Texas Independence Relay

It’s looking unlikely that I’ll be able to do the marathon.  There’s this space-time continuum thing that I’m having trouble rearranging for my personal purposes.

However, in March there’s a bigger event called the Texas Independence Relay.  It starts in Gonzales and ends at the San Jacinto Monument, near LaPorte.  It’s a relay, so you don’t have to run all 203.2 miles all on your own (but you could, if you’re a real man, it’d only be a 30 hour run at 9:00 per mile).

If you have an 8 man team (person?), then averaging 9:00 per mile puts you at about 40 minutes of running, then 5 hours of resting, then 40 minutes of running, 5 hours of resting, for a total of 5 iterations.  The total distance covered (5 legs, plus the pro- and epi- logues) is a little under 27 miles.

In 5 mile chunks.

Every 5 hours.

 

That’s not so bad.

Alternatively, you could double up the first 2 assignments and run approximately 10 miles—90 minutes—then rest for almost 10 hours, then run another 10, then rest another 10, then the last leg is only half that distance and you’re home.  That’s not so bad, either.

 

That said, I’ve never run 10 miles twice in the same 24 hour period (except for the marathon), nor have I run 5 miles 5 times in the same day (again, except for the marathon).  I would guess that there is a different dynamic when you’re napping in the back of a van between runs than when you’re smushing them all together at once, though.

 

I think I’ve just about talked myself into doing this thing.  Maybe I’ll go nuts and RIDE the route.  A double century would be a nice little trophy to put in my “badass” cabinet next to the MS150 medallions, marathon memories, and statistics trophy.