Today I was able to participate in a six person marathon relay!
It took place indoors at the enormous rec complex in Gillette, WY. A spectacular venue for such an event.
Initially I was going to do the full marathon as a warmup, long run at 90% goal marathon pace, and cool down. However Sunday I developed a fever through Monday. Tuesday or Wednesday the fever was gone, however I was in no shape to do a long run on Saturday, so called the RD to drop down to an opened slot in the relay team going from town.
On the 200m track, each runner was do to 35 laps with one doing 36, making for about 4.4 mile legs per runner.
Zoolander would have had issues with this event.
With a 5k pace of 5:40 I was kind of hoping to average 6:00 pace for the 4.5 miles of my leg with 45 second laps. No doubt that would have been fine if I was healthy, however going by feel I was only able to manage a 49 second fairly consistent average with 6:30 miles. That’s marathon pace, yikes!
Moral of the story is running after having a fever and a could is no joke!
On the bright side, I was able to hang out with the rest of the team, which was super fun. This was my first relay and it was certainly a blast cheering people on and getting to talk running all day 🙂 Plus we brought home the Rapid City team’s second win in a row!
Something that surprised me is how unmotivating the other runners on the track were. I thought having the other teams there with you, on the track and cheering on the side would be super motivating. Ironically though, it just felt like a solo time trial. I had no real idea where the other runners on the track where at, so I was not really racing against anyone else.
