On a whim, I just registered for a half marathon in mid January. No worries about the weather, this thing's indoors!  A few points on the race web site made me chuckle:

- there are 66 water stops.  (Yeah, that's because there are 66 laps and you'll be by again and again and again...)

- bathrooms readily available if you do take water each lap.

- you get a lap split and real-time position in the field with each lap.  (this could be good or bad)

- runners get to submit music recommendations for the soundtrack during the race, they pick from the suggestions.

- easy on the spectators.

- the course is advertised as flat!

- they run a few different races during the day, you have to finish and clear the track before the next race.

Cool.

Could really mess with your internal math. 320 meter track (I assume), so fifths of a mile each turn. I think that would get so screwy I would just turn off my brain and enjoy the scener...d'oh.

Does sound fun in a torture-is-fun kind of way. Enjoy!

Think of it this way, MT. Every race teaches you something and I think this is a unique one to try.

Sounds sort of like Chinese water torture to me! If they pump out the tunes though, and there is a good crowd cheering it could be really fun. Hope it's a great experience for you!

 +1

I finished with a 1:45:48. Way off goal or guess.

All the lead-in stuff was normal activities of a race day – drive to the race location, decide on shoes and select the right outfit for the weather, getting bib, slipping timing chip into shoe laces, warm-up jog and so on.

But after that…nearly everything about the run itself had none of the normal or expected. The only word that keeps coming to mind for me is…different, or odd.

Race was 68 laps of a track which is 5.2 laps per mile. With no particular logic behind it, I came up with a plan of breaking it into 20-20-10-5-5-5 lap segments. I thought this would give me mental checkpoints and a sense of progress. First 20 to get settled in, next 20 to log miles, next 10 to pick up pace, then segments of 5 to the finish to hold on.

It didn’t work. I ended up just plain old “lost” with no good idea of distance or pace.

When we started, the previous race (a relay half) was still going, and the lap clock reflected their race. I didn’t have a watch, I didn’t know how to figure out when we’d gone a mile…so I just ran what felt comfortably fast. I thought I’d get it figured out and settle into 7:40-ish miles and take it from there.

As it turned out, there was just no way to know how fast I was running, or have anything more than a vague sense of laps completed. I couldn't see the lap display monitor other than every now and then when going by the start/finish mat. And for some reason, the announcer called all kinds of lap counts for everyone else pretty often, and mine only two or three times throughout the race.

When the timing clock changed to our race, I tried to aim for 1:35 laps with no solid idea of what that translated to in per mile time (I had calculated ahead of time that a 1:30 lap was about a 7:30 mile +/-). After a while I knew I needed to slow that to 1:40s or it would get ugly. But I just wasn’t able to read the clock, add 1:40 and figure out what time I should hit when I got to the clock again. So I just ran by effort, which would have been ok if I knew how far along I was.

It was the least ‘social’ race I’ve ever run. I’m not a big chatter at all, but in this race you never could run side-by-side and just be friendly with someone for a few moments -- you had to leave the track open to the outside, so that meant you just followed the person in front until you popped out and passed them, then tucked in front of them. I felt constant pressure to yield to the faster runners lapping me, while speeding up to pass the people I was lapping, then get back to the inside, settle into pace…then around the corner. Getting lapped constantly was actually distracting.

Did ok through about 50 laps, then just got tired of it and lost focus. For example, I went by and the board said 50 laps done, then I caught my entry on the monitor a few laps later (2 laps later..4 laps later...who knows? I just couldn’t keep lap counts for some reaspn) and it looked to me like it still showed 50 laps to go.  Also, at around 50 laps or so, my left hip starting cramping, I think from the constant turns.  Uggh. I came close to DNF just out of frustration.

As always with this RD, it was well organized. It was nice to race in January with no worries about the weather, or footing. Overall, I’m glad to have tried it. Not sure I’d do it again, but time may ease my distaste.

Think of it this way, MT. Every race teaches you something and I think this is a unique one to try.

It looks like Meg nailed it and summed it all up back in mid-December...

Can't imagine running that one.  You must be pretty tough both mentally and phyiscally to be able to finish that.  I get bored doing our speed workouts on the track and those are at most 8 laps at a time... I bow down to the ol' great one.