Plan B Virtual 10k
I thought racing was on hold, but then I found a virtual race and asked colleagues to join in on the challenge.
I'm normally going east when I run the route, but counter-clockwise made this west when there was a westerly wind.
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| Virtual races: where your hair can look nice for the medal photo. |
What is Plan B
Plan B is a series of run challenges set up by the website Find A Race, which I use regularly to (wait for it) find races around the UK.
Since events were getting postponed because of the pandemic ('Plan A' so to speak), Find A Race created Plan B.
The idea is you sign up for and complete a single or cumulative distance challenge, and after submitting evidence, they send you a medal.
All profit from entries went to the World Health Organisation's COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Why Plan B
Well clearly because Plan A didn't work out!
In all seriousness, I never thought of doing a virtual race. But I really value the Find A Race service, so when I got their email mentioning it, I thought, why not.
Who knows when the next race will be.
Forming a pandemic running group
After hearing about the race, I started mentioning it to some of my fellow Edinburgh Winter Runners at work.
One Twitter conversation later and we had a group chat set up. I called the chat group 'Pandemic Runners'.
And then we created nicknames for ourselves:
- #FavouriteLauren (I even allowed it with the 'u')
- #DashingDuncan
- #SuperStratos
- #SpeedyBilly
Settling on a 10k on 4/4
We ended up choosing the 10k distance to run.
One of my reasons for suggesting 10k was because 3 of the 4 of us all live along the 10k route I normally run in Edinburgh.
So we decided to all run starting at the same time, along the same route, but starting from our respective houses.
I also suggested we run this 10k on April 4th. This was because I was meant to be running a 10k along a cliff in Ireland that day. Another time for that, I guess.
I also thought 4/4 was a funny date because it's one that I (as an American) can agree with my British and European colleagues on how to write.
When I mentioned this, it brought up a conversation about the unix time stamp and what the date would be in that time-tracking system.
In case you don't know, the unix time stamp is time measured as the number of seconds since the start of January 1, 1970. Thrilling, I know.
Making a bib
It wouldn't be a race without a bib. So two nights before the race, I got out some sharpies and made one.
It featured the race name, our group name and instead of a number, my hashtag nickname.
So glad I keep all the safety pins from my races.
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| Homemade race bib. |
The journey
In the tradition of always talking about how I get to a race, let this virtual race be no different.
I stepped outside my house. The end.
The race
Pre-race selfie
Not wanting to mess up other traditions, I took a photo from the start line.
Believe it or not, no one tried to photobomb my selfie.
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| Busy start line. |
Counter-clockwise inclines
While we were running my normal 10k route, we weren't running it in my normal direction.
I normally run it clockwise. We ran it counter-clockwise.
The first time I ran this route, I did it counter-clockwise. I learned just how hilly it was and never did it again.
Until this race. I definitely felt in better shape than I did when I ran it this way in 2018. But boy would I never willingly run it counter-clockwise again.
It's basically a subtle and then not-so-subtle uphill climb from .5 miles to mile 4.
And even when you get to the very downhill stretch at 4.5 miles, it's not that long and gets a bit of an incline again.
The smelly bit
Another downside about running counter-clockwise was the impact of smells when running into the wind.
This route goes along Braid Hills Drive, which is my favorite road to run along in Edinburgh. It has the most beautiful views of the city.
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| The view from Braid Hills Drive (taken in January). |
Braid Hills Drive has a bit of a farm element to it with lots of animals. So even though I'm along this road every week or two, this was the first time I ever noticed the smell of manure being blown up my nostrils.
So that wasn't the most welcome element, but definitely gave this race some character.
Finishing
The route is actually slightly longer than 10k. My final distance was 6.49 miles (a 10k is 6.2 miles).
I ended up finishing the route in 1:01:49. That's 9:31 per mile.
Considering how hilly it was, I'm pleased with that.
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| Finished with the hilly race. |
Virtual brunch
In a normal world, if we were racing together we would have gone out for brunch afterward.
In pandemic world, you have to opt for virtual brunch.
#DashingDuncan (who got a 10k PB on the route) and I reconvened after the race for such an occasion.
My brunch wasn't very inspiring. I had leftover kale and quinoa which I mixed together into a salad with not enough lemon juice and olive oil.
I topped this off with a poached egg I neglected so it was very overcooked.
And as someone who always needs a sweet, I used this brunch to try my first Yorkie Bar that I had bought in Aberystwyth.
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| My sad-looking brunch. |
This was even more uninspiring. It's just a chunky chocolate bar.
But considering this is a candy bar that literally used to be marketed as 'not for girls', maybe I'm just the wrong demographic.
Getting the medal
While we ran this race in early April, the challenge lasted until April 30, which meant medals didn't come in the mail until May.
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| Medal in the mail! |
So that's why this blog post is so late. Didn't want to publish a post without my medal photo at the top!
And as you can see from that photo, I'm going to have to return back to a life of medal selfies.
It's sad to think that one of the ways I grew during racing last year was getting the courage to walk up to strangers to ask them to take my medal photo.
Whenever racing does come back in some form, I think it's safe to say walking up to strangers to ask them to hold my germy phone will be a no-no. At least for a while.
Get ready for more of my face, world.
Next race
I haven't planned a follow-up virtual race, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are more to come.
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