Virtual Race: 2020 Boston Marathon

The Boston Marathon is normally held on the third Monday in April.  This year’s race was postponed until September because of COVID-19.  At the time, it seemed like the outbreak would be controlled by then.  By June, it was apparent that things weren’t going to improve enough by September to hold a race with 30,000 runners and hundreds of thousands of spectators.  Instead, this year’s race was replaced with a virtual race.

In a virtual marathon, everybody runs 26.2 miles on their own, and then they report their results.  It’s not the same experience as running with other runners.  Everybody is running on a different course, and they may not be running at the same time.

There are a few reasons why race organizers offer virtual races.  First, runners who have trained for months to run a marathon don’t want their training to go to waste.  Second, the runners have already paid entry fees, and it’s not always possible for the race organizer to give refunds.  Often, most of the money has already been spent.  A virtual race is one way to offer runners something for their money, even though it’s nowhere near as satisfying as an in-person race.  Finally, by the time race organizers realize they need to cancel their race, they’re already ordered things like T-shirts and finisher medals.  They usually have the year incorporated into the design, so you can’t just save them for next year.  You could still mail a T-shirt to everybody, but a virtual race is a way for runners to “earn” their finisher medals.

The Boston Athletic Association actually did give refunds to everybody who was signed up to run this year’s race.  They had a separate registration process for the virtual race.  You had to pay an entry fee, but it was substantially smaller than the normal entry fee.  Basically, it covered the cost of the medal and T-shirt, and presumably the costs of administering the virtual race, which included developing a new app and website.

The Boston Marathon finisher medals don’t just say, “2020.”  They also say, “124th Boston Marathon.”  Because of that, the Boston Athletic Association is officially recognizing the virtual race the 124th Boston Marathon.  Next year’s race will be the 125th.

When I heard that, I immediately wondered how it effected streaks.  I had a streak of eight consecutive Boston Marathon finishes.  If I did the virtual race, would it count as my ninth consecutive Boston Marathon finish?  If I opted not to do the virtual race, would it bring my streak to an end?

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one with those questions.  As more details about the virtual race were published, they included a FAQ list.  One of the questions was about how the virtual race would affect streaks.  The B.A.A is being pretty flexible.  If you finish the virtual marathon, it counts toward your streak.  If you chose not to do the virtual race, it doesn’t count against you.  You would still have a streak.  You just wouldn’t be adding to it.

Why are streaks important?  It has to do with the registration process.  Most runners get into the Boston Marathon by running a qualifying time.  Prior to the 2011 race, if you had a qualifying time, you could be sure of getting into the race.  Since then, the number of qualified runners who want to register has exceeded the available slots.  To address that, the B.A.A went to a staggered registration process.  Basically, the better your qualifying time is (relative to the qualifying standard for your age group), the earlier you can register.  Generally, if you can qualify with at least five minutes to spare, you know you’ll get in, but runners who barely qualified might register and later learn that they missed the cut.  The most frustrating part is going into your qualifying race not knowing how fast you need to run to actually get into the Boston Marathon.

Runners who have an active streak of at least 10 consecutive Boston Marathons finishes get to register early.  They still need to run a qualifying time, but as long as they qualify, they know they’ll get in.  This is my goal.  I came into this year with a streak of eight years.  I was expected 2020 to be my ninth year.  Assuming I get into the 2021 race (and finish), I would have a streak of 10, making qualifying for future races much more straightforward.

I don’t do many virtual races.  I was signed up for lots of marathons that got cancelled this year.  Most of them offered virtual races, but I skipped most of them.  I did one in July, but that was mostly because I really needed to motivate myself to get out and do a marathon-length training run to stay in shape.  That wasn’t a consideration for this virtual race.  I’ve done three real races recently.

Let’s be clear about something.  Even though the B.A.A is calling this the 124th Boston Marathon, I still don’t consider it to be a “race.”  Neither do any of my running clubs that keep track of how many marathons I’ve finished.  This won’t count towards my lifetime statistics.  I signed up for the virtual race for one reason.  I wanted to extend my streak of consecutive Boston Marathon finishes.

They created an app called, “124th Boston Marathon Virtual Experience.”  You could download a virtual toolkit that included your race bib.  Here’s mine.

You could either use the app to track your run, or you could wear a Garmin watch or Fitbit and upload results to the app after the run.  I opted to use my watch.  I was skeptical about the accuracy of using a phone to measure distance.

You could run your virtual race any day from September 5 to September 14.  Originally, it was going to be September 7 to September 14.  They made a last-minute decision to give us two extra days.  I think they did that, because some people wanted to do their virtual race while also running a real race somewhere.  Giving us an extra weekend made it easier to find a real race that was actually going on.

Personally, I didn’t want to “double-dip” by doing a real a marathon and also counting it as my virtual race.  Since this was going to be recognized by the B.A.A. as the 2020 Boston Marathon, I felt it should be a run that was distinct from any other race I might do.  That was just my opinion.  As far as most runners and the B.A.A were concerned, double-dipping was perfectly legitimate.

I’m doing a series of real marathons that begins on September 12.  Since I didn’t want to use one of those for my virtual race, it made most sense to do my virtual race as early as possible.  That way, I could have a week of recovery before racing again.

That decision was made more complicated by a recent injury.  Four weeks ago, I fell and banged my knee during the Riley Trails Marathon.  At the time, I thought I just had some scrapes, but the next day, I felt some minor discomfort in my right knee.  It wasn’t painful, but it just didn’t feel right.  I had a couple runs where I felt some minor discomfort in my knee, but it only lasted a minute or two.  Then I’d feel fine for the rest of my run.  The only other times I would notice it were walking up stairs and doing leg extensions.

At first, my knee seemed to be improving, so I kept up my training.  A few days before the Millennium Meadows Marathon, I started to notice knee discomfort while doing things like planks.  I was also having more discomfort with stairs.  It didn’t bother me during my runs, so I still wasn’t too concerned.

I ran the entire Millennium Meadows Marathon without any discomfort, but started having more persistent knee discomfort the next day.  I rested Monday and did weight training on Tuesday.  I didn’t run again until Wednesday.  During that run, I had knee discomfort that never went away.  I stopped after less than two miles.

