I mapped my course and tweaked it several times. I did some long runs on parts of the course in late April and early May. I would highly recommend long distance virtual racers do this if you are running on city streets. Even though you think you might know your neighborhood, there are things you might not realize until you are actually running it. Like hills are much steeper than you realize, there are way too many traffic lights, and there is no shoulder where you expected one.
I wanted to run by people's houses and pray for them. I do this fairly often anyway. I did this on a somewhat regular basis when I trained for the Rock and Roll Marathon in Phoenix during the fall and winter of 2018. As I mapped it out, it so happened I was running by ten different people's houses. Which went along with my ongoing theme of running for 10/10 ministries.
A portion of the funds for the Conquer COVID races goes to local running stores who are affected by the slow economy. So yes, I was running for running.
I picked May 15th mostly because the weather was perfect. A slight chill in the air (but it got warm pretty quickly) and sunny. No rain in the forecast. I decided not to run with music or a podcast because I was worried of draining too much battery. I found that I liked being more present and in tune with the sounds around me. Lately I have been sick of my running playlists and I can only take podcasts for a certain amount of time.
More people at the beginning of my race were home and outside cheering. One of my friends had a big sign with my name on it and encouragement notes in chalk drawing. That was very sweet. Another friend videoed me and was waving a pom pom. Close friends of mine were my aide station and kept my sports drink at their house. Rob and Kara were my other aide station and waited for me around the ten mile mark in a local park. I was much faster especially the first half than I expected which is why the timings I gave people were a little off. I also did not hit any lights at the beginning.
I finished in the local park by our house. Rob was waiting for me at the finish line. It is a little funny to end a race by looking at your phone to make sure you exceeded the distance. I passed him and told him I was not done yet. I had to go another 0.1 mile.
The day was beautiful, springy and nearly perfect. We spent the rest of the afternoon working on our rock garden. Rob and I walked to Subway for lunch. That evening as a family we got Applebees Curbside to go and we have been watching old episodes of the Amazing Race.
I miss the hoopla of big races. I miss running with packs of people and making friends along the race course. I miss the crowd support and the scenic courses. I miss trying to PR. But COVID 19 has taught me to appreciate the small things. The hidden joys we might overlook. I don't even think I would have ever tried racing virtually had it not been for all races being cancelled. Rob has been saying throughout this whole pandemic that we make the most of these times.
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