CushWake’s Karbelk Runs to Victory in L.A. to Vegas Footrace
By Dennis Kaiser
Cushman & Wakefield’s Jason Karbelk, a Senior Research Analyst in San Francisco, is a leading runner with Team Nike/Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), which recently won The Speed Project: a more than 300-mile footrace from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The team completed the relay race in 31 hours 15 minutes 58 seconds, which shattered the prior course record by 4.5 hours.
The competition is called The Speed Project, and for good reason—those who dare to do it are awfully fast, some perhaps even superhuman. They are also very adept. Karbelk was one of six on the team who participated in the race March 29-30, 2019. The runners headed out at 4:00 a.m. from Los Angeles’s famed Santa Monica Pier with the goal of reaching the neon lights of Las Vegas the quickest. The competition included 41 top-notch teams from around the world.
Runners travel with a full support and media crew, nutrition, recovery tools, RV, 4×4, electric bikes, vans, and fast shoes, all of which they would rely heavily on. The challenging endurance race tested each member to exert themselves beyond their own limits. It also required them to work hard and cohesively to split the brutal mileage that worked out to roughly 50-60 miles each—in well under a day and a half’s time.
Karbelk helped lead the team by running 56 miles at an average of 5 minutes and 53 seconds per mile over 68 different handoffs.
Karbelk says, “Our original strategy for the 340-mile route was changed two days before race day and opted to run a shorter 300-mile route with more than 50 miles of unknown road conditions. This new strategy was designed to win with a goal of setting a new course record by attempting to finish in under 32 hours, while averaging 6:20 per mile with four men and two women.”
That strategy and ultimate teamwork paid off. Team Nike’s winning performance marked the fastest time ever recorded for a foot run from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.
“Perhaps the craziest part of our contest was at 10 p.m., our caravan of three sprinter vans got stuck in sand in the mountains. Fortunately, we were eventually rescued by two 4×4 cars at around 2 a.m., which had to cram nearly all of us in,” recounts Karbelk. “However, this also meant our three overnight runners were racing in the deep dark for seven hours, only with the help of a single crew car and spotlight. One of our teammates actually lost his voice from running through the cold, moonlit wilderness alone for an hour, not knowing if we would find him.”
*Photo by Devin L’Amoreaux
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser
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