Thursday morning, I saw a doctor at TRIA Orthopedic Center.  I’ve been there before.  They treat a lot of athletes, and they have a large physical therapy department.  The doctor took X-rays that confirmed that nothing is torn.  I just have some minor inflammation in a couple of the tendons around the knee.  He gave me a knee brace and started me on physical therapy.  I had my first PT appointment immediately after my exam.

The physical therapist I saw on Thursday knew I had a virtual marathon this weekend and a series of marathons starting the following weekend.  She got me started on some exercises, but made an appointment for me to come back the next day to see a colleague who not only works with runners, but is an experienced ultrarunner herself.  Her name is Lauren.

Later on Thursday, I tried another run.  This time I was wearing the knee brace.  I was disappointed to find that my knee didn’t feel much better wearing the brace than it did the day before without a brace.  I suspected the brace wasn’t the right size for me.  It didn’t feel at all snug.

On Friday, I saw Lauren.  She confirmed that the brace was too large and got me one that fits much more snuggly.  Knowing about all my upcoming races, she gave me some different exercises that won’t be as stressful on my knee.  She also helped coach me on how best to get through all my upcoming races with the injury.  That’s one of the things I like about TRIA.  If you go in with a running injury and say, “I have a marathon tomorrow,” they don’t even flinch.  They just take it into account when they give you a treatment plan.

Ideally, I would’ve gone for a short run to try out the brace, but I didn’t want to run the day before my virtual race when my knee was already inflamed.  I had to settle for trying out the brace by doing a few miles of walking.

Roughly 17,000 runners chose to sign up for the virtual race.  The first 15,000 got an extra pre-race package in the mail.

It contained some of the same things you would get with packet pickup for the real race.  Some were more useful than others.  The useful things included a souvenir race bib and some product samples.  One of the not-so-useful things was a clear plastic bag that would normally have been used for gear check at Boston Common.

Although I could’ve printed my race bib, I didn’t have anything to print it on besides plain paper.  A paper race bib doesn’t hold up well once it gets sweaty.  I wanted to wear a race bib, so I chose to wear the souvenir bib instead.  All the souvenir bibs look the same.  They’re all number 2020.  That’s OK.  In a virtual race, wearing the correct bib number isn’t important.  I only wore the bib to make it feel more like a race.  Anyone in my neighborhood who saw me running probably realized this wasn’t an average training run.  On the other hand, it’s not the first time they’ve seen me running for hours.

My route was a 1.75-mile loop through my neighborhood.  I used this same route for another virtual race on July 4.  To complete a marathon, I needed to run 15 laps.  One of the advantages of a loop course is that I didn’t need to carry water with me.  I put several water bottles in a cooler and set it next to our mailbox.

It was a nice enough day that I didn’t feel the need to start early.  I took my time eating breakfast, icing my knee, taking a bath, and stretching.  I didn’t start running until 9:00 AM.  That seemed appropriate.  The real Boston Marathon starts at 10 AM Eastern Time.  In my time zone, that’s 9:00, so I was actually starting at the right time.

One of the product samples was a Clif Bar.  I ate that about 30 minutes before I started running.  I put some of the other product samples out with my water bottles.

As I started running, I felt some slight discomfort in my knee.  It was less discomfort than I would’ve felt without the knee brace, but it was still there.  Doctors will often ask you to rate your pain on a 10-point scale, where zero is no pain, and ten is the worst pain you can imagine.  On that scale, this was only one or two.  I felt it with every stride. But it wasn’t really painful.  Mainly, it was a reminder that my knee wasn’t OK.  I wouldn’t worry as long as there was only minor discomfort.  The important thing was that it not get worse as I continued running.

I really didn’t know how this run would go.  I was cautiously optimistic that the knee brace would prevent or at least minimize further damage to my knee, but 26.2 miles is a long way to run with an injury.  The best case is that I would feel the same from start to finish.  In a worst-case scenario, I might feel more pain with each lap and eventually be forced to stop.  In a middle-of-the-road scenario, I might have to switch to walking to finish my virtual race.  The good news is that there wasn’t any time limit.  We could take as long as we wanted.  The only rule was that it had to be one continuous session.

I started at a pace that felt easy.  It was the same way I run most of my training runs.  When I finished the first mile, I was surprised to see a time of 9:31.  It felt slower than that.  I’ve been training in summer heat for the past few months.  At the start of this run, it was 62 degrees with a nice cool breeze.  It took far less effort than the same pace would’ve taken just two weeks ago.

As I finished my first lap, I asked myself how my knee felt.  I noticed it with every stride, but it didn’t feel any worse at the end of the lap than it did at the start of the lap.  So far, so good.

During training runs, I normally just drink water.  The last time I did a virtual marathon, I drank Gatorade, which is what I would drink during a race.  Since I had some food samples, I just drank water today.

My second mile was also 9:31.  Then I sped up a bit to 9:20 in the third mile.  I didn’t mean to speed up.  It just happened.  The pace still felt really easy.  It was about a minute per mile slower than my usual race pace.

At the end of my second lap, I again asked myself how my knee felt.  It still felt the same.  I had another drink of water and kept going.  I saved the food samples for later.

Over the next few miles, I eased up a bit, running times in the 9:30s.  My knee still felt the same, but I wondered if I would really notice it if there was more inflammation.  I’m pretty good at tuning out pain during a race.  I wasn’t running as hard as I would during a real race, but after a certain number of miles, it would start to take more effort.  Then, I was more likely to tune out the pain.

I was content with the pace I was running.  If anything, I was going too fast, but it still felt pretty easy.  I didn’t care what my time was.  My only goals were to finish and to try to get through it without making my knee worse.

For the first four laps, I just drank water.  After my fifth lap, I opened a package of Clif Bloks.  For the next six laps, I ate one Clif Blok per lap.  There aren’t many calories in a single Clif Blok.  This was more about race psychology than nutrition.  Eating one per lap gave me something to look forward to.  After every 1.75 miles, I had a ginger ale flavored chew as a small treat.

