Virtual Half Marathon & Treadmill Challenge 5K Winter Blast – Race Recap

Over the winter holidays, I participated in the Virtual Half Marathon and the Treadmill Challenge 5K by the runningnerds racing series.

A virtual race allows you to register online, receive an actual physical race kit with your bib, finisher medal, race shirt and other cool swag, map out your own course and then compare your results online to hundreds of other runners. Participants could run their races any time between December 22, 2012 and January 1, 2013.

I found out about this race from Margaret from Dirt in Your Skirt. After racing each other in person, we now got a chance to race each other virtually as well! 🙂

My race kit arrived in mail just in time for the Christmas morning! Check out the contents of the kit in my race report.

IMG_20121225_133353

VIRTUAL HALF MARATHON

Realizing that I will actually have to map out my own course, I reached out to Captain Craig and his orienteering skills. “We both know that if you do not help, I will end up running this half marathon around the track… for a VERY long time”, I said. He stepped up to the challenge.

Craig does not seem to need a horizontal surface in order to run, and it is usually only a matter of time, when we are finding ourselves bushwhacking through a forest, but this time I couldn’t even complain about being off trail – it was hard to tell WHEN we were off trail.

It snowed the day before we decided to run. It snowed A LOT. Being a huge wimp, I was absolutely terrified about being cold for two hours. Little did I know that: 1) we will not be cold, 2) it will NOT take two hours. The snowy “trail” took almost four – my longest half marathon to date.

The weather was absolutely beautiful though, and we even found a random decorated Christmas tree:

Perfect winter day!

See some awesome winter footage in my race report for Get Out There magazine:

 

TREADMILL CHALLENGE 5K

 

My amazing time management skills had me running this part of the race at 9pm on December 31st! 🙂 I have been treating a treadmill mostly as a warm-up mechanism for the past year or so, and it has been a long time since I actually ran a full 5k on a treadmill.
One of the key skills of running a race – dressing appropriately! Long sleeve shirt + no fresh breeze = really hot 25 minutes. My condo neighbours were also wondering why the heck I am wearing a bib and why the heck I am being filmed (!) as I run on a treadmill. Talk about boring reality TV! “In today’s episode, watch Solo run”. “Coming up in next week’s episode, Solo is washing the dishes!”

 

 

Watch the race report to see the contents of the racing kit, the message from the race director and me sprinting to the “finish line”.

 

 

At the end of the race period, almost 200 people completed the Treadmill Challenge 5K, and over 300 people completed the Virtual Half Marathon. Congrats to all the finishers!!!

 
What’s next???

The Virtual Half Marathon & Treadmill Challenge 5K – Summer Heat Series has been announced and is open for registration at http://www.active.com/running/anywhere-in-the-world-ga/virtual-half-marathon-and-treadmill-challenge-5k-summer-heat-series-2013. Use the promo code “CANADARUNBUDS10” for 10% off registration at active.com.

 
Signing off,
Solo

posted: January 21, 2013