On New Years Eve for the past few years, I’ve run a race in San Francisco called the New Year’s One Day. It’s a timed race, which means you run as many miles as you can in a set period of time. The course is a one-mile loop around Chrissy Field. You’d think it feels like running in a hamster wheel, but it’s actually a really fun course – you get to see the Golden Gate Bridge every ten minutes, and watching the light change over the course of the day is a gorgeous thing to behold.

The first two years I ran this, I tried for the 24-hour version, with varying degrees of success, stopping at just about 8 hours in 2015 and after 17 hours in 2016. Last year, I ran the 6-hour version came in 3rd, which was pretty neat!

This year, however, the race moved to January 5th, which sort of defeats the purpose of the activity – e.g., running it on New Year’s. So, instead, I went to Zurich and ran a marathon at midnight there.

But I just couldn’t stay away. I love this race. So I came back to SF and ran the 6-hour race on Jan 5th. And it was awesome.

Part of the motivation to run this year was that a couple of amazing ladies I know were also running. Ingrid, of Lake Cabot 50k Fame, had signed up for the 24-hour race, because she is a beast. Cyndi, who ran her first ultra at Burning Man, wanted to run her birthday miles, so she signed up for the 6-hour as well. So it was a pretty easy decision to join them both.

Last year, I came in 3rd at this race, with 34.1 miles run in 6 hours. This year, my goal was to run between 36-40 miles in six hours, which would put me somewhere between a 9-minute and 10-minute pace. Given that I’d just run a marathon four days earlier, I wasn’t sure how possible it would be, so I “recovered” and tapered hard for in the intervening period.  I did a three mile tempo run two days before the race, and nothing else – I felt well-rested when I got to the start line.

Start line

The forecast was for torrential downpour. I wasn’t too concerned since it would be a short-ish race and I’d be moving the whole time, so I planned to wear a short-sleeved shirt and shorts for the whole race. I showed up to the start line with an umbrella and warm jacket, though.

When I got to the start, it was drizzling slightly. My Pokemon umbrella was immediately put to good use. My drop-bag was well-waterproofed – and by that, I mean that I put some extra clothes in a plastic trash bag. I stashed it in the drop-bag area, under the designated tent-covered picnic table, and went in search of of Ingrid and Cyndi.

I immediately found Ingrid, who was bundled up like she was headed to Alaska, but had absolutely no other gear that I could see, despite prepping for a 24-hour run (she’s a real badass – did I mention that she accidentally won a 100-mile race last year?). Cyndi arrived a few minutes later, and the three of us all sat in Ingrid’s super warm car to catch up for a bit before the race started.

We headed over to the start line about five minutes before the start of the race, which was pretty luxurious. I stripped off my own Arctic gear and was immediately freezing. Our intrepid race director, Wendell, counted us down, then we took off.

Beginning

When I think I’m going to run a fast race, I like to speed up for the first minute or two in order to scope out the field and see who else is thinking about going fast. Because a lot of folks running this race would be on the course much longer than I would be, it was pretty easy to break from the crowd to accomplish this. About a quarter of the way through the first lap, I had a decent idea of what was going on. Specifically, a girl with super long hair was already way ahead of me. But she was pretty much the only one, I thought!

In order to measure how far we run, we wear these grey, Velcro-clad ankle bracelets with chips in them. The chips are triggered at a timing mat, which beeps every time we run across. The mat is set up at the beginning of the mile loop (or, mile-ish – this year, the course was 1.0275 miles long, I think, which is shorter than previous years). The mat-and-chip combo keeps track of the number of laps we do. The ankle bracelets are pretty unobtrusive and don’t chafe at all, although they do look a bit like the kind that ex-cons under house arrest wear.

I ran a few laps at a pretty good pace – about 9-minute miles. At the end of lap three, I realized I hadn’t heard the timing beep when I crossed the mat, so I spent the next mile planning to pay closer attention. At the end of mile four, I realized that the timer had definitely not beeped. So I stopped for a minute to validate that this was an issue. Wendell gave me another anklet, and I did another lap. For a few miles, I made sure to call out what lap I was on (“Starting lap six!”). By lap eight, it was all sorted out, and we were back in the game.

Around lap seven, I saw Ingrid, who was looking great and cruising.

Middle

Around mile 10 or 12, I found Cyndi. She has a super fast base pace – faster than me for sure. She likes to take breaks at aid stations though, so it often evens out. She was a lap or two behind me, but we fell into pace together for a solid eight or nine miles. It was awesome to get to chat with her and catch up on life. Alex, her boyfriend, who also ran Burning Man 50k, came to cheer us on for one lap – it was awesome to see him on the course. It started raining quite a bit during the stretch Cyndi and I ran together – we were drenched for a few laps!

