My Virtual Marathon Experience
(Repost from October 2020)
Truth be told, I remain under the cloud of exhaustion from early Friday morning. However, I felt that it is important to document my experience of running my first virtual long distance race. Prior to Friday, the longest distance that I would commit to for a virtual run was the 5K.
My race day strategy was all planned out. It was set to be an early Saturday morning run using a 10/10/10 loop – ten miles solo, ten miles with some members of Run Naturally and the final 10K with one of my members who decided to sacrifice her personal comfort by running under the rising sun, Bahamaland. I know for a fact that was not her preference and so I was moved that she offered to “anchor” with me.
Have you ever heard the expression: “You wanna make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.”? Well that expression hit home for me at approximately 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning when our Prime Minister announced a 24 hour weekend lock down for New Providence based on surging Covid 19 positive cases. It was like a kick to the chest because this was Chicago Marathon. There would be no other week to do this. It was this week or nothing. I had already been granted a permit to begin early Saturday morning as we were still under curfew. So, I began making calls. And writing emails. More calls. More emails. The outcome was not looking favorable after being told three times that I may just have to cancel this race and with one police officer asking why was this so important to me. (Let me interject here and say how awesome the running community is because as soon as the announcement was made, my fellow running friends reached out like “omg what are you gonna do?”. Runners get it.)
Later that afternoon, I realized that I needed to come up with an alternative – fast. So instead of a Saturday run, I opted for a Friday morning run – 1am Friday morning to be exact. I would ditch my 10/10/10 plan and opt for a five 4-mile loop plan with the final 10K run with members of my group. In retrospect, I had no idea how grueling that would be as Friday was not only a work day, my son had Grade 2 assessment tests that same morning. Nevertheless, on Thursday night, I laid out my outfit, reflectors, nutrition as I would any other pre-race evening. I rested but didn’t really sleep. Jitters were major. 11pm I had the same marathon pre-race meal I always have: peanut butter on whole grain bread and a banana with a Clif bar 30 minutes before race time. I warmed up and stretched. I walked outside my door at 12:45 am only to feel the rain fall upon me. I actually laughed in disbelief. I sat in my car and got a text message from a friend who asked if I was still going to go through with this run. Unequivocally, yes.
At 1am, the rain stopped and I started. My form and stride were extremely tight at first. It felt impossible to relax. You hear everything. The dog down the street. The wind blowing through the bushes. My feet hitting the road were more pronounced than ever. The police cars patrolling the area. I kept telling myself to treat it like a training run. Prior to Covid, my Saturday morning long runs started at 3:30 am. As I turned onto Blake Road, some employees from the Met Office were outside in the parking lot and this one gentlemen called out “Miss, are you okay???” He must of thought that I was bat shit crazy jogging that time of night.
Maybe I am.
But I kept jogging and kept checking in with my group who committed to stay up all night as I looped through the streets of west New Providence. With every loop, mentally I began to break down. About two and half hours in, tears of fatigue filled my eyes. I wanted to go home and end my run. I don’t think I was truly ready for the mental strength that is required to cover that kind of distance alone at night. Somehow, I just kept plugging. I texted my group and I let them know I was struggling. This was by far the most difficult race that I have ever ran.
When I arrived at Goodman’s Bay to meet with the group, I was exhausted. I was noticeably limping, unaware that I had a laceration on my left leg. I attempted to greet them with a smile because as their coach, I didn’t want to appear weak. I am always that person who is ready to motivate and encourage and cheer on. Always ready to pull more energy from somewhere. At 5:30 am, I had none. I put one foot in front of the other and I allowed my group to guide me. To cheer me on. To say “Linda, you got this!” as I have said to them countless times before. Something happened at Mile 23 – a wave of energy that I didn’t know I still had. Through all the pain and fatigue, I began to pick up my pace. I think at that point, I really just wanted to be done, but in running you ride the wave of energy when it descends upon you. You don’t question it. You go with it.
Final 400 meters. Persons who know me know this is my moment in every marathon I have ever done. I tell people this is why I do speed intervals twice a week. To close out that final 400 meters so strong. To run through my discomfort. To run through the finish line. I looked up and I saw (to my surprise) one of my group members coming towards me with the Bahamas flag. I placed it on my shoulder and ran through the tape with nothing left.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t pretty. I was dehydrated and exhausted. If I had to choose again, I would choose to defer to next year. I have a renewed appreciation for the hundreds of people who get together to plan and execute (flawlessly, in the eyes of the runners) this very same thing for thousands of runners from around the world. To plan this out for myself, I felt like I failed in some respects. But it is a blessing to know on that day, it was perfection to my run group, fellow runners and friends.
I couldn’t let this weekend pass without expressing that in the best way that I know how.