Lockport 100-Mile Relay

This past weekend, some Front Runner friends and I traveled up to the Buffalo area to run in the Lockport 100-Mile Relay.  The race was a 100-mile relay race that takes place entirely on a 400-meter outdoor track at the Emmet Belknap Middle School in Lockport. Coincidentally, this is the track where Front Runner Derek Petti trained when he was growing up in Lockport.  Teams consisted of up to 10 runners, with each runner running any distance in 400m increments before handing the baton to the next runner.  The runners could run in any order.  Five Front Runners went up to Lockport for the relay: me, Derek, Kelsey, Mike and John.  We stayed with Derek's parents who were the best hosts ever.

I was a little concerned about this relay for a number of reasons.  

1. I literally only ran once in the past month.  And that last run was the VCTC 2x2 Relay, where I only ran two miles and felt awful afterwards, despite having gotten a steroid injection the week before.  My last run before that was the Pride Run on June 26.  So (a) I had no idea if my injury had gotten any better, and (b) even if it had gotten better, I was in no shape to do a race, let alone one on the track where people would be running really fast.

2. There were only five Front Runners confirmed for the race.  Supposedly, there were some people in Lockport who had said they may join our team, but they didn't sound particularly reliable, and there were only three of them.  So for every person less than 10 that we had on our team, we'd have to run extra miles.  Uhhh, the last time I ran more than six miles was in April...  If we got stuck with just five runners, that would mean 20 miles each.  Yikes.

3.  Somehow, the other four Front Runners coming were all super, super, super fast.  Now, I know they didn't care about how fast I was, and that everyone was more concerned with having fun than with winning, but the insecure part of me really didn't want to disappoint the team.  I also didn't want to push myself so hard that I would risk messing up my already-injured butt/hamstring.  So I was just nervous.

So, yeah, looking back, I don't know if it was the smartest thing for me to agree to do this race.  But at the same time, I was really excited about it and thought it would be a lot of fun.

The race started Sunday morning at 8am.  At about 7:45, we received word that two of our runners from Lockport were not going to be able to make it.  Uh oh...  But in the last moments before the starting horn sounded, we picked up some random people, who just happened to want to join a team.  Mitch, 14 years old; Judy, Julie and Ron, all 40-ish; and Drew, 18 and about to start Brown University in the Fall.  I was so relieved that we somehow were able to scrape together a full team.

The original plan was that were were going to start out just running 400m each, and just going through the team 1-10.  But Judy came up with a brilliant strategy that made so much more sense: we'd split up into two groups of five, and each group would run a set number of 400s while the other group rested/recovered.  This way, the runners didn't have to worry about cooling down too much after each run, but they could take a nice break after a few sets.  So we formed two groups: Judy, John, Drew, Ron and Mitch went first, followed by Julie, me, Mike, Kelsey and Derek.  Each group of five would do eight sets of 400s.  Five times.  For a grand total of 400 laps.  Our goal was to average no more than 90 seconds per lap (or six-minute miles).  Oyyy...

My first 400 was about 54 minutes after the start of the race.  I got the baton from Julie, ran as fast as I could, and and handed off to Mike.  I did it in 78 seconds.  OMG, it was too fast.  I was like heaving at the end of it.  There was no way I'd be able to keep this up for 40 laps.  My butt felt fine, but cardiovascularly, I felt like crap.  I told myself I don't need to run that fast; just try to hit 90 seconds.  So the next lap (about 5-6 minutes later), I tried to ease off the pace a little bit.  Still, 78 seconds.  This time I was heaving again, and I was already soaked with sweat even though I was only two laps in and it was barely 9am.  Around lap 5, I just couldn't wait for the set of eight to be over.  I was already dreading the prospect of doing this 40 times.  My splits for the first eight 400s:
78 sec
78
81
79
82
82
84
82

It was so good to rest after that.  I wanted the rest to last forever, but I knew I  had less than an hour (the other group had 10 miles to run).  The next set of eight 400s was considerably harder.  My legs were sore from the 2 miles I had just run (at 5:25 pace).  The sun was starting to come out.  There was a strong headwind at the back straightaway.  It was not fun.  My splits were slower, but I was trying much harder:
85
81
82
82
84
84
85
84

After our second set, our group of five decided it was too hard on our bodies to keep doing 400m repeats.  So we switched it up to do 4 sets of 800.  By this point, we had settled comfortably into first place.  The second place team, made up of track and cross country runners from Iroquois High School, were a mile or two behind us, so we figured we could sacrifice a little speed to be able to run at a more comfortable pace (that is, as long we we didn't run the 800s at 400m pace!).  I definitely slowed down for my 800s.  Even so, they seemed so much harder.  At this point it was about noon, and the sun was shining bright.  And we had to run into that damn headwind twice.  It was so hard running to the transition area and knowing that I wouldn't be able to pass the baton off to Mike.  It was brutal, and my splits showed:
101/92 (my legs felt like jello on that first lap!)
91/88
91/93
94/89

Then the fourth set came.  My legs were so tired.  I started to doubt whether I could finish.  Halfway through the set, Kelsey told me not to worry about my splits.  There was still another set to go, and it was better for me to finish than for me totally run out of steam.  So the last two 800s I took kind of slow.  We were really far ahead of the Iroquois team, and it was good not to have the pressure of having every second count.  Still, those were some pretty slow splits...I was feeling like I was starting to fall apart.
93/93
98/95
99/103
98/100

When it came to my last set, I couldn't wait for the race to be over.  We decided to switch back to 400s, which I was happy about.  But what made me even happier was to hear that Drew was volunteering to run extra laps.  I immediately enlisted him to run four of my eight 400s.  We alternated laps, so I had a luxurious 11 minutes or so to recover between my 400s.
93
87
89

After my third 400, we all realized that it was entirely possible for the team to finish the whole relay in under nine hours.  If we did it, it would be huge....our original goal of 90-second laps (six minute pace) would have meant finishing in 10 hours.  So we were possibly going to beat that by a whole hour...but we had only a few seconds to spare.  The pressure was too much for me.  And frankly, I didn't really want to run another lap.  Fortunately, Drew was more than happy to run one more lap for me.  That final set of laps was among the fastest of the day.  Derek ran the very last lap, his 41st 400 of the day, at a smoking 66 seconds!

And then, there we had it.  100 miles later, five members of Front Runners New York, joined by five residents of Lockport, New York, won the Lockport 100-Mile Relay in a jaw-dropping 8:58:27 -- that's a 5:23 per mile pace -- beating both our original goal and the second place team by over an hour!!!  We were ecstatic.  We were so glad it was over.  And we all so proud of our achievement.  At that moment, we were the stars of the race, and of the whole town.  I was just so, so happy to be part of such an amazing team.

Later that day, we were awarded with our "1st Place" medals.  It's my first time being first place overall in any running event, ever.  And the fact that I got to share with nine of the coolest people ever made it even more special.  Thanks, guys!!!

One final note.  After I got home, I did my usual post-race OCD number crunching, and I figured that my average lap was 89.47 seconds, a bit under the 90 second goal I had set for myself.  So I was especially pleased.  Thanks to everyone involved who made this such a great experience for me!