Something I've heard since the idea first came about to start a new 100 mile wilderness race in Arizona, from scratch, is the concerns of some that they "don't run first year races."  

I can certainly understand the concern and I've made every attempt in working with other race directors in learning the challenges they face in hopes of working contingencies out in advance, planning as meticulously as possible to avoid many of those "first year" miscues people may be fearing.  So in an effort to further dispel those fears I have joined up with ATRA and Goodpeoplerun.com in their mission to provide a 15 step series of standards for all trail running events.  ATRA, American Trail Running Association (found at www.trailrunner.com) really wants to make this the gold standard so to speak in providing runners with a race where you know the expectations are met across the board from course marking, safety, preparation and many other steps.  Many of these steps are what you find at any well organized ultra but some certainly are missed at others.  Here are the 15 standards, I encourage you to take a look and check out www.trailrunner.com for ongoing updates for the trail and ultra community.  

The North Face has approved the Mogollon Monster 100 for 4 points towards qualifying towards their series in 2013.  Very exciting to have that designation in the first year and proud to display their logo for the race.  With Western States 100 and Hardrock 100 being races that require your first year to be complete it'll be a few more years before we have full designation as a qualifying race for the other "Big One's" but exciting nonetheless.

Here's the current list of qualifying races for UTMB, CCC and others:  http://www.ultratrailmb.com/page/87/courses_qualificatives_liste.html  

The Mogollon Monster 100 is now listed on several race calendars, including the largest list internationally,ULTRAmarathonRunning.com. 

http://www.ultramarathonrunning.com/races/mogollonmonster100.html

We're also in Trail Runner Magazine's December race calendar issue that should be in the mail in the coming weeks. Really great to see the interest in the race outside of the local communities excitement.

Two weeks from tomorrow a half dozen intrepid ultrarunners are joining me in a 106 mile journey across the Mogollon Monster 100 race course. Very limited support but the plan is to run the entire course, as you runners will experience it. Having run all sections at different times it is excited to see how all the course will flow, and wind it's way into what will become, The Mogollon Monster 100. We are doing it in December, only 11 days from the Winter Solstice so our daylight is going to be minimal. It's going to be much colder than the actual race date with expected lows on the Rim in the teens,hopefully without any snowfall. We expect a steady flow of updated information,pictures and maybe even some footage of the actual Mogollon Monster by the end of the whole ordeal. It's out there somewhere...

Registration is expected to open sometime in December or on January 1st,2012. We are just waiting on final,final approval on a specific part of the course from one of the two National Forests the course travels through. Once approval is officially granted we will have registration linked on ultrasignup.com.  Stay tuned, and keep checking back!

I came across a couple great photos of the Mogollon Rim area taken by Arizonasteve.com. This is a great representation of the view from many parts of the Mogollon Monster 100 course.   

The logo is here!  Turned out pretty great and we are really excited for it, hope it makes some great technical shirts!

This blog will be used to update the course conditions, training run opportunities, needs for volunteers and various updates as we get closer to the race itself.  Please subscribe to the RSS Feed to the right for updates or check back soon!