Now that I was eating the Clif Bloks, I was taking longer on my water stops.  I took the time to chew it completely before washing it down with some water.  That added to my mile times.  The miles that included water stops now took just over 10 minutes.  The ones that didn’t took between 9:20 and 9:30.

The app for the Boston Marathon virtual experience was intended to make it feel more like you were in Boston.  Among other things, it would have crowd noise at different places, and if you were using the app to keep track of your distance, it would display where you would be on the actual Boston Marathon course, for the benefit of friends who wanted to track your progress.

I wasn’t running with my phone, but I’ve run the Boston Marathon enough times to be familiar with the course.  As I finished my 11th mile, I asked myself where I would be if I was running from Hopkinton to Boston.  In just over a mile, I would be getting to Wellesley.

The Wellesley “scream tunnel” is at roughly 20 kilometers.  By the time I actually got there, however, I had forgotten all about it.  I was focused on which lap I was on.  I wasn’t really running in Wellesley.  I was running a familiar route through my neighborhood, and that’s where my head was.

From time to time, I passed people who live in my neighborhood.  They’re the same people I see walking when I’m out for a normal training run.  I’m sure some of them noticed my race bib, but nobody commented on it.

As I finished the halfway point of my run, I was on pace to finish in about 4:13.  That was faster than I planned, but I still felt OK.  When I thought about it, my knee still felt the same.  When I wasn’t thinking about it, I sometimes didn’t notice it at all.  I was now optimistic I would get through this race without any significant increase in knee discomfort.

Buoyed by my optimism, I started running a little bit faster.  That wasn’t a conscious decision.  It just happened.  My optimism about finishing without any problems led me to get excited, and I subconsciously sped up.  Now, my times for miles with water stops were in the 9:40s, and my times for the miles without water stops got as fast as 9:03.

As it warmed up and got sunnier, I started to perspire.  I could sometimes feel sweat under my knee brace, which went from mid-thigh to mid-calf.  It felt like my brace might be riding down.  I don’t know if it actually was, or if it just felt that way because of the sweat.  A couple times, I stopped briefly to check.  The part that surrounds my kneecap was still in the right place.  That was the important part.

As I finished my 10th lap, I ate the last of the Clif Bloks.  I had two other food samples.  One was a protein drink that I was saving until after the race.  The other was a Cliff Shot.  I’ve used a few different brands of gel packets, and I’ve tried a variety of flavors.  This flavor was Boston cream pie.  That seemed appropriate.  I was saving that one as a late-race treat.  I had five laps to go.  I planned to eat my gel with two or three laps to go.

After my 11th lap, I just drank water, but it was still a longer stop.  I was getting thirsty now, so I drank more than usual.  I was now past the 19-mile mark.  I asked myself where I would be on the Boston Marathon course.  I wasn’t actually sure.  I was somewhere in Newton, but I couldn’t remember exactly where “heartbreak hill” is.  I know the Newton Hills by sight, but I can’t connect all of them to mile markers.  I know the first one starts at about 16 miles.  I know the second one starts between 17 and 18.  I really wasn’t sure where the third and fourth hills start.  I forgot about it and kept running.

At the 20-mile mark, I was pretty sure I was past heartbreak hill.  The next major landmark would be Boston College.  That’s the last time I thought about where I would be on the Boston course.  I just knew I had three and a half laps to go.

Midway through my 12th lap, I was already getting thirsty again.  When I finished that lap, I took a longer drink of water.  I waited one more lap before having my Boston cream pie gel.

That water stop took so long that I didn’t get back into the same pace.  I was definitely running slower now.  That was OK.  In fact, it was good.  I needed to slow down.  By now, I was starting to notice some discomfort in my left Achilles tendon.  I suddenly remembered feeling the same thing during my last race.  After that race, I forgot all about it.  This Achilles tendon was a problem area earlier in the year, so I wanted to be careful with it.  I shouldn’t run too fast.  The Achilles tendon discomfort actually made me forget about my knee.

When I finished my 13th lap, I finally had the Boston cream pie gel.  Fancy gel flavors sometimes miss the mark.  This one didn’t.  It really did remind me of Boston cream pie.  That lifted my spirits.  I had 3.5 miles to go.  I was beginning to get tired, and I was a little cautious about my left Achilles tendon, but the remaining distance was manageable.

I finished my 14th lap and started the last one.  I was doing this loop for the last time, but there was no need to rush.  I resisted any temptation to put on a strong finish.  I kept moving, but not too fast.

I didn’t actually have to run the whole lap.  With less than a block to go, my watch read “26.22.”  I stopped my watch and stopped running.  I walked the remaining distance back to my driveway.  My final time was 4:13:44.

I gathered up my things, went inside, and took off the knee brace.  I iced my knee and opened up the app to enter my result.  That turned out to be much more difficult than I thought.

The app gave you three options for entering your result.  One involved using the app to measure your whole run.  I wasn’t running with my phone, so I obviously couldn’t do it that way.  Another option was to have the app retrieve the data from a watch which was connected to my phone by Bluetooth.  I had the data on my watch, but I’ve only had this watch for a few months, and I’ve never connected it to my phone before.  I had about six runs stored on my phone, but I had yet to upload any of them.  The third option was to manually enter the data.  I tried that option and immediately got an error screen that looked like this.

This appeared to be a bug in the app, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.  Maybe they would eventually fix it, but probably not right away.  Realizing I probably needed to use a different option, I took the time to load Garmin Connect on my phone.  I already had an account, but the last time I used it, I had a different watch, and I was using it on my computer.  I had to look up my password.  It didn’t work.  I then reset my password and created a new one.

When I finally got logged into my Garmin Connect account, I had to connect it to my watch.  I didn’t know how to do that.  I had to find the user’s manual for my watch to read how to connect it to my phone.  When I finally got it connected, it started synching.  I had six runs that had never been uploaded.  Five of them were marathons.  The synch took several minutes.

When it was all done, I could finally tell the app to get the data from a connected watch.  It said “No activities found.”

