverstock…

The SCE Endurance Team of Jennifer Tavella-Willoughby, Leslie Schaeffer-Haverstock, Aaron Jacobson, and Benoit Pelczar set off to dominate the North Face Endurance Challenge Championships held in the Marin Headlands.  The team participated in the Marathon Relay.  Heading to the race, worries set in that we were in for a miserable day as the rain was coming down at a rapid pace, and when we pulled in to the parking lot to catch the shuttle, the rain was continuing.  Fortunately, come race time at 11:00 am, the rain had stopped.  Benoit was the first racer out on the course.  Knowing that the course had elevation changes over 2000 feet with 1300 feet of climbing, we had expected Benoit in about 45 minutes.  When he wasn't back at this mark, we knew something had gone wrong.  About 51  minutes later, Benoit had returned and let us know that we should go RIGHT at the arrow and not left as he and a few other lead runners had.  With this knowledge, Jennifer took off on the course for her solid effort coming in at 54:51 bringing the team in 6th place.  At this point she was quick to inform Leslie that it was a left at the blue tent and right at the arrow and the course was then a no-brainer.  During this stage, Leslie was able to pick off another relay team and close in on another while finishing in 55:08.  Then, superstar Aaron took over.  Within the first mile he quickly overcame two teams landing SCE in third place.  Aaron finished in 42:56 which was the fasted leg of any individual running the relay.  The entire team agreed that the course was indeed a real challenge.  There were parts that we wondered if it would be faster to actually walk than run up the hills.  Each leg was deemed a "10k" but the GPS indicated that it was 6.78 miles in length.  Initially, we had agreed to keep the details of this race to a minimum as the swag was so incredible.  The event was very well organized, the shirts were so amazing that we elected to not have them screen printed so that we could wear them as is.  We got a couple of water bottles, bags, coupons, samples, North Face socks, and Benoit and Leslie won $50 North Face gift cards.  We would like to thank Dr. Joseph Robb  for sponsoring the team and hope that we represented with a 3rd place overall finish and 1st place mixed team finish.  Now that we came clean on the swag, more sponsors will be needed for next year. Full results of Marathon Relay here.