The short:
Even marathon pace seems fast and intimidating in my head right now, but running slowly forever seemed like something I could do! Enter the Run for the Ranch 6 hour race. It entailed running a 3.275 mile loop as many times as you could or wanted to within a 6 hour time frame, and the most loops won. If two people ran the same number of laps, the one who did it faster won. I'd never run a 6 hour before, so as long as I surpassed 50k for distance, which I felt very confident about, I was in for a PR.
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| It's good to have training buddies who are just as crazy as you |
8 laps was a marathon, 12 laps was 39.3 miles, etc. Only full laps counted, so if you wanted to run over 40 miles officially you had to run 42.575 miles. I kind of felt like, "Who wants to stop at 39.3??" and set my goal at 13 laps - plus I thought 42 miles would be neat since I am 42 years old. I really had no idea how my body would respond to running for 6 hours, but I did a 4 hour (30.2 mile) training run 2 weeks before the race that made it seem reasonable. I'm sure true ultra runners are laughing at my random goals and rationales!
I managed those 13 laps for 42.575 miles and 1st overall female on December 17. This ranks me #6 on the North America female 6 hour list for 2022, so not too shabby for my first go at this - especially in a wind chill of 13* on a course wide open to the 20 mph wind. However, I realized that if all ground covered in the full 6 hours (instead of only full laps) counted I could have been #4. #5 only ran 0.025 farther than me and #4 did 0.625 farther, which I know I could have covered in the time remaining, especially because if every bit had counted I would have pushed more on the final 2 laps and wouldn't have stopped to pee at the final aid station. I have since learned that a lot of timed races have a smaller loop in the final hour for this reason. I am also #2 for women age 40-49, behind world record holder Camille Herron.
The things I had to do to get a PR in 2022! I was fortune to run about half of the miles with my running buddy Colin, who also ran 42.575 miles, but faster than me. His performance is #17 for men's 6 hours this year, but he could have been #9 if partial laps counted or there was a shorter loop option at the end.
I've been running for over 30 years now, so it's not terribly often that I get to try new things. I am thankful for this opportunity less than a 10 minute drive from my house! It's pretty incredible what God made our bodies capable of. Ozark Mountain Ridge Runners did a great job putting on this event, and if you ask me volunteering at an aid station for 6 hours in that weather sounds a lot harder than running in it for 6 hours.
Official results are here (search for my bib 3012).
My Strava activity is here.
North America ultra rankings are here.
Details:
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| Overall male and female! |
Your reasoning for running this is pretty much what mine was for running a 50k, haha!
ReplyDeleteIt's probably the main reason anyone moves up to an ultra, haha!
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