Besides the app, there was also a website you could use.  I had to find a link to it in an email.  I had to log in to my Boston Marathon account.  Then I had to give it the username and password for my Garmin Connect account.  It said my device was connected.  That’s all.  I had to look around a little more to find a menu for entering my results.  When I told it to get the results from my phone, it said, “No activities found.”  What the hell?

I belong to couple of Facebook groups that include Boston Marathon runners.  I
asked if anyone else was having this problem.  After several exchanges with different runners who either entered their results or ran into problems, I learned two things.  First, if you want the app to get the data from your watch, you have to connect your Boston Marathon account to your Garmin Connect account BEFORE doing your run.  Oops.  I wish I knew that earlier.  I also learned that the option to enter your data manually worked on the iPhone version.

Neither Deb nor I have iPhones, but Deb has an iPad.  She downloaded the app, and I gave her my account info, so she could log into my Boston Marathon account.  The option to enter my data manually worked.  We needed to enter my finish time, as well as the exact date and time that I started my run.  Finally, we needed to enter a link to the data.  I could see the data in my Garmin Connect app, but I didn’t know how to get a link to it.  After one more exchange with another runner in the Facebook group, I was able to send Deb a link.  She entered the link into the app, and it accepted my results.

A short time later, I got an email with a link to my results.  They included a finisher certificate.

Entering the results took more than an hour.  It was almost as stressful as the run itself.  The important thing is that I’ve extended my Boston streak to nine years.  I don’t know when next year’s Boston Marathon will be held.  They’ve delayed registration, and in all likelihood, they won’t be able to hold the race in April.  Maybe they’ll hold it in September.  Maybe they’ll have another virtual race.  Whenever or whatever it is, it’ll be my 10th.  That will make today’s effort worthwhile.

During the late miles of my run, I was noticing my left Achilles tendon more than my right knee.  Since the run, I haven’t noticed it at all.  I did make a point of stretching it.  I think I’ve been neglecting to stretch it, because that stretch puts pressure on my right knee.

Meanwhile, my right knee felt the same throughout the run, but it has felt worse since finishing.  Now, even walking on level ground causes some slight discomfort.  I have to be particularly careful going up and down stairs.  The physical therapists at TRIA have coached me to take every step with my left foot going up stairs and to always lead with my right foot going down stairs.

I suspect that knee will bother me most tonight and tomorrow but gradually get better.  For the next week, I plan to limit my training to light cross-training activities like walking and low-resistance spinning.  Hopefully it’ll be feeling somewhat better before my next series of races.

Race Statistics

Distance:  26.2 miles

Time:  4:13:44

Average Pace:  9:41

Consecutive Boston Marathon Finishes:  9

Virtual Race: Foot Traffic Flat Marathon

There’s a running store in Portland, Oregon call Foot Traffic.  They sponsor an annual event on July 4th called the Flat Marathon.  “The Flat” refers to Sauvie Island, which is a large, relatively flat island in the Columbia River valley.

I’ve done this race five times.  I ran it in 2010, when it was still a stand-alone event.  In 2012, July 4th fell on a Monday, and Steve Walters organized two small races on the weekend.  If you did all three marathons, it was called the Firecracker Triple.

Since then, Steve has held anywhere from two to four races on weekend closest to July 4th, making it possible to run marathons on anywhere from two to five consecutive days.

I ran the Firecracker Triple in 2012, 2014, and 2015.  I also ran the Firecracker Quadzilla in 2013.  Since then, injuries have kept me away.

Last winter, Steve announced that this year would be the last Firecracker Triple.  I signed up for the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon last December and was planning to do Steve’s races as well.

In early January, I found out that the White Nights Marathon in St. Petersburg, Russia had been rescheduled.  I was planning to go there with a tour group, but I wouldn’t fly home until July 1st.  To arrive in Portland in time for the first race of the triple, I would need to fly to Portland the day after getting back from Russia.  The time difference between St. Petersburg and Portland is 12 hours, so I’d be completely jet-lagged right before starting a triple.

It seemed unlikely that I would be able to do both the White Nights Marathon and the Firecracker Triple.  As it turns out, I wouldn’t get a chance to do either.  All of these races were cancelled because of COVID-19.

When they cancelled the Flat Marathon, Foot Traffic announced that they would be holding a virtual race instead.  Anyone who did the virtual race by running 26.2 miles on their own would still receive a T-shirt and this finisher medal.  Since I had already registered for the marathon, I was automatically signed up for the virtual race.

I don’t usually get excited about virtual races, and I don’t run just for the T-shirts and medals, but I had other reasons for wanting to do this virtual race.

The Flat Marathon is always held on July 4th.  The course starts and finishes at a country store called the Pumpkin Patch Market.  During the race, you run past farms and strawberry patches.  Post-race food always includes hot dogs and strawberry shortcake made with strawberries grown on the island.  Even if I couldn’t run on Sauvie Island, I liked the idea of running a marathon on July 4th and then eating strawberry shortcake after finishing.

It's been a long time since I last ran a marathon.  For several weeks, I was running 40-50 miles a week, but I wasn’t doing any long training runs.  At the beginning of June, I started doing weekly long runs.  I started with 14 miles, and continued with runs of 16, 20, and 23 miles.  I was ready for a full 26.2 miles.

According to the rules of the virtual marathon, you could go out by yourself and run 26.2 miles on any day from July 3rd to July 15th.  I could’ve picked the day with the most favorable weather, but I really wanted to do my virtual marathon on July 4th.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the best day for weather.

Portland is only about 100 miles from the Pacific coast.  Even in July, there’s a limit to how hot it can get.  There have been years when weather for the race got a bit warm, but I never found the weather for the Flat Marathon to be intolerably hot.  I qualified for Boston four times out of five attempts.  The time I didn’t, I was running with injuries.

Minnesota, by contrast, is about 1,000 miles from the nearest ocean.  We get some pretty wide temperature swings.  As I started looking at long-range forecasts, I knew I was in for a hot one.  We’re in the middle of a stretch of 90-degree days.

I went to bed early on Friday, but I only slept for about an hour before waking up.  Someone in the neighborhood was shooting off fireworks, and the noise kept me awake until they were done.  By then, I was wide awake and couldn’t get back to sleep for hours.  I only got a few hours of sleep before I needed to get up.

