At the Candlelight 12 & 24 Hour, run as many laps/miles as you can in 12 or 24 hours. The race course is a 0.98-mile, mostly paved loop with about 150 yards of fairly smooth wide trail surface – no ankle twisters! The first half of the course goes gradually …
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At the Candlelight 12 & 24 Hour, run as many laps/miles as you can in 12 or 24 hours. The race course is a 0.98-mile, mostly paved loop with about 150 yards of fairly smooth wide trail surface – no ankle twisters! The first half of the course goes gradually downhill. The second half of the loop goes gradually uphill. Most of the course is shaded, and about 40% of the course has a heavy tree coverage (translation – you will need a good headlamp for this race).
There is no minimum required amount of time to be on the course, nor will you DNF (did not finish) if you do not run the entire 12 hours. One complete Lap of the course qualifies you for an official finish. You can run as long or as short as you want, depending on your personal goals. Walking, stopping to rest, and even napping is allowed.
The course will feature one fully stocked aid station with great ultra fare throughout the run. Also, it will be easy to self-support – bring your own cooler, tent, chair, and/or other supplies and set up your personal aid station that you can visit every Lap.
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New Location, New Farm Animals
This is my second year participating in this race. However this year it had to be moved from the equicenter to a camp located about 20 minutes outside Rochester. I … MORE
This is my second year participating in this race. However this year it had to be moved from the equicenter to a camp located about 20 minutes outside Rochester. I actually helped out at the diabetes camp held there a couple weeks ago so I was very familiar with the new location. The actual logistics and production were about the same as last year so my previous review is still useful. There was a trucker hat for swag item along with bib. For this race you can run as many or as few laps as you would like in 12 hours to be considered a finisher. This year when I was initially signed up I was hoping to push myself but then I got reinjured. I still decided to use this as an opportunity to work on increasing endurance and decided to walk until 10 miles or if I felt any pain in my foot to stop. The course this year at the camp was much easier than the one at the equicenter with about half the elevation gain. It was again a 1 mile lap. The first half is a gradual downhill and second half a gradual uphill. All runnable though for strategy it would make sense to run the downhill and walk the uphill if you are hoping to go all night. There is a timing mat and a screen with the number of laps to help you keep track. Scenery at the camp was very nice with most of it paved and a small portion on non-technical trail in the woods. The woods were gorgeous at night with lots of fireflies. I was sad the race moved since there wouldn’t be the horses but this camp also had farm animals. There were pigs, alpaca and chickens. The pigs were really friendly and each lap I would stop by and they would come over to me. At one point they were following me around. There was a very well stocked aid station near the start. This year they had both swedish fish and twizzlers and added electrolyte drink along with soda, chips, PBJ, pickles and other stuff. I believe they had real food throughout the night too. Halfway through mile 6 I felt a bit of pain in my foot and decided to stop after 7 miles. I would have liked to continue but I needed to look at the big picture and my foot felt fine the next day so it was the right call. Even though the rule is technical only people who run the first and last hour get a medal, the RD gave me a medal knowing I was recovering from injury and still making it out there. Again this is a very fun race I plan to do again and hopefully healthy enough to continue for longer in the night.
Up All Night...or Not
I will preface this by saying I was not planning to and I did not run ultradistance. I was on call this weekend so had to do local races and … MORE
I will preface this by saying I was not planning to and I did not run ultradistance. I was on call this weekend so had to do local races and saw this one and thought it would be an interesting way to get a long run in. This was my first time doing a fixed time race and it was a blast. This is a race at the local Equicenter and the course consists of 1.07 mile laps around the center that you run all night from 7pm to 7am. You don’t have to run the whole time to be an official finisher, you just have to finish 1 lap. The weather continued to be pretty terrible and rainy all day and night. Packet pick-up was at the center starting at 5:30 PM. Runners were also able to set up their own personal aid station. I didn’t opt for this as there was a well-stocked aid station and I wasn’t planning to run 12 hours but good idea if you are. Parking was a little muddy. As I got out of my car I realized I wished I brought a hat since it was raining. Packet pickup was in a barn and included with the bib was indeed a hat! That was a convenient surprise. Before the race while the ultra runners were prepping their stations, I was wondering around the equicenter admiring the beautiful horses and also meeting the 2 very friendly barn cats. One of which who is appropriately named Bandit I caught banditing the course (see pic!). The race started at 7pm. The course was moderately difficult with about 100 feet of elevation gain per lap. It was figure 8 shaped. This was very convenient for being on call as I was never more than 1/2 mile away from my car so I didn’t have to worry about taking a pen and paper and taking calls on the course. The first part was on grass around the equicenter and past the horses. It started with a slight downhill then a slight uphill where a lot of the aid stations were set up. Then it was a bit on a gravel road followed by a bit on concrete and then a stepper downhill on grass through a meadow followed by a flat area, then a steeper uphill on grass, then a short downhill and short up. Then on a gravel road again where you pass the barn which is the aid station. The aid station was very well stocked with PBJ sandwiches, chips, candy, pickles, oreos, and some sodas. They didn’t have twizzlers but they had swedish fish my second favorite racing candy. At around 9:30pm they also had pizza delivered. I stopped at the aid station every 3 laps for some swedish fish and mountain dew to keep me going. After the aid station you pass the start/finish line. This was chipped timed. I like how just past the finish line they had a screen with how many miles you went. This was great so if you were looking to go a specific distance you could be sure you went far enough and not have to rely on your Garmin or mental math. Then you did it over again. It was fun chatting with runners and seeing the horses but the course got super muddy and it was really cold in the rain. I had one page during the race and I went to my car to answer it and it was hard to leave my warm car to go back out there. In order to get the medal you had to start your first lap at 7:30pm and finish your last lap at 6:30am. As I said I was not looking to run all night. I’ve stayed up all night enough in my life during medical training to never want to do it again. But I really love medals. I would never break the rules but I will bend them and there is no rules about what you have to do inbetween your first and last lap so my game plan was to run about 3 hours in the evening, go home and get some sleep and then come back and do another hour in the morning to get my medal. I ended up doing 16 laps or 17.12 miles total which met my goal of going at least half marathon distance. The medal is a typical wooden ultra medal. I then said bye to my new horse friends and left with some very muddy sneakers. This was a great weekend of muddy running in Rochester. As I said I have no desire to run all night ever and do this for 12 hours straight, but I would do this race every year that I am in town even if just for a few laps. I would definitely recommend this race if you are a fan of fixed time races, looking for a unstressful way to complete a marathon or 50K distance, or just looking for a fun way to get a longer run in or even if you’re not looking for a long run come and do a few laps!