Bay Area Ultrarunners

The (San Francisco) Bay Area Ultrarunners was organized about 1983 primarily due to the efforts of the late Dick Collins. Dick's reason for starting the club was mostly to provide a vehicle for sponsoring ultra races. At the time there were no track ultra marathons on the schedule in our area. Dick and I, John Buenfil, had run several of the track runs which Don Choi had put on a few years earlier at the Woodside High School Track but Don had put those on singlehandedly and none of them were regularly scheduled events. We had also traveled to Oregon (WestHills Striders) and Southern California (Flatlanders) to participate in their track ultras and thought it was time we put on something ourselves.

The result was the Bay Area Ultrarunners. Now with about 160 members the club sponsors the following seven official races each year:

• The Ruth Anderson 100K a rolling paved trail around Lake Merced in San Francisco on Saturday April 19th, 2003 directed by Steve Jaber, sjaber@pacbell.net
• The MiWok Trail 100K in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in Marin on Saturday May 3rd, 2003 directed by John Medinger. tropicaljohn@yahoo.com
• Ohlone Wilderness Trail 50K Sunday May 18th, 2003 in the Ohlone Wilderness near Livermore, directed by Rob Byrne and Larry England, ohlone50K@abovethefog.net
• Jim Skophammer 12 Hour Track Run, on Saturday July 19th, 2003 directed by Brian Horwitz, horwitz@smccd.net and David Combs, davecombs@yahoo.com
• Skyline 50K Trail Run, on Sunday August 3rd, 2003 directed by Carola Laue and Ken Gregorich, skyline50k@attbi.com
• The Dick Collins Firetrails 50, 50 Mile Trail Run in October from Lake Chabot to Tilden Park and Back in the East Bay Regional Park District hills. The first year we ran this as a fun run, it was intended to be a 100K but no-one made it that far and Dick Collins was one of the participants. The next year we changed it to a 50 Miler and Dick Collins was the Race Director every year from then until his death. Now the race directors are Ann Trason and Carl Andersen, anncarl@earthlink.net
• The Quadruple Dipsea 28.4 miles, Saturday November 29th, 2003 Thanksgiving Weekend, from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach to Mill Valley to Stinson Beach to Mill Valley across the foothills of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. This race has a limit of 250 runners and fills quickly, directed by John Medinger, tropicaljohn@yahoo.com

Club members also put on some less official fun runs. Please contact John Medinger for information about these also at tropicaljohn@yahoo.com