Local News
CITY OF LOCKPORT: City is backing 100-mile race
The Beast of Burden Winter 100-Miler and 24-Hour Ultra Marathon will be run later this month between Lockport and Middleport.
Race director is Sam Pasceri, an “ultra” athlete who takes on double and triple triathlons and 100-mile marathons.
The Lockport native and self-employed barber has 41 fellow ultra athletes signed up for the Feb. 27-28 event, including storied runner Charlie Engle of North Carolina, who ran the 4,500-mile length of the Sahara Desert over 111 days in 2007.
According to Pasceri, every ultra distance marathon (50 miles or more) has a unique feature: It’s run in the desert, through mountains or Death Valley, about the hottest place in the continental United States. The Beast of Burden run will be unique for following the Erie Canal towpath in winter.
“It’s already been deemed the official Winter 100 nationally and it hasn’t even happened yet,” Pasceri said.
The City of Lockport is signing on as a Winter 100 supporter, by allowing the restroom facilities and pavilion at Widewaters Marina to be used by racers. The facilities will be de-winterized and heated for the event, the Common Council decided by unanimous vote Wednesday.
The Winter 100 course consists of 12.5 miles of canal towpath between Widewaters and Middleport. Contestants will be challenged to run it forth and back, four times, in 24 hours or less. Middleport Fire Hall will be open to the runners throughout the race, Pasceri said.
If all goes well, weather conditions will be wintry; snow/ice and frigid cold are what will make the Winter 100 different from all the other “100s” out there. The challenge isn’t to be the fastest runner, Pasceri said, it’s to perform optimally under harsh conditions. It’s about endurance, nutrition, tuning your machine.
“Sam’s hoping for a blizzard. He wants the worst weather possible. That’s how intense these guys are,” Mayor Michael Tucker said. “This is quite the elite thing, and good exposure for Lockport.”
The race will be open to up to 50 people, Pasceri said. So far, registrants have signed on from points as distant as California and Great Britain. Lockport runners include Pasceri, Roger Niethe, Clyde Ferguson and Gary Thompson.
Contestants are being asked to show proof they’ve had prior experience running ultra distance events. Pasceri said he’s making one exception, for teen-age runner Vincent Donner of Middleport, because it’s unusual for a high-school student to participate in this type of event — and Donner has his parents’ informed consent.
There are no prizes for top finishers in the Winter 100. “It’s a belt-buckle race,” Pasceri said, meaning all finishers will receive a belt buckle for participating. Also thanks to sponsors, he added, participants will receive “goody” bags valued at about $150. It’s all in exchange for a $99 registration fee, quite low compared with other ultra events.
“Two big running magazines are doing stories about (the Winter 100); one hopefully will be a cover story,” he said. “This is gonna be big.”
Pasceri said he’s also planning a summer 100 on the same canal towpath course. To make it special, he’ll bill it as the “flattest and fastest course in the United States.”
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