OK, so I really believe that an awful lot of virtual runs are designed to celebrate holidays and celebration days that don’t really exist. Frankly, though, if you dangle a medal in front of me, I’m ok with both us pretending that there’s an Opossum Freedom Day, and I’ll run that 5K. If you’d asked me about National Running Day prior to this year, I woulda put it in that category.
However, there’s a website. And, an easy search through Uncle Google shows scads of events on/around the first Wednesday in June that celebrate this crazy obsessive sport I’ve fallen into.
And of course, the Moon Joggers folks (through their sister-site, Virtual Run Events) had a virtual race to celebrate the runner. They had me at medal. 🙂
The mantra for this race became “I chose wisely.”
I planned to run this on Sunday (yesterday), not knowing that for the last weekend in May, Da Lou would be enjoying morning temperatures in the 50s, highs in the 60s and loads of cloud cover. I stepped out, and couldn’t believe my luck with the weather.
Unfortunately, I had some bad luck with my Garmin. For whatever reason, it had a tough time finding the birds to track my position, speed, etc. I waited ten minutes, and finally gave up on it, and started my run.
My intent was to take this run pretty easy, and do a fair amount of walking. I knew the Hospital Hill twins loomed ahead in just six days, and I didn’t want to burn through my fuel ahead of that monumental pair of races. I wanted a good, successful day, and to further stack the deck, I took the course I found last weekend that was so wonderful.
I got on my horse, and moved along at a pretty good clip. In fact, it seemed like I reached the halfway point really, really quickly. With the Garmin only figuring out my position about 20 minutes in, I had no idea what kind of pace I was keeping, but it seemed fast. Once the Garmin woke up, I saw that I was doing 10min/km, even through the slight hills. This was way faster than I’d expected.
It seemed like no time, and I turned into the subdivision, running most of the last bit (including where Darla shot my photo, above). I looked at my watch, and I saw that I was just a touch above fifty minutes. I had knocked over SIX MINUTES off my time on that course from last weekend. I was stunned.
So, I set myself up with a great mental “win” in preparation for next weekend. All my gear — including my goofy body — worked as expected, and I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.
Next weekend is Hospital Hill in Kansas City, and I’m really hoping for results every bit as good as yesterday’s Runner’s Day 5K. Last year, I did the 5K in 52:22, and my intention is to bust that time this year!
Race Course:
