the lake merrit 6 hour event champion

after the 10K trail run in february, i decided that i would try and train for the lake merrit 6 hour event. you may be thinking that it doesn't take 6 hours to run lake merritt. true enough. so you may then be wondering why on earth anyone would want to run for 6 hours around the same loop. for that, i may never have a good enough answer. and if you think i'm crazy for wanting to run 6 hours around lake merritt, there were people signed up for the 12 hour event too.

in all seriousness, the purpose of these timed style events is to give opportunities for people to try for different kinds of goals. for example, when i first registered, i looked at this run as an opportunity to try and get back into marathon shape and run 20 miles in 6 hours. in february, this goal seemed SO far away since those 6.2 miles KICKED MY BUTT. but the lake merritt path is flat and only 3.1 miles long. with 2 aid stations, there will be aid about every 1.5 miles so i don't really have to carry anything. and i can see my crew and the baby at every loop. for a long run, that's pretty unheard of. for others, if they want to attempt an ultramarathon distance (anything over 26.2 miles) but find the combination of tough terrain and stringent time cut offs too much pressure, this is a good opportunity. and the bonus is that no matter what happens, it will be over in 6 hours (or 12 hours if that's what you signed up for). for those of us who have birthed a child, you know that you can stand high levels of discomfort for at least 6 hours, so why not? but chances are, you might even have a good day and have fun for a large part of the day.

going into this event, i was definately nervous. my first few training runs were rough. my body was not quite used to running yet so everything hurt pretty much the whole time we were out there. not fun. but after a couple of weeks, my training runs where great. however, they were relatively short. i had hoped to train up to 4 hours runs before i began my taper before the event(for those not familiar, you do your longest training runs a couple of weeks for the event and then taper off in miles/time right before to give the body a chance to rest up for the big day). but i was only ever able to peak at 2.5 hours. although i was feeling good (it helps to run on hilly terrain like mt. diablo) my confidence as a little shaky because i wasn't sure how i'd feel after about 3 hours.

so i revised my goals. my first goal was to be able to keep moving for 6 hours (without the benefit of wheels). after that, my second goal was to do 6 laps in 6 hours. each lap is 3.1 miles. and then my third, pie-in-the-sky goal was to do 20 miles. but, hoenstly, i didn't really think i could do the 20 miles.

so i started and the first lap went well but felt long and i found myself thinking "do i really have to run this all day?!" in the second lap, i felt painful blisters forming on my feet. this made me panic a little bit because i still had about 5 hours of running left and my feet hurt already. dealing with pain is one thing. but when one is hurting, one tends to change their running gait which is very, very bad because it leads to more serious injury. so i spent the whole 2nd lap really trying to focus on my form so i didn't really hurt myself. thankfully this and every lap after felt much shorter. before starting on my 3rd lap, i had to take a fairly long break to have nadia (our fabulous crew) tape my feet. this kept the blisters from getting worse. and i changed my socks - the guilty party in the blister debacle. nad's parting words of advice for that lap were to "trust the tape. let it do it's job". this felt a littel obe one kanobi to me (especially from her) but she was actually right. it took a few minutes to get used to the feeling of the tape but i just tried to run like normal. if she hadn't said that, i probably would have been less sure and ended up limping... all bad. i was able to run my 3rd lap as well. i realized that running the same loop was actually fun because familiar terrain, you know what's ahead. this allowed me to relax and have fun and not worry about the what surpise wall like hill may lay ahead or how long it will be before the next aid station. i finished those first 9+ miles/3 laps in decent time because was able to run pretty much the whole time. that felt like an achievement in and of itself since i hadn't run that far since the marathon of 2006 (my training runs never even covered that much mileage). in the time that i was getting worked on, jenny (party of 5!) was blazing the trail and managed to lap me. the next couple of laps were slow going for both of us. after running 4 laps straight, jen's knee was bothering her. since my feet were giving me the business, we decided to walk and catch up on gossip (we agree, paris hilton should have to serve at least 2-3 weeks in jail). i started my 6th lap with about 90 minutes to go and i started to worry that i wouldn't meet my 6 lap goal since we'd been moving kind of slow. so i picked up the pace a little bit and started running again. while i didn't run the whole way around, i did manage to make it around in just under an hour. once i met my 6 lap goal, i thought that i would love to try for my 20 mile goal. i had a little less than a 1/2 hour to do it but i would give it a shot. for the last hour of the run, they have us take a shorter loop so we can continue to add distance without taking the whole long loop. so i was able to muscle out 2 of the .7 mile loops.

we all know that math is not my strong suit so when i finished, i was happy with my accomplishment but i didn't think that i actually made the 20 mile mark. so imagine my surprise when once of the race directors told me that she was pretty sure i did do 20 miles. in fact, i completed 20.2 miles!!! and i almost fainted when they announced me the FIRST PLACE female winner for my age group! me?! slow poke pettigrew?! FIRST PLACE!!!!!! and jenny (party of 5!) won the first place overall female finisher!!!! and glenda (nadia's mom) won first place for her age division as well!!!! so basically, 3 of the 4 first place prizes ( a coffee mug that says your division and "First Place" right on it!) arrived in the same car! the 4th prize went to a woman in a different age class that came late and left early after completing 10K (or 6.2 miles) so we never even saw her. it does not take away from my victory at all that there was no second place. the way i see it, we were the only (4) women out there hangin' with the men. the second placers were sooo intimidated, they didn't even show up!!!!

i must say, that while my 800 mg ibuprofen lasted, i had quite the swagger. i may try to fashion some sort of blingy gold chain to wear my first place coffee mug around my neck. if that's not possible, then i will simply take as many beverages as possible from my first place coffee mug, which shall henceforth be referred to as the "chalice of excellence" (using a triumphant announcer style voice and echo-o-o). i was so pleased with my prize that i told a bunch of perfect strangers about it. if you would like to sip a beverage from my chalice of excellence-ence-ence, you contact me to set up an appointment.

Editor's Note: i am well aware that none of these pictures are of the actual event. i believe there will be photographic evidence of this accomplishment at some point. when i have those pictures, i'll post 'em. in the meantime, feel free to gaze upon the child.