A 100 Mile Run (not mine)

We have the good fortune to live near a very nice community… Suwanee, GA. There is a town center/green that is surrounded by residential and retail. Back behind the town center and residential area is a beautiful nature preserve with miles and miles of trails.

Our run store is in this retail area. And they host group runs on the greenway trails. It has been a great place to meet other runners and make friends.

Our son is employed at the running  store and has also been able to meet many people. And although he isn’t running right now, we all share the same acquaintances and friends.

One of the people that my husband, son and I all enjoy is R. He is great encourager to all and well liked within our running community. In fact R is the one who influenced so many of us to try out an ultra marathon!

R and his wife recently welcomed their first child, a boy. As a result, they have decided to move back to Michigan, where their families live.

As a parting gesture, R decided to run 100 miles in consecutive loops around the .36 mile perimeter of the town green. He put out an open invitation for members of the running group to join him. And started off his run this past Friday evening.

Over 50 runners joined R for parts of his run. My son ran with him on Friday night. By the time we all joined him on Saturday around noon, he had  76 miles in. Another friend, who my husband nicknamed ‘the closer ‘ (b/c she helped me finish my ultra) showed up around 1 with the intention of helping R finish.

But by Saturday afternoon, it had gotten extremely hot. We left for an hour for our run down the greenway in the shade. When we came back, R hadn’t gotten much farther. And he didn’t look good. We left, and wondered if he’d finish.

Much later in the day (6:15), my daughter wanted to go for a run. So we went back to the greenway. As we drove past the town center, we could see the gang still out there running. I wanted to go run with them, but in her strange 15 year old way she didn’t want to be seen there with her mom. So we ran in the shady woods where it was less likely that she would be seen. When we finished, we checked on the gang again. 

The scene I witnessed was straight out of Forest Gump….R in the lead with about 15 people trailing him. Then he just stopped. Was he done? Had he accomplished his goal? Was he quitting? I wasn’t allowed out of the car. But when I got home, I saw a new FB post that he had just finished!! Over 27 hours after he had started, and with help from a lot of friends, R had run 100 miles!

Nicely done.

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Race Report – A Timed Ultra Marathon

Well, you already know the end of this story.  I ended up surprising myself and running 50 miles in my first ultra marathon.  My goal was to run 50k (or 31 miles), so it was a real shocker to end up doing 50 miles!!

It was an absolutely awesome experience, and I will definitely do it again.  Especially this one.  It was 15 minutes from my house!!

 

The trail.  It was close to parking, so we could all set up our own stations right out the back of our cars

First, a bit of the particulars:  The 12 hour event was held in a park that had a .75 mile hard packed sand track loop.  To make each lap a full mile, there was a .25 out/back trip to a bridge added on.  There were 54 participants who ran the gamut in age (20-69) and fitness levels.  30 of the participants were female (two of whom were 67 years old and one who was 68!!!).  The one mile laps were counted by volunteers, who tracked a set number of runners all 12 hours long!

 

The ‘to the bridge’ portion of the loop

 

Let me tell you, this was one of the most inspirational events I’ve ever witnessed/participated in.  (Boston Marathon being the other one).  This was not like a regular race.  While regular races really are fun, they are competitive (which don’t get me wrong, I like!) vs. cooperative.  Everyone at this event was so supportive of everyone else.  In the course of the twelve hours, we all got to know/run with many of the other runners.  These are people who  never would have met each other in our everyday lives. And here we were, running with and encouraging each other for hours!! As you can image, we’re all now best friends forever on Facebook!

 

Since the event was in “our territory”, 10 of the runners were from the same run group. Many of us already knew each other. And the ones who didn’t know each other at the start did by the end! Also, since we were so close to home, many more runners from our run group stopped by to cheer or run with us!

Steve and I ran the event, and ran together for the first 28 miles.  My best running friend Maria (in the tigger capris) showed up to run a bit with us!

Runners and supporters from our run group!

All that support made this event super!
As I already said, my goal was initially to do 31 miles. But, once I reached that goal, I felt like I could keep going. My next goal was 40 miles.

A friend showed up at mile 38 and told me I was doing 50. Another one of the runners started saying that too. I wasn’t interested, but kept on running. By mile 43, I agreed to 50!  And by the time I committed, I just barely had enough time to finish.  I completed 50 with 8 minutes to spare!

My friend ran with me….or i should say ran/walked all 12 of those last miles! She was my cheerleader and encourager. Without her, it truly wouldn’t have happened!

There is so much more I have to say about this race. But I think I’ll save it for another post. In parting, I want to say, that when it was over, I took a shower.

Junk Miles Repurposed – Or Accidentally Training for an Ultra

I’ve been running a lot of miles lately. A LOT. But it’s what I want. And that has been my goal this year. I am trying to focus on what is going to make me happy, and not what I think I ‘should’ do. The high mileage has had a price. I am currently not as fast as my potential. And my race times have reflected this.  Although I’m a little bit bothered by this. I’m not bothered enough to change the current situation.

Recently I came across this race announcement on our run group Facebook page.

It is a sign up for a timed ultra marathon. An timed ultra marathon is running event that lasts for a finite amount of time during which you run as many miles as possible.

Many members of our run group do one of these in December and always speak highly of it. And most of the people who do it are not the hard- core-run-100-miles-as -fast-as-you-can type. Which would be me also.

As soon as I saw this listing I was attracted to the idea. In keeping with my new goal to do things that will make me happy, I decided ‘Why Not?’.

Here are my thoughts on running a timed ultra marathon:
1. To do well, I think you should be in at least marathon shape.
2. I’m not. But I am in half marathon shape.
3. My strategy is to run the first 13.1 miles in a bit over 2 hours.
4. I think it counts as an ‘ultra’ (and thus qualifies for the car magnet) as long as you do more than a marathon.
5. This means I have over 9 hours to do 14 more miles.

I can do this!
Just as a test, last Sunday I ran 12 miles in the morning. And 7 in the afternoon. It wasn’t hard at all! Now I only need to add 8 more.

The other great things about this race is the venue. We did some running there this summer with the xc team and I really love the park

The race is 3/12, so not much time for any intense training….just enough time to look forward to a new experience/accomplishment! And in the meantime, I think I better get some new shoes!