Every spring, as the rain gives way to longer days and the mountain trails come back to life, we hear it again: the call of the trails.
A quiet voice that says, “Come and see what you’re made of.”
We find ourselves planning, building, and pouring our energy into something that, at a glance, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
When you look at it on paper, hosting SISU 24 PNW is a losing proposition.
We spend hundreds of hours.
We wear ourselves thin.
We don’t walk away with a big paycheck or some grand prize.
And yet, every single year, without fail, we come back.
Because SISU 24 PNW is bigger than numbers.
It’s bigger than an event.
It’s a place where people come to find themselves.
A Place to Test Yourself
We built SISU 24 PNW to be a different kind of challenge.
It’s tough. It’s raw. But it’s safe enough to let people push to the edges of who they are without being pushed off a cliff.
Here, you can run until your legs give out.
You can hike through the night and watch the sunrise from the ridge.
You can stop, eat, cry, laugh, nap, then head back out again.
There’s a place to rest.
There’s a place to recover.
There’s always someone out on the trail with you, and someone back at HQ waiting to cheer you on.
You have 24 hours to do as much or as little as you want.
No judgment. No pretenses. No awards for suffering the most.
Just a field, some trails, and a chance to meet the version of yourself that’s been waiting to break free.
Strategy, Side Quests, and Adventure
SISU 24 PNW isn’t about grinding yourself into the dirt.
It’s about playing with your limits.
You get 24 hours and a menu of challenges: trails, checkpoints, and side quests.
Every mile you cover, every mission you complete, and every point you earn is yours to choose.
Maybe you push for distance.
Maybe you chase the side quests.
Maybe you master the art of strategy, balancing effort and rest, endurance and speed, grit and recovery.
SISU 24 PNW is a choose-your-own-adventure story, written in dirt, sweat, and laughter.
It’s about exploration.
It’s about fun.
It’s about seeing what you can do when nobody is yelling at you, rushing you, or trying to break you.
Here, the only voice you have to answer to is your own.
Out here, you don’t just survive.
You play.
You explore.
You become.
A Community Like No Other
We keep hosting this event because it builds something rare in this world: a true community.
We see strangers become teammates.
We watch people who have never met before share snacks, stories, tears, and victories.
We watch people stay hours after they’ve finished, just to cheer others across the line.
You show up for yourself, but you leave knowing you’re part of something bigger.
That kind of connection is hard to find these days.
It’s even harder to build.
And it’s worth every ounce of effort.
The Spirit of SISU
We named this event after a Finnish word, Sisu, because no English word quite captures it.
Sisu is stubborn courage.
It’s grit born from the soul.
It’s what carries you forward when strength and reason are gone.
It’s the fire inside that refuses to quit, even when the odds say you should.
Sisu isn’t about winning.
It’s about enduring.
It’s about becoming.
Every year, when you step onto these trails, you live that spirit.
And every year, we are honored to witness it.
How It Started: Bloodroot Mountain and a Tractor Tire
The roots of SISU 24 PNW stretch back to 2012.
To a mountain called Bloodroot, a heavy tractor tire, and a brutal Death Race in Vermont.
That’s where I first met Daren de Heras.
Somewhere between exhaustion, mud, and pure grit, we forged a bond that could only be built under those kinds of conditions — through shared suffering and stubborn perseverance.
Fast forward to 2017.
Daren reached out and asked me to run the original SISU 24 event in California, raising money for a friend of the team, Seth, who had been in a life-changing accident.
(You can read more about that here: Running for Seth.)
After that experience, something clicked deep inside me.
I knew I wanted to bring this spirit — this chance for people to challenge themselves, find themselves, and heal themselves — to the Pacific Northwest.
In 2019, with Daren’s blessing and complete creative freedom, Erinn and I hosted the first SISU 24 PNW.
It was the beginning of something truly special:
Both a continuation of what Daren created, and a chance for us to put our own heart and soul into something we could call ours.
For me personally, it was also a way to stay connected to directing races after stepping away from Spartan Race — but on our terms, in our style, for our community.
Building Something Together
The first SISU 24 PNW showed us something we didn’t expect.
It showed us how strong we are together — Erinn and me.
We learned that we are a hell of a team.
We learned how to lean on each other when things got hard.
We learned how to trust each other’s instincts, strengths, and hearts.
Every year we build this event, we also build our relationship.
Every late night, every trail flagging session, every weather report panic — they’re all reminders that we can create something beautiful when we work side by side.
That, too, is priceless.
The Deepest Reason
At its core, SISU 24 PNW isn’t just about miles, points, or finish lines.
It’s about answering an ancient, quiet call that still lives in all of us: the call to test ourselves against the unknown.
Modern life gives us comforts.
It gives us schedules, screens, and safety nets.
But deep down, we are still the same creatures who once looked at distant mountains and said, I wonder if I can get there.
SISU 24 PNW is a place where you can still hear that voice — and, more importantly, answer it.
Here, you remember that struggle isn’t the enemy.
Comfort isn’t the prize.
Growth is.
Discovery is.
The journey into yourself is.
And that’s a prize worth fighting for — in the mud, in the rain, and in the glory of a hard-earned sunrise.
Why We Keep Coming Back
We don’t do SISU 24 PNW for the money.
We don’t do it for fame, or glory, or Instagram likes.
We do it because it matters.
Because people need places like this.
Because we need places like this.
Because the world is a little better when people discover they’re stronger than they thought.
Because it reminds us what it means to be human: raw, determined, and heart wide open.
Because it reminds us that pain can lead to growth, struggle can lead to connection, and grit can lead to something bigger than any of us.
This is our sixth year.
And it still feels like we’re just getting started.
We’ll be here, waiting at HQ with open arms, food, and a finish line that doesn’t care how fast you get there.
All that matters is that you show up, fight your fight, and live your Sisu.
See you on the trails.
— Tony
A Note from Erinn
The SISU 24 PNW feels like a family reunion to me. We gather, we hug, we catch up on life over the last year, and lovely new people join the family!
Most of the time, especially in the early years, I spent most of the event behind the computer at HQ. Since then, we have gained more and more volunteers (they always want to come back! Which speaks to the enjoyment we all have at Camp), and I am able to step away to manage a whole host of other tasks. But I have found that I really like being behind the computer.
One year, I spent hours out at the Deep Creek turn around managing the knot tying challenge. I hung my hammock along the stream and read my book while I waited for racers to show up. A gurgling creek, birdsong, hanging in a hammock – it sounds like a dream! But I felt so much FOMO!! I couldn’t wait to get back to HQ.
My favorite part of the whole event is witnessing every racer’s journey. When I am behind the computer, I hear all of the goals, plans and trail stories. I get to experience their progression, the injuries or exhaustion that change those plans, the goals that are met and celebrated, and those that find their Sisu and keep going well past what they thought they could do!
I see new friendships form, people who have never met before the event come and ask me how someone is doing, are they still out on trail? Are they on track for 100 miles? Did they make it back yet from Noble Knob? Everyone becomes invested in the success of others, and it is a beautiful thing to experience.
YOU are what makes this event worth it. The joy, the grit, the laughs, the shared cups of cocoa at 3am when most everyone is asleep. Those are the moments that keep me coming back each year.
A heartfelt thank you to all past and future racers!
-Erinn
Join Us
If you’re thinking about joining us this year, we’d love to help make it happen.
Use code LOTDR for 15% off your registration.
(Just a small thank you for being part of this story.)
Hope to see you out there.