PORT ANGELES — Combining a torturous melange of upper body and lower body disciplines, the resurrected Big Hurt returns to the Olympic Peninsula on Saturday, with nearly double the entries from last year’s Iron Division.
The event that is getting bigger and better each year after returning in 2015 after an 11-year hiatus, includes legs of mountain biking, kayaking, road cycling and running in and around the Port Angeles area. In addition to area competitors, there will be athletes coming from all around Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Florida and Canada. More than 50 percent of the competitors for the Iron Division are coming from off the Peninsula now.
“Getting teams out of market is pretty exciting,” said Tim Tucker, one of the organizers of the event.
There will be 46 participants in the Iron Division, up from 23 last year, and a total of 27 four-person teams, in which one person handles each leg of the race.
The race begins with a 13.5-mile mountain bike leg that begins at the Foothills Mountain Biking trail and winds up and down through the hills above Port Angeles continuing into town and finishing next to the waterfront at Oak Street Park. Then comes a 3-mile triangular-shaped kayaking leg around two buoys in the harbor.
Then, competitors jump on a road bike for a 30-mile road cycling race that heads west along Edgewood Drive, crosses the Elwha River Bridge to state Highway 112 and continues to Freshwater Bay County Park before turning around and heading back along Eden Valley and Dan Kelly roads to Oak Street Park.
The final leg is a 10-kilometer run (6.2 miles) east along the Discovery Trail out past Larch Avenue, then back into town to the finish line at Oak Street Park.
That’s nearly 53 miles of pain through town, through the Port Angeles hills and along the water of the Port Angeles Harbor, testing legs, arms, lungs and will. Tucker said that mountain biking leg does as much damage to the upper body as the kayaking because riders are having to “absorb the shock of the terrain.”
Even for the top competitors, the race takes more than four hours.
The route will be virtually the same as last year, though race organizers were concerned for a time they might have to move the mountain bike route because of proposed logging in the area.
Tucker said there was a lot of nostalgia for the participants who came back to the event when it was resurrected in 2015. Now, with more teams and competitors coming from out of the area, the Big Hurt is growing into a regional event.
“This is an iconic race for Port Angeles,” he said. “People feel pretty strongly about it.” The race shows off all of Port Angeles’ attributes — the mountains, the forests and the sea.
“This race brings it all home. Views of Mount Baker, kayaking with the seals and otters,” Tucker said.
All four legs finish right in the middle of town, so there is a near constant hum of excitement from spectators as various finishers in various legs approach the finish line.
The mountain bike portion of the race begins at 10 a.m., with riders arriving at Oak Street Park likely around 11 a.m. and continuing until 3 p.m. or so.
Sponsors of the event are Peninsula Bottling and Unique Energy Drink. Airlift Northwest from Seattle is also a sponsor.
