Wow, I can't believe how time flies when you're beating the crap out of your body trying to do as many events as possible in the shortest amount of time! Yeehaw! If you've been following along since the beginning, you'll know that Event 1 in the 50@50 Project was the White River Snowshoe 8k. And you'll also know that Event 50 was to be the same race next January 2014 - kind of a 'full circle' thing. For those of you who haven't been following along, I'll give you a few minutes to catch up...
(dum
dee
dum
dee
dum
dee
doo
tra
la
lala
loo
scoobydoooo...)
...okay!
Puff, puff. Hey, wait for me. Wait a second ... A FEW MINUTES!?! I'm not that far behind!
Oh, Camera Crew!
The one year time frame we had estimated to do this is now looking to be pretty damn generous. To paraphrase Dubya, we 'misoverestimated' how long it would take us to complete fifty events. In fact, by the end of this coming weekend (Aug. 9-11) with three more events - one Friday, one Saturday, one Sunday - we'll be at 40. That's forty events in less than seven months, folks. Yes, we've been pushing it some weekends. And yes, we are often not fully recovered from one race before it's time to do the next. But so far, no injuries. We may well be done before Turkey Day!
Anyway, about ORRC's Dual Duel:
In choosing events, we try to find some weird, quirky, different races to keep us interested. As I've said before, doing 50 road runs would be b-o-r-i-n-g. Event 35 in the project was certainly not boring. Teams of two would run ten miles total, laps done on a 1/4 mile track; Camera Crew and I would each run 20 laps (5 miles), alternating laps and passing a baton between us. Definitely different! In fact, in the spirit of the Dual Duel, Camera Crew will chime in on this post from time to time.
Right, Camera Crew??
You talkin' to me?
Well, it all began with a slow crawl down the ever traffic-filled Tualatin-Sherwood Highway toward the motor speedway known as I-5. Unfortunately, I had to immediately part ways with the speedway and take off on the bumper-to-bumper Hwy 217. And just when it was getting better and we were really moving, that freeway ended. And I ended up going the wrong way, only spotting the hospital sign for the way I should have gone at the very last minute - you know the one that would have required a trip to the hospital had I tried to change lanes. Instead, I got to have a very leisurely assent of the Sylvan Hill before Hwy 26 let me free. By the time I got to the race I was so enervated I drove right past Dave without even seeing him. Sorry you had to expend that extra energy walking across the parking lot!
There I was waiting and waving when you drove into the parking lot and - whoosh - right on by! (sniff)
We really didn't know for sure what to expect at this event. We knew that we would be running five miles each but had no idea how many people to expect or how 'fun' the crowd would be. Let's just say that WE had a great time. Mostly, the teams seemed very serious and focused. Many sported matching running gear. Most had heart rate monitors and coaches/family members keeping track of laps on official count sheets on which they wrote down each lap time for each runner, shouting things like "Come on! You need to cut three seconds off this lap to stay on pace!!!" Some teams had coaches jogging the course, encouraging them with "Great pace!" "Keep it up" and "Pick it up a little or Tim's gonna catch you!" Things like that.
As you probably gathered, one of the 'rules' of the race was that each team of two had to keep track of their own lap counts. We didn't bring a coach with us because we don't have a coach so we had to come up with something on our own.
I volunteered to count laps while Dave did all the running. Any guesses how well that went over?
Um... yeah.
Okay, so again, other runners were serious - read: boring. Hash marks on paper count sheets or backs of hands. Some curious rubber band abacus type counting system. Gadget driven counting (stop watch laps or iphone apps). But not us. We were gloriously innovative and fun and festooned with flowers. That's because before beginning the race we each layered on 20 plastic flower leis. It was like the muff on a fur coat - we could barely see let alone breathe. But we were the most festive team by far.
I made the mistake of putting all the leis on, then trying to pin my bib number on the front of my shirt. Brilliant, right? I am happy to say that I only poked my fingers twice with the 'un'safety pins and my bib was, surprisingly, on straight! I guess when you've pinned on 30+ race numbers, you get good at it!
I decided to have me start the race and to have Camera Crew finish. This backfired on me, of course. For some weird reason about the track being metric or the inside vs outside lanes or whatever, the starters had to run an extra 100 yards so that we made up ten miles exactly. Oh well. Once we listened to the barely audible directions, it was time to start. I wasn't too concerned with hearing the instructions because WE WERE ON A TRACK. It was like a NASCAR race - all left turns. Hand the baton to your teammate. Got it.
One of the other runners asked about the leis and when I explained, he laughed and said "Oh my god, that is Wile E. Coyote genius" - which is the highest form of compliment regarding intelligence exchanged between dudes.
The race director counted us down and we took off. Running with 20 leis bouncing in your face was interesting and surprisingly warm. Who knew a bunch of plastic flowers on a string would make you sweat so much. But we were committed to our ingenious lap count method. We definitely received curious looks from some of the bystanders. I wasn't sure if this was because of the leis or because we didn't have a coach yelling at us. People started to whisper "Oh, I get it! After each lap, they take one lei off." Ahhhh, finally - folks were catching on.
We were running five miles, but we were only running 0.25 miles at a time. How fast to run? To make that decision more complicated, I had no idea how fast I was actually running. My watch went missing back at event 24 and I have refused to replace it (assuming it will show up as soon as I buy a new one). And that big clock with the big numbers right by the track? I never remembered to look at that and do the math to get my lap time.
Pace was certainly an issue! In fact, I would finish a lap, take a breather, hand my 'lap counter' to one of two cute little kids who were following me around after each lap, jockeying for position to receive the castaway lei. Then I would look up to spot Camera Crew to gauge how much time I had. I would wander to our bag and have a drink of water, then walk over to the transition area to get ready to go again. One more look around to see where my partner was and "Where is she? Where is... Aaaagh! She's right here, handing me the damn baton!! No fair! I'm not ready!" That's how it went.
It was sure nice to shed the leis! Several times I tried counting how many were left, but they were tangled up. At this realization, I despondently accepted that if there were enough left to BE tangled, then we still had a ways to go. But - finally - I could count with confidence!! Six! Six laps to go!! Woohoo!
I feel like I ran a steady pace for all 20 laps. I tracked my lap time on the race clock a few times and was within a few seconds. It was an interesting race and a lot of fun, mostly because WE decided to have fun with it. Plus it was another rare weeknight race, so it bought us an extra event in the project.
Five more events over the next two weekends will bring us to forty!! Stay tuned!
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