With the 6 inch ultra marathon  this weekend I should be tapering for the last week before some serious carbo loading from Thursday onwards. ( http://www.6inchtrailmarathon.com ) The only fly in my ointment is I seem to have double booked myself with my first 100k ultra next month. ( http://australiadayultra.com ) So the quandary I am in is do I that the 6 inch ultra as a long training run and as such do not taper or do I race both events which would mean I should stop running some time this week ?  (Probably shouldn’t have run 141k  and 14 times last week including a race albeit a small one.)

My times at the 6 inch ultra have never really been that quick bar a 2nd place finish one year when the first 5 all got disqualified for taking a wrong turn and coming down the finishing road instead of crossing it. Truth be told the first three runners (which included a two times winner!) could have back tracked to the point they got lost and still come across the line ahead of the rest of the field, they were probably 20-30 minutes ahead of the next group which included me. Funnily enough this was the one and only year Dave Kennedy, the Race Director, put up money. I managed to grab 2nd and my friend, and navigator Brett , got third. We both offered our prices to the guys who should had won the money but they both declined saying ‘rules are rules’. I think the chaos  of the decision to DQ the top 5 put paid to any monetary prize money from then on, and the race is better for it. (though it was a nice surprise at the time to go from 7th to 2nd.)  So the logic behind my plan not to taper for the 6 inch would be the 100k Australia Day Ultra takes precedence and thus I need to put in a big 3 weeks including this one to properly prepare for it.

I would of course still set a race goal finish time and this would be another sub 4 hour finish to go with the five I already have. Both times I have failed to run sub 4 hours have been down to geographical challenges. i.e. I got lost. The first time was due to a rather large snake placed just at a very important and unmarked left turn. (I suspect the Race Director, who was also running, placed said snake myself but this has never been substantiated.) Myself and Brett were too busy jumping over the snake, a Tiger snake we think, to notice the left turn and this cost us a four kilometre detour. This was the first time I ran the 6 inch so could probably be excused this small detour. The next time I got last was the 7th time I’d ran the race and this was near the end when I was closing in on a good sub 4 finish and a top 10 placing. To make it worse I convinced another runner he was going the wrong way and to follow me, as it turns out on a 3-4k detour. Sorry Phil.

Running for a sub 4 also allows me to spend a large amount of the race with my Sunday morning crew who will also be targeting times around the four hour mark. Although this is a race, and if you drop off the pace you will be left for dead, it is one of the most sociable occasions which much banter and there’s always a talking point or three somewhere along the course.

The 6 inch has grown from a fat-ass (a free entry, self supported race) twelve years ago to a 350 sell out it is today. Dave has also added a half marathon (the 3 inch, it had to be really.) which also sells out quickly and I’m assuming the same amount of numbers.  As it is so close to Christmas it has turned into the ‘last race of the year‘ type run with a great social gathering at the end where everybody can reflect on the race and start to unwind towards Christmas. I think, truth be told, I enjoy the end of this race , and the banter about the day, more than the race itself; actually no, it’s a close call though which is a nice position to be in.

Another great part of the 6 inch is the tradition of a railway nail (spike) rather than a medal as a finishers reward. For the first few years we all got black ‘spikes’ before the race got too popular and Dace couldn’t find enough old railway spikes without first derailing some trains ! Now you get a red spike for 6 finishes and we’re not sure what you get for twelve but will find out this year as Nate will have ran all twelve of the 6 inch races.

I seemed to have digressed for a change and will try and get back the point of the post. I think for this rendition of the 6 inch I need to finish sub 4 but also it’s as important to get another big week in for the Australia Day Ultra. Thus rather than a pre-race week of only 2 * 10k easy runs (which I my normal pre-marathon race routine) I’m going to try and find 100k from somewhere pre-race Sunday; without starting the race too fatigued. This in itself will be a challenge but as I always say if it was easy everybody would be doing it.