I got up early to avoid the worst of the heat, but even in the early morning, the temperature never dropped below 70.  The dew point was in the upper 60s, making it feel more like 79.

My route was a 1.75-mile loop through my neighborhood.  To finish a marathon, I had to run 15 laps.  I filled a cooler with Gatorade bottles and ice and set it next to my driveway, so I could stop and drink after every lap.

For training runs, I don’t usually wear a watch.  I do most of my training at a pace that feels comfortable.  If I’m not doing speed work, I don’t need to know my time.  I also don’t worry about measuring the distance, if it’s a route that I’ve measured before.

Today was an exception.  I wore a GPS watch.  I not only needed to know my time, but I needed to measure the distance.  Although I’ve measured this route before, the distance can vary slightly, depending on whether I’m making an effort to run the tangents. 

I usually start really slow and ease into my pace as I warm up.  Today, I started a little faster than usual.  I didn’t intend to do that.  I think I have a subconscious tendency to go faster when I know I’m being timed.  As soon as I realized I was doing that, I backed off a little.

On training runs, I don’t usually pay attention to exactly when I finish each mile.  I choose a route and decided how many laps I’m going to run.  After that, I only care how many laps I’ve finished and how many laps I have left.  Today, my watch was recording splits after each mile.  One mile into my run, I felt my watch vibrate, and I looked down.  I ran the first mile in 9:46.  That pace struck me as unsustainable.

Two weeks ago, I did a 23-mile training run.  I ran my first lap slightly faster than a 10 minutes per mile pace.  After that, I slowed down.  By the end, I was going slower than 11 minutes per mile.  That was a hot day, but today was going to get just as hot.  Not wanting to blow up, I made a point of slowing down in the next mile.

When I finished my first lap, I stopped to drink some Gatorade.  I ate breakfast about an hour before I started, and I still felt like I had a full stomach.  I could only drink a few sips.

As I finished drinking, I glanced at my watch.  The distance was 1.75 miles.  I checked again after every lap.  It was usually a multiple of 1.75.  If not, it was off by only 0.01.  It was reassuring to see that the route that I’ve always recorded as 1.75 was consistently measuring to be 1.75.

My second mile was 10:20.  Few the next several miles, my splits bounced between 10 minutes and 10:30.  I wasn’t too focused on my pace.  I was trying to stay within my comfort zone.  I didn’t have a goal for how fast I wanted to run today.  Mostly, I just wanted to finish.  In the early miles, I ran conservatively, so I wouldn’t blow up in the heat.

After my second lap, I again found that I could only drink a few sips of Gatorade.  After my third lap, I drank more.  After my fourth lap, I finished the bottle.  I had four more bottles in my cooler.  For the rest of my run, I set a goal of finishing another bottle every three laps.

When I finished my fifth lap, I was one third done.  In those first five laps, the sun was still below the tree tops.  I noticed the humidity, but it wasn’t that hot yet.  Now I was entering the middle laps, and the sun was getting high enough in the sky that I could feel it.  If the early laps were all about the humidity, the middle laps were all about the warmth of the sun.

My mile splits got more erratic.  On average, I was still going the same pace, but some miles were as fast as the 9:50s, and other were as slow as the 10:30s.  I was still treating this like a long training run.  At times, my mind would wander, and I would slow down.  When I paid more attention to my running, I ran faster.

In a real race, I tend to be focused like a laser on my pace and effort.  Sometimes, friends will wave or shout to me, and I won’t even notice them.  The first time I ran the Boston Marathon, I didn’t even notice the Wellesley “scream tunnel.”  Today, I let myself drift.  Sometimes, I was thinking about my effort.  Other times, I was looking for wild rabbits and squirrels.

At the end of my seventh lap, I forced myself to finish my second bottle of Gatorade.  As I began the next lap, I glanced at my arm.  I realized every inch of my body was covered with sweat.

When I passed the 13-mile mark, I decided to pay attention to my halfway split.  When I got there, I was on pace to break 4:30, but I fully expected to slow down in the second half.

As is often the case in real races, I felt a psychological lift when I knew I was past the halfway mark.  The remaining distance was still much more than what I’ve been doing in most of my training runs, but I didn’t look at it that way.  Instead, I told myself the remaining distance was less than what I had done so far.

At the end of my tenth lap, I was two thirds done with a marathon.  I had been checking all my mile times, but I seldom looked at my total time.  With five laps to go, my time was 2:58 and change.  Not only was I still on pace to break 4:30, but I had sped up slightly since the halfway mark.

Now the temperature was rising rapidly.  Up until now, I ran at a pace that felt comfortable.  It occurred to me that the remaining laps would probably be uncomfortable no matter what pace I ran.  Even though I expected the remaining laps to be a struggle, I challenged myself to lift my effort enough to keep running the same pace.  I expected each lap to be more difficult than the one before, but I only had five laps to go.  That seemed manageable.

Running a marathon is at least as much psychological as it is physical.  At this point in my run, I made the mental transition from training mode to race mode.  I was ready to push myself to run harder.

I was already halfway through my 18th mile.  That mile took 10:13, but then I began consistently running mile times in the 9:50s.  It took more effort, but I was getting it done.

As I began my 13th lap, I caught myself starting at a slower pace.  I had a momentary lapse in concentration.  That’s the sort of thing that happens when you get hot.  Heat doesn’t just affect you physically.  It can also affect you mentally.

I wanted to immediately pick up my pace, but the beginning of my route is slightly uphill.  I waited until I crested the hill.  Then I used a gradual downhill section to get back into my previous pace.  When the road leveled out, I picked up my effort to keep up the same pace.  Evidently, I overcompensated.  That mile was 9:17, which was my fastest so far.

In my next mile, I slowed to 9:54, but I was still keeping my splits under 10 minutes.  If I kept that up, I would easily break 4:30.

I’m not very good at visualizing, but I tried to imagine where I would be if I was actually running on Sauvie Island.  The first half of that course includes a long out-and-back along the western side of the island.  After that, you turn onto a road that cuts across the middle of the island.  When you reach the east side, you turn onto a road that brings you back to Pumpkin Patch Market.  If I remember right, the 23-mile mark is pretty close to where you make that last major turn.

