This past Saturday I met five other runners whom I had never met before to form team Six Degrees and run the 63+ mile Hendrick’s County Park-2-Park Relay in Indiana. All of us knew someone in common so the team name made sense. Sixteen teams of six runners as well as six ultra marathoners took off at various times Saturday morning to complete the course. For the relay teams the course was ~63+ miles and the ultra runners took on a 50+ mile course solo.

Our team consisted of Jen, Liz, Donnie, Jessica, John and me (Brian). I was designated “Runner 1” for the team and ran the furthest distance (only by a few tenths of miles though). We each took three legs of the course with me running legs one, seven and thirteen. I got lost for about 10-15 minutes on leg #2 due to a lack of signage coming out of a wooded area, but otherwise I had no trouble on my three legs of the journey. The final leg had me and another team’s runner racing to the transition area at a dead sprint with both teams cheering us on til the next runner on our teams took off. It was a great way to end my part of the relay!

The weather while sunny and clear was also very hot! The first few legs were relatively cool, but as soon as the sun was above the tree tops the heat climbed quickly and reached the daily high of 90 degrees. The sun beat on us all day, but we found a little comfort in the AC of our support vehicle (Thanks Donnie!). Overall, it was a great day even with the extreme heat. If I don’t do the relay again next year then I may do the ultra as my second 50-mile race. For now though I’m back to focusing on training for my first 50-miler!

Happy Training!

Brian