Hula Hooping the Race in 2006
Team Hoop Breaks their World Record in 2006!
May 29th, 2006 7:30am was the first time that Team Hoop would meet & practice. This was 1 hour before our start time. Our schedules were just to busy to have group trial runs prior to the race so I hoped that the team would understand the tasks. The morning was a beautiful 65 degrees & sunny; typical mountain weather. We all gathered in front of Vics coffee house on 30th St. This was across from the start & a great place to do some run throughs.
I should mention that the night before Siri & I hooped for a few hours at the local Creek Festival to a tribal rock band, Kanal. The wind in Boulder can be fierce & that night they created a few really bad dust storms. Shortly thereafter I had trouble breathing & realized that I might have a sinus infection.
Team Hoop consisted of 2 front runners; Mary Ann Briggs & Nick Sorge, 2 back runners; Siri Schubert & Hans. Paula was the camera woman, Peter Steele, took still photos & Pam Harvey was an extra, handling fundraising for LAF & handing out my business cards. I put the team in a much faster wave than last year so that we would not have to pass as many people. We were the MD wave which is the middle wave of joggers. There are tons of waves from running to jogging, to jog/walking, to walking. There are about 50 thousand people in this race. It is one of the 2 biggest road races in the country! As in any team race we had to use strategy to do well. Mary Ann was a front runner last year who has an awesome way of physically & kindly moving people out of the way. We briefed the new team on the many possibilities of someone entering the bubble & knocking the hoop down. We got into formation at the start line & had our prayer circle. 8:27am. The hoop started spinning & did not stop until the finish at about 9:54. The start was a bit scary because there were so many joggers behind us that wanted to pass. Siri, Hans & Pam held hands to make sure that no one ran into my hoop. The back end had to run backward at times to communicate with the passing runners to let them know to go around.
If you are running in a race & are told to go around, your reaction time is not quick. Everyone basically jogged the whole race with their arms out to block others who were unknowingly running straight for the hoop. Runners came from all sides as the race started to thin out & I hoped that my choice to be in a faster wave would work. Pam assigned herself as a much needed middle blocker in the back & she was still able to hand out the cards. There were many times were I saw her, out of the corner of my eye, physically get pushed by racers who wanted to pass her rather than go around the bubble. She held strong & did not let anyone through.
As for what it looked like ahead of me, there were just as many racers that had no idea the Hoop Secret Service was approaching. We would have to slow down to let Mary Ann, Nick & Peter (who was taking pictures & front running at this point) until they got people out of the way. I was in constant communication with the back runners yelling commands as they might not hear or see what the front was doing. WAIT meant that we were slowing down to wait for the front to clear so that we could move forward, HARD RIGHT & HARD LEFT meant that a corner was coming WATCH meant that someone slipped into the bubble & I needed them out, KID meant that a kid running right toward me as they can move fast & not be seen, RUN mean let’s run for as long as I can endure or until we come up to another crowd of runners & have to break them up to get past. And my most popular phrase was always IM SORRY-THANK YOU FOR LETTING US PASS.
Within the first mile we out ran the camera woman. She was not really trained for this although she knew the drill. She is a nice lady who took a digger, managed to save the camera & catch up to us once. It would have been nice if she handed off one of the cameras to us but she did not. So other than the pre race drill we have no live coverage. I used my standard one liner in the first mile to see if everyone was paying attention & said that I needed to stop to tie my shoe. Nick laughed every time I yelled “sorry” to people as we passed. Siri had made an artistic sign which said WIDE LOAD in glitter. People were of course running to fast to process words but I’m sure they enjoyed the image.
This race is awesome because there are so many teams running to promote businesses & causes. There are people running in wigs, people sporting pretty underwear on top of their shorts & families running together. What really makes this race such a strong community event are the Boulder locals who entertain on their lawns & the sidewalks. Boulder is known for attracting many entrepreneurs & what better way to get exposure than to set up your band & play for the racers. We passed a number of bands, DJS, belly dancers, & groups of people cheering everyone on with water hoses. There were a number of water/ Gatorade stations & at one point I slowed everyone down so that Mary Ann could hand me a cup of Gatorade as I hoop/jogged. I never drank it before but I think it really helped.
Team Hoop hugged the left side of the road to be out of peoples’ way as best we could. The water stations were sometimes on both sides of the street so moving straight through the crowd was tough. Racers would run across the road rather than go forward so it was hard to plan a course through these sections. For a good ¼ mile after these stations the road would get sticky from the tossed Gatorade & would become a land mine with hundereds of empty cups. This was another obstacle because it was much harder to initiate the hoop rotation when my feet were sticking to the ground. The cups were actually a fun thing to maneuver. I ran over them & hoped that my foot would not get stuck in an open cup, which almost happened many times. The problem with this was that I could not stop short to fix anything or catch my breath. If I slowed down quickly or stopped, the back runners would hit my hoop. If the front runners stopped because they were having problems getting people out of the way, I would have no place to run & would hit them, so there were a lot of factors that kept all of us on our toes.
