Stone Mill was supposed to be my last race of the year. I should be smack dab in the middle of my fat and happy training cycle, however there’s a chance I’m not quite done yet with 2020.
I was scrolling through run100s.com the other day (no, I don’t have an issue) and I stumbled across a race I’d never heard of before – Hainesport Hundred. It was all the way at the bottom of the calendar on New Year’s Eve and I noticed it’s held in NJ. Since it wasn’t familiar to me, I figured it was way up in the northern part of the state. So I was pretty shocked to see that it’s not too far across the bridge from Philly or 70 minutes away.
Doing a hundred mile race an hour from my house?!?! I’m very interested.
My son was on his Xbox in the same room and was somehow able to notice my excitement over his Call of Duty game. He asked me about it and I quickly told him about the format. That being a 24 hour race on a 1 mile loop with the option of going for 100 miles in 30 hours if you hit 80 miles in 24 hours. He immediately expressed interest as he did a 12 hour race last year and has wanted to improve on his performance. I took his interest into the family room to tell my wife who said she would be in for a 24 hour race.
Doing a hundred mile race an hour from my house with my family?!?! I don’t know what could possibly stop this from happening.
Oh, that’s right. There’s this raging pandemic thing that’s been rampaging across the country for the past 9 months. And COVID seems to want to go all next level on us here. I emailed the RD to see if they had their permits and they said they were good to go. Still I paused on hitting the registration button as the race wasn’t doing refunds. There’s no guarantee that their permits won’t get yanked at some point over the next month and while I’ll definitely do the race, I’d rather them not have my $600 for a year. At this point, it’s costs the same to sign up now or 3 days before the race so I’m just going to wait.
The risk is that the race sells out, however it’s a first year race in the middle of winter. I’m willing to bet that people aren’t going to be beating down their timing mats to sign up. Waiting also provides an opportunity for a better weather forecast. I don’t mind running in colder temperatures, but I will take a hard pass on 6 hours of running in rainy 30 degree temps. Yesterday’s forecast was for 30 mile an hour winds and 11 degree wind chill temperatures overnight. The forecast is better today, but it’ll change 20+ more times before now and New Years.
Even if I’m willing to deal with the crappy weather, I want my wife and son to have a good time. 24 hours is a long time to be moving, especially outside in winter. There’s a world of difference between being cold and dry and cold and wet. If you’re wet, there’s almost nothing you can do to stay warm. If it’s dry, you can just keep tossing on layers until you warm up.
All this is a long way of saying I may have one more race left this year. Or maybe not. I’ve spent all year getting psyched up for races and then having them cancelled. I figure I’ll take the opposite approach to this one. I’ll just chill, try not to think about it much, and then be pleasantly surprised if it goes off.
Though maybe that’s not the best way to train for a hundred miles. . .