I could picture where I would be on that course, but trying to visualize the rest of that course wasn’t helpful.  The last few miles zigzag past a lot of open farmland.  Eventually, you can see a cluster of trees in the distance.  The finish is somewhere in the middle of that cluster of trees.

I’ve always found those last few miles to be difficult.  They seem to go on forever.  I decided to go back to paying attention to the route I was running today.  I had slight less than two laps to go.

As I finished my 14th lap, I glanced at my watch.  My time so far was 4:06 and change.  I was easily going to break 4:30.  I was crushing it.  As I began my last lap, I started to wonder if I could break 4:22.  That’s an average pace of 10 minutes per mile.  It occurred to me that my current pace wasn’t quite fast enough, but if I poured it on in my last lap, it was definitely possible.  I was hoping to average 9:00 per mile the rest of the way.

By now, I was beginning a downhill stretch.  That’s where I began my push.  At 25 miles, I checked my split.  That mile was 9:28, but I didn’t begin my push until the last quarter mile.  I fought hard through the next mile.

With about a quarter mile to go in that lap, I felt my watch vibrate.  I was already at 26 miles.  What was my split?  Did I break nine minutes?  It was 7:54!  I had more left in the tank than I realized.

As I neared the end of the lap, I started paying attention to the distance.  I didn’t actually need to run all the way to my driveway.  I planned to stop my watch when it read 26.22 miles.  Most people would probably stop it at 26.2, but a marathon isn’t exactly 26.2 miles.  It’s slightly longer.

GPS isn’t as accurate as most people think it is.  It’s not accurate enough to measure a marathon course.  It’s all I had, though, so it’s what I used.  When it read 26.22 miles, I stopped it and walked the short distance back to my driveway.  My time was 4:20:29.  That’s slower than I usually run a marathon, but I’m happy with it.  I ran negative splits by nine minutes, despite rising temperatures.

After finishing, I checked the weather app on my phone to see how hot it got.  It was now 85 degrees, with a “feels like” temperature of 96.

I also looked up the weather conditions in Portland.  It might not be a fair comparison, because it was still two hours earlier in Portland, but the temperature there was only 59 degrees.  If circumstances were different, I would’ve much preferred to run this marathon in Portland.

When you run the race on Sauvie Island, your race bib has tear-off tickets for strawberry shortcake and a hot dog.  On Friday, I baked a pan of shortcake and mashed some strawberries.  After finishing my virtual marathon, I celebrated with homemade strawberry shortcake.

As soon as I finished, Deb went up to Dairy Queen and brought back hot dogs and sundaes.  In addition to the strawberry shortcake, I also got to have my post-race hot dog.

This was basically a glorified training run, but it started to feel more like a race in the late miles.  I’ve really missed that feeling of pushing hard in the late miles of a race.  Having this one under my belt will also give me more confidence when I run my next marathon.

Race Statistics
Distance:  26.22 miles
Time:  4:20:29
Average Pace:  9:56

Virtual Race Report: Quarantine Backyard Ultra

I belong to a community of runners who run marathons so frequently that it has become a lifestyle.  I last ran a marathon on March 1st, and it will probably be months before I run another one.  All races are cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Some runners are showing interest in virtual races.  A virtual race is one where you can participate from anywhere.  In general, everyone runs the same distance, but they don’t run on the same course.  They can run wherever they are.

Virtual races aren’t new, but they’re gaining in popularity now that conventional races are no longer practical.

I belong to several running clubs that count marathons in one fashion or another.  In the 50 States Marathon Club, the goal is to run marathons in every state.  In the 100 Marathon Club, the goal is to run at least 100 marathons in your lifetime.  In Marathon Globetrotters, the goal is run marathons in as many countries as possible.  Marathon Maniacs is more complicated, but the goal, generally, is to run marathons as frequently as possible.

All of these clubs have rules for what counts as a marathon.  It’s not sufficient that you run at least 26.2 miles.  It has to be an official race.  Each club has its own rules for what is or isn’t considered to be an official race, but there’s a lot of overlap.  None of them consider virtual races to be “races.”

In the past, I’ve never shown any interest in virtual races.  I’ve always thought of them as glorified training runs.  If I’m going to run 26.2 miles by myself, I can do that without participating in a virtual race.

Two weeks ago, I learned about a virtual race called Quarantine Backyard Ultra.  This one intrigued me, because of its format.  It’s a “last man standing” race.  I’ve never done one of those.

You have one hour to complete a lap of 4.167 miles.  If you finish early, you can rest until the end of the hour.  Then everybody begins another lap of the same distance.  You keep doing this every hour.  Why 4.167 miles?  That’s how many miles you need to complete per hour to run 100 miles in 24 hours.

Any runner who fails to complete a lap within an hour is eliminated from the race.  Any runner who fails to start the next lap on time is eliminated.  The race continues until there’s only one runner left.  As soon as someone is the only runner to complete a lap, the race is over.

I’ve heard of races like this before, but they were conventional races, where everybody is running on the same course.  Gary Cantrell (a.k.a. Lazarus Lake) has one called Big’s Backyard Ultra.  That race annually draws some of the best multi-day runners in the country, as well as a few from around the world.  I’ve followed that race the last two years.  Last year, Maggie Guterl lasted 60 hours, during which she covered 250 total miles.

Most virtual races are more about participation than competition.  The Quarantine Backyard Ultra promised to be an exception.  Most runners, like me, were just looking for a fun way to do a long training run, but there were also 22 elite ultrarunners.  I fully expected some of them to run for 48 hours straight, and it’s wouldn’t surprise me if the winner lasted for 72 hours.

Each runner was free to design their own course.  You could run 4.167 miles on a treadmill, or you could run a 4.167 mile loop or out-and-back near your home.  If you wanted, you could run some laps on the treadmill and others outside.  You could also switch between different outdoor routes.  The only limitation was that you had to start each lap from the same “start corral.”  I opted to do all my laps on a treadmill, so my start corral was the deck of my treadmill.

