I did the Revolution Run! 5 hour timed race around the indoor track at Utah's Olympic Oval, where I believe speed skating events were held during the 2002 olympics. Pretty cool venue; lots of people, but 442 meters per lap made things a lot less chaotic than they could've been, despite making the math as far as distance completed a little trickier. I've been wanting to do this race for years and finally got around to signing up, then immediately came down with a nasty chest cold. Felt a little better the day of the race, but knew after a couple laps that I was expending way too much energy for the pace and scaled it way back. So 'running' was a very generous term. Fortunately I had time to work with. This event gets the whole spectrum from people who show up to walk a couple laps to the hardy souls who go the distance and crank out like 40 miles. I stuck to my original goal and did 51 laps, figuring that a bunch of people would stop between 47 (a half marathon) and 50 cuz it's a nice round number. I was right and it was good for top 25% or so and somehow 3rd in my age group. It just took a lot longer than I wanted. This format definitely favors the stubborn.
It was fun and terrible all at the same time. But I'd love to do it again when I'm closer to 100%. Going from barely running at all and 2-3 miles at a time to 14 on a hard indoor track probably wasn't one of my more brilliant ideas, but here's to leading the 2019 mileage board! Feeling pretty good today all things considered.
