Number 14 - Run for Twelve Hours

  

At first glance the idea of running for 12 hours may come across as a bit strange.  Perhaps if you knew the reason, it may make it a little less strange.  Or quite possibly a lot stranger; it all depends on your perspective.

I’ve run in races that have required me to run for hours in multiples of six—beginning with six and going all the way up to 36.  With one exception: I’ve never run a race that took me 12 hours to complete.

There were several 40-mile races that took me six hours to complete; my best 100-mile run took me 18 hours (as did dropping out at my first Western States Endurance Run after 62 miles!); there have been several 24-hour timed runs that I stuck around for until the final gun; I finished the Western States Endurance Run (two years after my aforementioned drop) in 30 hours; and I completed the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon in 36 hours.

Six hours.  Eighteen hours.  Twenty-four hours.  Thirty hours.  Thirty-six hours. 

I like things neat and orderly.  Look in my closet and you’ll find shirts of a similar color hanging side-by-side.  Look at my compact disc storage unit and you’ll find all of them alphabetized by artist.  I can always find my car keys, reading glasses and cell phone because I always put them in the same place. 

Now you can understand why I needed to run a race that would take me 12 hours to finish: I need my running to be neat and orderly just like everything else in my life. 

With that goal in mind, what could be better than a 12-hour timed run?  The Stroll in Central Park 12-Hour Endurance Run in Cumming, Georgia was just what I was looking for.  The fact that the Race Director is a friend of mine who always puts on a first class event made the decision even easier.  So one cool and breezy March morning I found myself on the starting line—a crack in the asphalt of the 1.03-mile path encircling the baseball and soccer fields of Central Park—ready, willing and hopefully able to keep my feet moving for the next 12 hours.

But before I begin, a little more backstory is necessary.

It’s been almost two years since I ran my last ultramarathon (any race longer than the standard marathon distance of 26.2 miles).  I swore off running marathons in December 2012 after reaching lifetime marathon #200 (since then I’ve accidentally run two more, but I digress).  Why the long-distance inactivity?  One part chronic fatigue, one part old age and two parts various physical ailments that are collaborating to do their absolute best to limit my long runs to no more than 15 miles.

So once I told two people--both well aware of my physical limitations--of my intentions of running for 12 hours, I didn’t get a lot of support or encouragement.  Instead they both made me make a promise they both knew me well enough to know I would have a hard time keeping:

·      To my friend Al, I promised I wouldn’t run a marathon.

·      To my wife Cindy, I promised I would only run ‘for a few hours’ and ‘help out' the rest of the time.  

Getting back to the race…

The morning was sensational.  At 7:00 a.m. there were the crisp sounds of horsehide meeting metal bats coming from the baseball fields, the enthusiastic screams of supportive parents coming from the soccer fields and the buzz of the runners competing in the 12-hour run all fresh and full of energy, dreams and aspirations of what was to come in the day ahead.  I had no complaints the first few hours, as it appeared my physical ailments just might have decided to take the day off.

Around noon I discovered they didn’t take the day off; rather, they just slept in late.  Once they showed up, the physical ailments made it virtually impossible for me to run each loop without a walk break or two thrown in every 1.03 miles.  It wasn’t too long after that I had to resort to walking each loop, with a run break or two thrown in if I was lucky.  In the end it was pretty much all I could do to walk the last couple of loops.  It was at this time one of the volunteers posted a picture of me walking on on Facebook with the caption: ‘Scott Ludwig is NOT running a marathon.’

It didn’t take long for my friend Al to make a comment:  No, but he is probably walking a marathon. Tell him I said to stop. He knows he'll pay for it tomorrow!

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that his final seven words were on the money. 

Al hit the nail on the head with his first eight words as well, because I pretty much did walk the equivalent distance of a marathon that afternoon, equating to 25+ long, lonely loops around Central Park.

As for that first marathon distance in the morning, however, I ran every one of those 25+ loops.  So I sort of kept my promise: I didn’t run a marathon; I went ahead and did two.     

As for Cindy, if it’s any consolation, I didn’t run the entire duration of the event.  Did I run most of it?  Yes; but not all of it.  My 12-hour run will have to wait for another day.  So I sort of kept my promise to her as well.

Don’t you just love semantics?