If you're unfamiliar with the Tommyknocker 12 Hour race, I'll give a little more background information. This race takes place in White Ranch Open Space in Golden, CO. Racers begin at the bottom of the open space and run 5.5 miles to the top, where the main aid station is. This is where the fun begins. The race director, Sherpa John, is at the aid station with a bucket ping pong balls of various colors. Each racer reaches into the bucket and draws a colored ball, and then runs the loop that is flagged with the same color flags as the colored ball they drew. So your course is up to luck!
I set out today with the idea that 50k would be an absolute minimum distance for me, and I would see how far I could push it.
The open space was foggy and very green from the bottom.
White Ranch Open Space looks like a beautiful place to run on a regular basis! I regret not running more often when I lived in Golden during my first two years of college. There are lots of gorgeous grassy meadows and layered granite rock formations. Not a bad place to spend 12 hours running in loops!
After running up from the bottom, all racers ran the green loop - the shortest loop at 2.1 miles. That was a nice little warm-up and I felt pretty confident. Of course, as it is with ultras, that was bound to change. I drew a yellow ball. Yellow is the longest loop at 6 miles, and boy was it muddy!! I started to feel pretty defeated after the yellow loop.
After yellow, I drew orange. A 3.8 mile loop, orange is an in-between loop. Not the easiest like green, but not a killer like yellow. During my orange loop, the weather improved for a time and the sun actually began to shine. This dried up some of the nasty mud I had faced in the yellow loop. I returned to the aid station after the orange loop ready to face more.
Of course, at this point I drew the black ball.
The black ball is a punishment. My punishment was to walk about 400 meters and pick up the little pink flags. Bonus mileage! This actually wasn't a bad punishment because I earned an override ball. Now, if I drew yellow again, I could choose to go green instead.
I drew orange loop again. I'll take it, I said. Another orange loop it was.
I was getting pretty tired after one green, one yellow, and two orange loops, but I still had time left. It was after 1:30pm when I got back to the aid station. I drew orange yet again. One more orange for the win!
After my third orange loop, it was after 3pm and I contemplated getting ready to go down to the finish. However, at the aid station, John told us we could choose our next option. We could pick orange, green, or go down to the finish.
Naturally, with green on the table, I submitted myself to another 2.1 miles of joy before I'd allow myself to finish this thing.
After my last green loop, I would only have enough time to head for the finish. I was pretty toasted from an all-out day letting little balls pick my fate!
I ran just about as slow as humanly possible to the bottom, where I finished the day with 10 minutes before 6pm. My loops amounted to GYOOOG, green yellow orange orange orange green. (Somehow, I never drew red.) Or a total of 33.24 miles officially! My GPS of course told me it was over 34 miles, but who's counting? ;)
Another fun day with great people and a well-deserved opportunity to sleep in on a Sunday. I'd recommend this race to anyone who wants to run a timed ultra with a bit of chance/luck involved!
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