Reality & the Half Marathon

 

With the pandemic, the original plan of one of my New Year's Resolutions for 2020 basically is kaput. 

 In my New Year's Resolutions, two of the resolutions I made involved running:

 1.  I would run at least ONE half marathon workout each month during 2020.  Remember, the Half Marathon distance is 13.1 miles ( ~21.1 km).  That is a LONG HAUL for an old duffer like me.  But, thus far, I am keeping on track with that goal.  

 2.  I wanted to run one actual half marathon race in 2020.   I wanted to do this...

a) to be part of an actual running group in a race of this length (Running at real road races is always embarrassing for me, and it takes a lot of mental energy to gear up to do so, but it is important for me to keep doing so, to help try to overcome my embarrassment and insecurities about myself.) 

b) to get a t-shirt and medal of completion as my "trophies" to show I did the damn thing.

Well.... Covid-19 has effectively shot-to-hell the scheduled road races in my region.  It is just not really safe or appropriate to hold these mass gatherings of runners during this time.  I understand that and I agree with the decision. 

But, it leaves me in a lurch in terms of failing to accomplish the resolution I made about running an actual road race half marathon in 2020.  And, even though Covid-19 is the cause.... I still felt frustrated at myself because I would not accomplish what I *SAID* I would do.  

I needed to do *something* to try to still salvage this resolution as best as I could.  What I came up with is the following:

I found a running site online that is quite a large community of runners (many thousands of people belong) that offers what are called "virtual races".  Virtual races are actual physical running races... and they are built around themes/locations/etc just like regular road races, but... the difference is that they are all ran wherever the participants wish to run.  When you register, you will get a race bib and a medal of completion when you report your time... and you can also buy t-shirts of the event just like at a real road race.  

So, even though it is NOT what I had envisioned as how I would try to keep my resolution back when I wrote it down with my wife as we worked on our resolutions together the evening of December 31st, 2019.... it seems to be the closest way I can *try* to have accomplished something of a similar ilk.  

So, I registered myself for one of the half marathon races.  I am set to run it on Monday.  If I do it, I will push myself damn hard to try to do my best.  I will then go online and record my time.  After I do that, I will receive my medal of participation in the mail in about 10 days as well as as the t-shirt of the event I also purchased.  

It is not what I resolved to do.  And, it still bothers me that I will have actually NOT completed my resolution.  But, I have to keep telling myself that *if* I complete this virtual race next Monday, I will have done the best I can do, given the circumstances.  

Now, I just have to keep gearing myself up to run the damn race on Monday.  I am hoping to start at 5:00am.

 PipeTobacco