JOY OF SIX
Can running a 1km loop on a French campsite for six days lead you to a higher state of being? Adharanand Finn searches for wisdom and transcendence among the exhaustion and imaginary fireworks
As I stood on the start line of the 6 Jours de France on a warm and blustery afternoon in the Ardèche region of southern France, I had to ask myself: What the hell am I doing here? Am I mad?
A few years ago, after running my sixth marathon, I found myself moving on to ultramarathons. They were tough, but each one was an unforgettable, life-enriching adventure. Although not quite enough, it seems. Like a thrill seeker who needs to keep pushing the envelope, once I heard about six-day races, I was intrigued.
Six-day races are distinct from six-day stage races, such as the Marathon des Sables, in that they run continuously – 24 hours a day, for six days – and rather than traversing a great desert or mountain range, you simply run around and around a short, flat loop – in this case, 1.1km around a French campsite.
Such races, it turns out, have a long and noble tradition. Bizarrely, back in the 1870s, six-day racing was the biggest sport in the world, with world championship events taking place in venues such as New York’s Madison Square Garden, in front of crowds of up to 35,000. The results made the front page of The New York Times and prize purses were worth up to £500,000 in today’s money.
The sport’s time in the limelight may have passed, but the history gave some credence to the event. This wasn’t just some cranks thinking up ways to torture themselves, but a proper distance with history and records.
For many, the thought of running laps for so long may sound unbearably dull, but I found myself drawn by the inner journey involved. I’d run a 24-hour track race twice before and while the scenery may have been monotonous, the races themselves were never boring. It was the racing experience stripped bare. There was no epic landscape to distract you, or to battle against, or to lose yourself in. It was just you and the act of moving. As one runner told me, ‘In a race like this, it’s not you versus the mountain, it’s you versus you.’
Numbers game
BEFORE MY SIX-DAY RACE, I set myself a goal. That seemed important. It gave me something to shoot for and a pace to try to maintain. I had once run 100km (62 miles) in just over 12 hours, so I figured running 100km every 24 hours should be fairly achievable. So, I set my goal as 600km.
I started at what felt like a snail’s pace. The flat course reminded me of a Scalextric track, looping out in a wide oval at both ends, with a long straight middle section you traversed in both directions. It even had a little chicane. And we were the little cars, except we
