This race takes place within the city limits of Philadelphia, and therefore qualifies as an urban ultramarathon, but you will not find things like traffic, noise, bad air quality & concrete buildings here.
Dirty German Endurance Fest
25K, 50K & 50 Miles
Pennypack Park, Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, November 14, 2020
Limit 900 Runners
Important Prerace Info!!!
This race takes place within the city limits of Philadelphia, and therefore qualifies as an urban ultramarathon, but you will not find things like traffic, noise, bad air quality & concrete buildings here.
This race course is located within Pennypack Park, a hidden gem within Philadelphia's Fairmont park system. The park stretches along Pennypack creek for about 7 1/2 miles, and is home to many trails, huge old trees, birds & other wildlife. I run here all the time, and never get tired of it.
This race offers a perfect opportunity for runners to enter the exiting world of trail (ultra) running . We accomplish this by providing a course that is well marked & not too technical.The course features different surfaces. Some soft and occationally sandy spots along the creek, a lot of smooth single track as well as some wider flat gravel trail. Every loop includes about 2 miles of paved bike trail. There is some elevation, but the climbs are short.
This course is very runnable and easy by trail running standards, which as experienced runners will know, can make it even more challenging, because it will not give you many opportunities where you can/should hike.
Female winner 2011
Start Time:
Number pickup starts at 6:30AM.
New Start Times !!!
50 Miler starts at 7:30 AM
50K starts at 8:00 AM
25K starts at 8:30 AM
Start/Finish:
Pine Road Entry at Pennypack Park, 8750 Pine Road, Philadelphia, PA 19111
View map of start/finish area (bird's eye view)
Coursemap with aidstation locations/distances
Area Road Map
Awards:
Every runner will receive a tech-shirt, no advertising on the back. Every finisher will receive a finisher award, all 50K and 50 Mile finishers will receive an embroidered tech hat in addition to the mug.
Winner overall &Winner Masters (age 40+) male and female
will receive a cuckoo clock.
Top 3 in age groups: 29 & under, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 and winner 60+
These unique awards come from the Black Forest of Germany. They are german weather houses. They can predict future weather pretty much as reliable as "Glen Hurrican Schwarz" . Here is how they work: There is a gut string inside which reacts to all changes in air humidity. Depending on wether the air is dry or humid, the gut string changes it's position and twists more or less, so that the female turns outside when it is dry (predicting nice weather) and the male, when it is humid. We will go 3 deep for 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59 and winner 60+ .
Time Limit:
12 hours & 30 min. This is a firm time limit. The park closes at 9 Pm, and we need to be all cleared out by then, therefore we can not go out on the course and look for runners in the dark. You have to make it to the 35 Mile mark by 8 hours, otherwise you can not continue.
Temperatures:
The average temp at the start is in the 50ies. Average high 70. The course is mostly shaded.
Aid Stations:
Aid Stations are about 3-4.5 Miles apart and are staffed by ultra trail runners.50k and 50 Mile runners should carry a bottle to keep hydrated between aidstations. Gatorade and water will be available at all the aidstation. Also available:
PBJ Sandwiches Grilled Cheese (Aidstation 4 only)
Gels
Ibuprofen
Sodium tablets
Bananas
Oranges
M&M's
Chocolate Chip cookies
Oreos
Cooked potatoes
Crackers
Pretzels
Nuts
potatoe pancakes (Aidstation 4 only)
Sportsdrinks
Water
Soda
Our aid stations rock and are staffed by local ultra-runners
Octoberfest Aidstation:
This aid station will focus on german carbs like pretzels ... served by the St. Pauli girls. If you decide your PR is not gonna happen today, take a break right there and enjoy the view.
Course:
Along the Pennypack Creek within the limits of Pennypack park. Course is basically a figure 8 consisting of mostly single track trail and a short paved bike path section.One loop is 25K. 50 K runners will run it twice, 50 mile runners will run a mini loop first and then run the main loop 3 times. No traffic at all. It's actually pretty cool , that you run miles and miles within the city limits of Philadelphia without seeing a house or a car at all.
Coursemap and elevation chart
(please note , GPS data usually shows a shorter distance due to leaf coverage and inaccurate elevation changes)
Post Race:
There will be no official award ceremony. We will hand out the awards as you cross the finish line.
However , we encourage you to stick around, relax, talk running, refuel.
Lodging:
Click on link to view hotels nearby the race.
There is a casino and an amusement park nearby, so these hotels fill up quickly, therefore we recommend making reservation early.