You could stay in touch with the RD and other runners using Zoom meetings.  There were so many runners that they had to create multiple meetings.  In all, there were more than 2,400 runners in 53 countries.

If you weren’t able to use Zoom, you could also participate on your own and submit your results after the fact to get included in the race results.  I was originally planning to join the Zoom meeting, but I decided it was more work than it was worth.  I wanted to be “hands free,” but I couldn’t find a good way to mount my phone to my treadmill.  I eventually decided to just focus on the running and submit my results when I was done.

At the outset, I didn’t know what my goal should be.  I haven’t been training for anything like this, but I’m in reasonably good shape.  From a standpoint of fitness, I assumed I was probably capable of running at least 100 miles.  There was just one problem.  Since December, I’ve had a mild case of Achilles tendonitis at the insertion point.  I no longer notice it during training runs, but I sometimes feel some tightness at the base of my Achilles tendon after a run.  I didn’t know if starting and stopped every hour was going to aggravate it.  If it started to bother me, I wasn’t inclined to risk making it worse.

I had a large canister of sports drink powder that I got as a prize at a race last September.  We had several bottles of Gatorade, but I wanted to start using my supply of sports drink powder, so I mixed up about two quarts and kept it in a large pitcher in our basement refrigerator.  I used it to fill a 20 oz. water bottle.  You know what they say about never trying something new on race day?  I was going to learn that lesson the hard way.  More on that later.

The race started on April 4 at 7:00 AM Mountain Daylight Time.  Everyone started at the same time, no matter where they were.  In my time zone, it was 8:00 AM.

I set up a laptop computer on a card table a few feet away from the treadmill.  I kept a tab open to the website for the race.  It had a big readout of the official race time.  The clock on my treadmill was about 20 seconds fast, so I looked at the laptop to know exactly when I should start the treadmill.

I almost missed the opening bell for my very first lap.  About a minute before it was time to start, I realized I didn’t have my water bottle.  I rushed to the refrigerator to get it, but didn’t get back onto the treadmill until three seconds before I needed to start.  I almost DNFed before even starting.

As I started my first lap, I set the treadmill to 6.0 MPH.  That’s equivalent to a pace of 10 minutes per mile.  I’ve been training at a pace that’s at least a minute per mile faster than this, so this pace felt easy.  In fact, it was much too fast.  At this pace, I would finish my lap in just 42 minutes and then have 18 minutes to stand around before starting the next lap.

Ideally, I wanted to slow my pace to the point where I was using most of the hour.  To complete a lap in an hour, I needed an average pace of 14:24 or slightly faster.  I can’t comfortably run at that pace.  It’s feels awkward, and it’s inefficient.  Instead, I alternated between running at 6.0 MPH and walking at 3.5 MPH.  I typically ran for a mile and then walked for half a mile.

After finishing each lap, I took a photo of my treadmill’s display, as evidence that I completed the required distance.  I used my phone to post this photo to Facebook.  That wasn’t a requirement, but it made it easy for friends to follow my progress.

I took another photo just before starting my next lap.  This showed I was back in my “start corral” in time for the next lap.  It also showed that the distance was reset to zero.  I did this every hour.

My treadmill was set up in the basement.  Upstairs, we had out thermostat set for 68 degrees.  In the basement, it’s typically about five degrees cooler.  I had a thermometer set up next to the treadmill.  Usually it reads 63 degrees.  Early in my first lap, it was reading 64.  By the end of that lap, it was reading 66 degrees.  I assume my body heat was warming up the air around the treadmill.

I had a fan set up on a stool in front of the treadmill.  It was plugged into a switch with a remote button, so I could turn it on or off without leaving the treadmill.  While I was running, I turned on the fan, so I wouldn’t get too hot.  When I took walking breaks, I didn’t need the fan, so I turned it off.

With the run/walk mix I was doing, I was taking about 50 minutes to finish a lap.  That was about right.  It gave me time to take my photos, refill my water bottle, go to the bathroom, spend a few minutes online, and still get back onto the treadmill a couple minutes before the start of the next lap.

I’ve done 24-hour races and 100 mile trail runs where you have to weigh in periodically.  During my second lap, it occurred to me I should be doing that, so I would know if I was drinking the right about to stay hydrated.  I didn’t think of that in time to take a baseline weight before starting.  Better late than never, I weighed myself after finishing my second lap.

When I finished my fifth lap, I had 20.83 miles under my belt.  If I was doing continuous running, I would’ve considered that to be enough for a long training run.  The run/walk/rest mix I was doing felt so easy that 20 miles this way felt as easy as 10 miles of continuous running.

By now, I was already feeling discomfort on the back of my left heel.  I was afraid of that.  Ideally, I wanted to run for at least 24 hours, but I knew that was a bad idea.  I didn’t want to risk taking a minor injury that had been healing nicely and making it turn into something much worse.  I wanted to run at least two more laps, so I would get beyond the marathon mark.  Then I’d take it one lap at a time.

Running on a treadmill can be mind-numbingly boring.  I find it helpful to listen to music.  We have a stereo in our living room with a five CD changer.  I have a remote set of speakers in my exercise room in the basement.  As I started my sixth lap, I had only a few songs left on the fifth CD.

I needed extra time between laps to go upstairs and put five new CDs into the CD player.  During my sixth lap, instead talking walking breaks of half a mile, I shortened my walking breaks to only one minute each.  That lap took only 43:25, which was by far my fastest.  That gave me more than enough time to change my music.  I had enough time left over to make and eat a peanut butter sandwich.  It was my first solid food since starting.

Before eating my sandwich, I weighed in.  My weight was down 1.6 pounds since my previous weigh-in.  I made a mental note to drink more.  Drinking more of my sports drink turned out to be a bad idea.  More on that later.

My seventh lap gave me 29.17 miles, which put me beyond the marathon mark.  It was time to start thinking about how much longer I wanted to run.  To the best of my recollection, the farthest I had ever run on a treadmill was 33 miles.  I wanted to go beyond that.  Eight laps would be 33.33 miles, but I tentatively set my sights on nine laps.  That would be 37.5 miles, which was more of a round number.  It would also be well beyond my previous best for a treadmill run.

