Why a Runner? pt1

I was re-affirmed as a long-distance runner yesterday at work, an interesting episode I had to write about.

There is one co-worker who shares my love of running (and minimalist-barefoot running), she's training for the Marathon in December and we frequently talk about training tips, gear, nutrition, etc.

At the end of our shift we were all sitting around waiting to be released and I passed her a sheet I'd worked up with my goal splits for the upcoming 100k. The Peacock has some pretty epic climbs that I was worried about and I'd wanted to see how much I was going to have to compensate for the time spent walking up them. After messing around with the numbers I figured out that even with plenty of time set aside for the climbs the average pace to complete the course was still pretty doable. I even figured in some degradation over the course and still had a pretty good buffer before the cutoffs.

Another co-worker, as bored as us, was listening in an asked how long the race was.

I replied that it was 100k.

I could see the math-gears churning in his head, then it clicked and his eyes bugged out of his head.

"62 Miles?!?! Why would anyone do that?!? It's crazy!"

We went back and forth a bit, I told him that his reaction is exactly why I wanted to do it. It IS crazy and none of you runners out there can deny it. It's crazy, it's extreme, it takes so much time and effort just to train to run that distance... which is why so few people do it.

I ran in a 15k when I lived in Jacksonville, which was a fun race experience that I shared with about 15,000 people (it's the largest 15k in the US). I ran (very poorly) in the Honolulu marathon a few years ago, a cool race experience shared with over 20,000 people.

It's pretty awesome to run a marathon and I have absolutely no intention of taking anything away them (I plan on trying to make up for my past Honolulu Marathon debacle this year), but there are aspects of them that turn me off a bit. I've seen statistics that say 1 in a 1000 people has run a marathon. So it's awesome, but it's not that far out of the ordinary. They're also pretty well attended and almost entirely run on roads. Neither of which appeal to me. I'm more of a slow-pace runner who hates crowds, lines, and bored almost immediately whenever I have to run on a road.

Which is why I wasn't all that interested in running until I heard about Ultras.

More to follow, stay tuned for pt 2.