A Six Hour Race

Operation Jack northwest 6.1 hour race was this morning. If you're not familiar with the 'ultra' community, maybe you haven't heard of 6-hour, 6.1-hour, 12-hour, 24-hour, or any-other-hour race measured in time rather than distance. It's a popular format for small races put on by runners for runners, especially ultra-runners. The idea is you run as far as you can - or want - during the allotted time. The person who runs the most miles during the time period wins. The race is often a short loop that participants run multiple times. The race today was on a 0.95 mile loop.

I ran 15 laps (because I wanted to run 14 this weekend). At first, I was pretty nervous about running the same loop 15 times. It doesn't seem so different from a treadmill, which I can only manage for 3 or 4 miles before faking (to myself) an injury and getting off before I fall over of boredom. In fact, if weather/work/kids/darkness necessitate the treadmill I usually do speed or incline repeats to stave off boredom. I actually work harder to convince myself to stay on and work at all. Anyway. The 0.95 mile loops.

When I first started, I had a tough time pacing myself. I kept running 1 milers, rather than the 3rd ro 4th of a 14 miler. It is very different pacing, I promise. Once I finally settled into a sustainable pace and got the course's hills and gusty spots figured out, I started liking the short laps. I was passing & being passed regularly, which helps me maintain form and is quite social. I ended up knowing many of the runners and met several more. Seriously, you can only hear "great job!" so many times before you start feeling like Constantina Dita.

I didn't race at all, and even took leisurely breaks for the bathroom and to dig through my stashed bag for the Clif shots I thought I had packed in there. Plus, it was my first time using my new running toy, a Garmin watch with a heart rate monitor, so I spent quite a bit of time playing with that, testing it out. (I have blogged before about how I don't even run with a watch, but have since decided that if I want to get faster, maybe knowing actual distances and times would help. Now, if I end up with one of those talking GPS devices in my car, please intervene!)

I only went my planned 14 miles (14.3 according to my new watch). Others ran 10ks, half marathons, marathons, and 50ks. It was really a cool experience, being part of a group yet on my own, with new and old friends doing their own thing. About 70 total people showed up and weathered the rain/hail/sun/wind/cold together. And we were all doing it in support of a fellow runner who is using running to process a difficult situation - a coping technique with which I am all too familiar (see the Operation Jack link if you want to learn more).

Now, I'm eager to wear my new watch on some of my typical running routes and see how far they actually are, and how many laps I can run to equal longer distances. I'll call it Operation Geek.