I had only trained the week before the race as I was teaching in California & sick & making a few hundreds hoops for upcoming festivals & web orders. This was fine except that I could not breathe out of my nose from the dust storms the night before so my breath was very shallow & labored. There are banners posted over the street marking each kilometer & then each mile of the race. We cheered as we ran through each one. As we approached the last 2 miles I was too out of breath to communicate. I would look over at Nick & give hand signals for when I wanted to run or slow down or when I saw a person coming toward us. Mary Ann yelled out that we were already 12 minutes ahead of last years’ time. I told her not to clock it because I didn’t want to feel pressure & knew that I could still drop the hoop.
The race started to narrow as we ran up the last hill to the stadium. I knew this was the trickiest section of the race. Last year I hugged the rail so closely that my hoop hit it & it almost fell down. I decided to go slower. The view from inside a hoop is as some hoopers know, can be mind altering. The hoop can spin so fast which makes things on the outside look like they are moving so slowly. Perception of space & time can change if you have an awareness of what is outside & inside the hoop.
By this point I not only had a runners’ high but also had a hoopers’ high. It felt so Zen to me. To be so focused but relaxed at the same time. To have control in the muscles but surrender & release in the breath. To be aware that things could change in an instant but be so fully present in every moment. I watched in amazement as my bubble closed in on me as the race narrowed. The energy outside became frantic as all the other racers busted out to the finish. Our bubble was unshakable. I saw Mary Ann, Nick, Pete, Hans, Siri & Pam all hold hands guaranteeing that no one would enter. I knew that any mistakes which occurred would be mine. I had about 4 inches on all sides of me so there was really no room for error. This was the final stretch!
Within this tight little circle I felt so safe. I trusted that if I just breathed & moved one step at a time everything would be okay. At this point the racers were running in a frenzied state. They did not notice my green neon hoop spinning within feet from them as they ran toward it from all sides. My hoop is 10 foot circumference. When spinning, it takes up about 5 feet on all sides. Add 6 people to that, making a circle of about 12 feet. I saw my bubble as another hoop. This hoop although larger than my hoop, moved with me to protect me from all the other racers.
Although we don’t have any pictures to show this, during most of the race, my bubble would be within inches of my hoop on all sides. There was little room for error & in the 5th mile, 1 mile before the finish, there was no room for error.
We entered the stadium where the racers started to thin. Our bubble expanded so that we could pick up speed. I noticed that no one was in front of us & the finish was only a few hundred feet away. I decided to sprint. I yelled RUN RUN RUN! Mary Ann & Nick started to run but I think I passed them. I was taking long strides as if the hoop wasn’t even there. It is so much harder to take long strides while hooping because the widened stance minimizes flexibility & control from the belly & hips. My gate was so fast that I broke out of the bubble & sprinted toward the finish! 9:55am all of Team Hoop finished. I was surprised again. My teamed rocked! Without their awareness, communication & group dynamic I doubt we could have succeeded.
For any of you who actually use the hoop as a tool for deeper meditation & holistic practices you may understand this. The hoop is like a prayer wheel. It provides the physical space to mark your energetic space. The rotation of the hoop can be controlled by quickly moving your hips & belly. As the hoop speeds up you can feel it push & pull you as it hugs around your belly, waist & lower back. You have a choice at this point to play with the controlled aspects of the movement or to play in the surrendered state of movement. You literally cannot have one with out the other. There is a peace that is experienced somewhere between & inside the controlled force & the surrendered result. Stillness can be felt within the midst of the chaos. Willingness to move, breath & think in an integrated way becomes a sixth sense. I hoop & teach Hoop Dance with the intention to integrate External with Internal , Universal with Self, Earth with Sky & my heart with God. This is Zen, this is Nirvana.
When people ask me how I can hoop/run or hoop/snowboard or just hoop the way I do, I usually give the abbreviated answer which is that I connect to the simple physics of Hoop Dance. I am the axis & the hoop is my wheel. When asked by Channel 4 news after the race, “How do I train for this & how do I actually do these things” my answer was this: “Zoom those cameras in & be sure to use a wide angle!” I am a real woman with real curves who is doing nothing out of the ordinary. I do not starve myself so that I can beat my time. I do not obsess all year & train until my body starts to get injured. Hooping is a weekly part of my life which has increased weight loss, muscle tone & flexibility but most of all, hooping has inspired me to celebrate my body in a youthful way.
April 9th, 2009Topic: World Record Race Archives Tags: None
