Finding Your Way With New Friends: A Profile of Rebecca Jensen and Rock Creek Ramble
Rebecca Jensen, Marketing Manager at MerGeo Navigation Races, is all about community and bringing people together. In this case, trail runners and navigation racers at this weekend’s Rock Creek Ramble. We sat down with her last weekend to talk and learned some amazing things. For starters, Jensen has toured the country by bicycle. In 2007, she and a friend saddled up and rode from Oregon to Virginia in what she describes as, “Not the most direct route.” The tour accounted for over 4,000+ miles of bike riding. Of course we had to ask her why. Calmly she replied, “Riding a bike has a similar allure that trail running does, for me…but when you’re bike touring there is something about the bike that makes people want to talk to you…it was fascinating to be in my home country and see things from a completely different perspective.”
Jensen goes on to tell a story about when her tires became shredded in Booneville, Kentucky. The town has gone through several name changes in its history, but settled on Booneville to honor Daniel Boone. Boone described the area as "a place where peace crowns the sylvan shade." In 2010, the population was 81 people.
“I noticed my tires started to shred up revealing the threads underneath, and there are all these coal trucks zooming by so we pulled over in Booneville. We had to figure out where the bike shop is, and so we pulled into the library. It’s about the same size as this store. The whole community was there because it was the only place in town with internet. People found out about our situation and it immediately became a group effort. People got on the phone and called Wal-mart and the auto store. –there are no bike tires in the auto store, but bless ‘em- Someone was asked to be put on hold and they were like, “No, I cannot hold! This is an emergency!” These people, this community, were totally on our side.”
The enthusiasm in Jensen’s voice is contagious, and her laughter is warm. She has so much passion for people and it’s become her personal goal to bridge the gap between navigation racing and trail running. We asked her why the gap is there and she said, “I think the compass is really spooky. People think they need a ton of compass knowledge, but it’s just not as technical as people think because just being able to look at the contours and relate those contours to what you see is the number one skill.”
Northwest Trail Runs and MerGeo Navigation Races will play host to the friendship building experience at Rock Creek Ramble, this weekend. There are several trail race distances on Saturday and the navigation races will begin on Sunday. Jensen has hope that the weekend event will be a good starting point for introducing trail racers and navigation racers. As of now, there are several people signed up for both events. Not only will every finisher of one of the four trail races , 21k, 30k, 50k, and 100k, receive a bottle of No-Li Brewing beer, but if people participate in both trail race and nav race they will get a wicker hat that Jensen is personally hand-painting.
The summer is fast aproaching in the Pac-Northwest and now is the time to set out new goals and challenge yourself to do new things. Changing the pace, terrain, and your comfort level are things that will only benefit your running.
Online pre-registration for the events ends at midnight on April 9th. Sign-up NOW
For event details, check out Northwest Trail Runs Rock Creek Ramble webpage You'll find details there about how to make your weekend adventure a "Rock Creek Double" and earn yourself a hand-painted wicker hat.
If you liked this article, please share it with your friends using the social media buttons below image.
"Let's Keep it Real"
- Uphill Running
