CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio — While the city of Circleville sleeps, a little known race happens. Held by a little-known ultramarathoner, in a little-known town, run by a handful of little-known runners.

The concept is quite simple. The faster runners chase the slower ones in an attempt to have everyone finish at approximately the same time. The idea is that instead of having a running group, in which some runners don’t run hard enough to get a workout while others struggle to keep up, everyone starts and finishes together.

This is not an original idea, but when Jay McCoy and his band of “Roundtown Runners” joined up to start their own Buck Fifty team to run the 150 mile 24 hour relay race, severely out of shape and needing to lose a few pounds, Jay devised a plan to help them train together and stay motivated.

With different paces and ability levels, Jay was looking for a way for his team to run together. He also wanted to find interesting ways to get his team off the couch.

So the engineer began entering stats and routes into his spreadsheet document and came up with an idea. “I will have the faster runners run further on a longer route while the slower runners will run shorter distances, but will be chased at the end.”

Organized on his social media account Roundtown Runners, Jay put together the route. He organized the runners into three different pace groups. The “hounds,” are the fastest group, while everyone else is the fox.

He encouraged everyone to pick a pace just outside of their comfort zone. The runners all start out together for a half a mile warm-up, and then the chase begins. The foxes turn left and the hounds continue straight.

There is motivation to keep pace for all groups. Although they will not see each other again until the last half a mile down Main Street. The hounds know if they slack off their pace they have no chance of catching a fox, and the crafty foxes know they want to be a hard quarry down the last stretch.

This year ended like most of the rest of this three-year tradition. All of the runners popped out onto the last stretch, the chasers, and the chasees.

Just like every good hunt, not every hound caught a fox. Some lived on to run another day and to keep bragging rights over their faster counterparts.

The race ended where it began on a quiet Ohio Saturday in December. Most were steaming with sweat and worn out from the run, congratulations were handed out, fist bumps and conversation followed as runners stretched and then loaded back into their cars. There were no medals or award ceremonies, there were no winners, there were no losers, just a group of runners running in their little-known race in their little-known town.

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