Thursday 6 April 2006

Round-and-round the mulberry bush

Would you believe it? When I got back from Patagonia at the end of Feb I got my paws on the 2006 road running booklet to look for some runs to do. Lo-and-behold an event caught my eye... the Toyota 12-hour Circuit Race in Randburg (the date in the CGA book is wrong).

In road running, circuit races are event where you run around and around and around a set course for a finite period of time. This event actually has a 6-day category (these crazy buggers started running this past Sunday and are out there running as I type this), a 24-hr category and a 12-hour category. As I've never done one of these, I figured the 12-hour would be a good place to begin. We start at 19h00 this Friday night and finish at 07h00 on Saturday morning.

Must say, when I first checked this event out I was all pumped to try the 24-hr, afterall I ran reasonably comfortably (if you discount the downhills) for 22h30 in Hawaii on gnarly trails. I figured a 1km loop on even terrain should be a piece-of-cake eh? Then I got to thinking that to log an official finish in the 12-hour event we have to run 70km minimum. That's quite a bit and unlike running on trails, my pace will be even, it will be faster and my body is likely to take more pounding. So I toned down my enthusiasm a bit ;)

I've got no idea what running on a 1km loop for 12-hours is going to be like so I'll let y'all know post-run. Have I done any specific training? Nah. I'm going in cold turkey. First time for everything...

Our AR Club gazebo (navy blue with white branding) will be up so if you're doing nothing in the very wee hours of Saturday morning, stop by for a cuppa and a muffin with my mom, Liz. She's my ever-present support (thank you mom).

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