Around mile 19 or 20, I was struggling a bit (but, on the plus side, had dried off from the rain). I ran another lap or two with Cyndi, then let her go ahead while I did a few laps of refueling. I popped my caffeine Gu and grabbed some PB&J sandwiches and those delicious peanut-butter filled pretzels at the aid station. I was hoping these calories would help, but I still had about two hours of running to go. I was not feeling super great about my prospects of hitting my 36-40 mile goals – I felt like I had started out too fast, and my hamstrings were really beat. However, I hadn’t brought a watch and there was no timer on the course, so I wasn’t totally sure how much time had elapsed.

Around this time, it really started raining again. I was completely soaked in about sixty seconds. It rained like this for probably 20-30 minutes. It was so unexpected – this downpour – that it was super energizing in ts absurdity. The rain provided a much-needed boost of energy and excitement for me, and I picked up the pace quite a bit. I’m also very excited to see the photos from this part of the race – I do not photograph well while running, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how much my running form could be confused for that of a wet sea lion during these laps.

End

At some point, I asked someone how much time had elapsed. We were about four and a half hours into the race. I think I was about 27 or 28 miles into the race. Whatever it was, I knew that if I kept up around a ten minute pace, I could probably hit my 36-mile goal.

I was at a bit of a decision juncture. I wasn’t in a great headspace – I had a lot of negative thoughts in my mind during this stretch. Here’s what I was thinking:

• I’m tired and my leg muscles hurt.
• I didn’t taper for this race, so really didn’t have any right to think I could go fast.
• I haven’t run a distance longer than a marathon since August, so my preparation for this race was … sub optimal.
• I don’t know how far ahead that one girl from the beginning of the race was, or if there were any other women in front of me.
• I feel bad for trying to use a podium-finish as a motivation – there’s a bit of a weird stigma against “racing” / running for competition in ultras, and I’ve never really gotten past that. I’m also not a super fast / competitive runner, so I always feel weird using that as motivation, since I don’t feel like I have a right to it because I’m not that fast.
• I only have 90 minutes left of running, so I’m a slacker for even thinking about slacking, and I should just muscle through.
• Speaking of muscles, I’m tired and my leg muscles hurt …

Someone once said that the definition of intelligence is being able to hold two contradicting ideas in your mind and still be able to function. When I think about all of the gifts that running has given to me, I think about this one the most. Running has given me a very powerful ability to be zen in the face of difficulty. I can hold two opposing ideas in my mind – the fact that this running is hard and I want to stop, and the fact that I really don’t want to stop because I want to be proud of my effort – and still function. Or, as I really learned at Mountains2Beach – this is hard, and I can do it.

So I kept running.

At some point, I asked for the time – we had about 50 minutes left. I’d just finished my 31st lap. I was feeling optimistic – I could run 12-minute miles and finish 4 more laps, which would get me to 35 laps, or about 36 miles. So I’d be right at the bottom of my range – a good enough finish! I could also run about 10-minute miles and get one more lap in.

So, I asked myself – what’s it gonna be?

I ran another lap, then had 40 minutes lap. I told myself if I finished my 35th lap with more than 9 minutes on the clock, I’d sprint it out for the last lap. So I ran another lap and had 30 minutes left. I found a guy with a feather in his baseball cap – Rickey – who was finish up, so I ran this lap with him. Then I ran another lap with Rickey and had 21 minutes left … I was running faster than a 10-minute pace! While Rickey got a quick beer, I ran another lap and had … 12 whole minutes left?! I ran my last lap and finished with a few minutes to spare.

36 laps … 37 miles! I was ecstatic. That’s about three more miles than I ran in the same time last year, which is a pretty great accomplishment.

Afterwards

Cyndi met me at the finish line – she had run her farthest distance ever, about 33 miles. Not bad at all for her 2nd ultra. I think she’s got the bug …

I hung around for the awards ceremony, and was excited to learn that I’d come in 2nd! The girl ahead of me had only run one more lap than I had, which was a meaningful distance, but not as much distance as I’d thought based on her pace for the first few laps. I didn’t think I had another lap in me, so I didn’t have any regrets. 2nd place is not bad at all.

Cyndi and I stayed for a few extra minutes to cheer Ingrid on for one more lap, then Cyndi and I went to get quesadillas at a Mexican place nearby. I went home and showered, then headed out – I was going to visit a friend and spend the night at their place.

That night, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ingrid, who was still out there, running in the rain. I woke up a few times and almost got out of bed to go check up on her. It was a strange feeling – I think I just have developed an extreme appreciation for how hard those early hours of the morning are in this race – they are cold and lonely and exhausting, and I knew it was raining. When I woke up, after a quick coffee with my friend, I went back to the race to see the last hour of it. It turned out that she’d stopped around 77 miles (an insane distance) and headed home because the cold and wet was really unbearable. I’m pretty sure she still came in 3rd overall, which is an incredible accomplishment. It was not an easy day on that course.

All in all, this was yet another fun New Year’s One Day. I loved getting to see my girlfriends running, and I was proud of my own accomplishment as well.

I’ll post race photos when I have them. Look forward to the wet seal running pose …