Midway through my eighth lap, I started to find the pace to be tiring.  For the first seven laps, it was really easy.  I wondered if it was more psychological than physical.  Maybe my heart wasn’t in it, now that I knew I would be stopping soon.  I knew I could do a ninth lap, but I felt like I’d have to drag myself through it.  Instead, I decided to stop after eight laps.

After dropping out, we were each supposed to take a selfie with our homemade race bib and post it with the hashtag #QBdnf.  I did that.  Then I went online to fill out a form with my number of laps, so I could be listed in the race results.  My race was over, but the drama was just beginning.

I felt a little bit queasy.  I had some rumblings in my intestines.  I went to the bathroom to take a dump.  I thought that would make me feel better, but I still felt queasy.

I mentioned the queasiness to Deb.  I told her I was trying a new sports drink for the first time and wondered if it somehow disagreed with me.  I thought I mixed it according to the instructions, but maybe I made a mistake and mixed it too strong.

I needed to sit down.  After resting for several minutes, I started to feel chilly wearing my sweaty running clothes.  I wanted to put on a warm bathrobe, but first I needed to take a shower to rinse off the sweat.  As I started showering, my nose began to run.  It was like turning on a faucet.  Fortunately, that only lasted while I was in the warm shower.  I dried off and put on my robe.

I felt really wiped out.  I wanted to lie down, but Deb was cleaning and had a bunch of stuff on the bed.  I went to our downstairs bedroom and climbed into bed without even taking off my robe.

My breathing was really labored.  I could get enough oxygen, but I had to breath heavily.  I used a pillow to prop myself up in bed.  That didn’t make it any easier.

I stayed in bed for the next few hours.  My shortness of breath made me really nervous.  I’ve been reading so much about COVID-19 and severe respiratory distress that it started to mess with my head.  Was I infected and I didn’t know it before?  Was this what it felt like?  Was I dying?  Physically, I didn’t feel that bad, but mentally, I was starting to panic.

Eventually, I came back upstairs and sat on the sofa with my feet propped up.  That felt much more tiring.  Deb put an oximeter on my finger.  My oxygen saturation was reading 95 percent.  My pulse was 65.  That’s a little high for a resting pulse, but not bad for so soon after an ultramarathon.

Next, Deb put a blood pressure cuff on me.  She took my blood pressure twice.  Both readings were higher that my usual blood pressure, but not alarmingly so.  Finally, she took my temperature.  It was 95.8 degrees.  That was really surprising.  I didn’t feel at all cold.

It was a thermometer we had never used before, so wondered if it was off.  I insisted that Deb take my temperature with a different thermometer.  That one also read 95.8 degrees.  It wasn’t the thermometer.  It was me.

We called the nurse care line for our health insurance company.  They contacted our local clinic, and a doctor there called us back about 15 minutes later.  I explained my symptoms.  Most of my vital signs were OK, but the low temperature was unusual, and my shortness of breath was distressing.

Deb recalled my comments about the sports drink and brought that up.  The doctor asked her to read the ingredients.  It included caffeine and taurine.  That got my attention.  I grabbed the canister and read the instructions.  Apparently, I never read the fine print.  I assumed this was a sports drink like Gatorade.  It was actually a pre-workout energy drink.  The instructions stressed that you should only take one 8-12 oz. serving per day.  I was drinking it for eight hours.  I consumed several servings.  It’s good that I didn’t run any farther, or I would’ve had even more.

In a way, it was a relief to have an obvious explanation for my symptoms.  I was overdosing on both caffeine and taurine.

The doctor wanted me to go to the ER.  I asked if urgent care would be good enough.  She said they would just send me to the ER.  She wanted me to go in and get an EKG and some blood tests, but I was reluctant.

It was already evening, and Deb would be going to bed in a couple hours.  We’ve both been “sheltering in place” for two or three weeks.  Deb didn’t want to go anywhere near a hospital.  She said she could drop me off there.  I really didn’t want to be at the ER by myself this late in the day with no ride home.  I remembered a time when Deb went to the ER and had to wait for hours to be seen by a doctor.  Even if they could see me right away, I’d be there for hours.

Against medical advice, I stayed home.  I wanted to wait and see how I felt after laying in bed for a few hours and letting the caffeine and taurine gradually work their way out of my system.

I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink anything since finishing my run.  I asked Deb to heat up a can of soup.  She told me when it was ready, but it took several minutes before I had the energy to walk to the dining room.  As I sat down, I suddenly felt feverish.  My forehead was sweaty.  Suddenly, I couldn’t imagine eating a bowl of hot soup.

After sitting in front of the bowl of soup for several minutes, I finally forced myself to have a spoonful of broth.  A few minutes later, I had another spoonful, and then a third.  That’s as much as I could stomach.  I finally had to ask Deb to put the soup in a container and save it for later.  She covered the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator.

I walked back downstairs, stripped down to my underwear, and climbed into bed.  I no longer felt feverish.  My heartrate was elevated from the exertion of walking to bed, but my breathing finally felt easier.  That was a relief.  I laid as still as possible.  After several minutes, my heartrate got back to normal.

Deb eventually came downstairs to check on me, and I told her my breathing was OK now.  Later, before she went to bed, she checked on me one more time.  My breathing was still fine, but I felt wired.  I knew I would be awake for most of the night.

Even though I didn’t have anything to drink, I still had to get up occasionally to pee.  Caffeine and taurine are both diuretics.  Even though I was somewhat dehydrated, they were still making me pass more fluids.  Ideally, I should’ve been drinking fluids to replace what I was losing, but even the thought of drinking something made me feel nauseous.

After each trip to the bathroom, I could feel my heart racing.  I had to lay as still as possible, so my heartrate would settle down.  I relaxed as much as I could, but I had no hope of falling asleep.

At midnight, I was wide awake.  At 2 AM, I was wide awake.  At 3 AM, I was wide awake.  After that, I stopped looking at the clock, but I was awake for at least two more hours.

Eventually, I fell asleep.  When I woke up, it was 7:00.  I probably slept for an hour or two.  That helped a little.  It was only because of sheer exhaustion that I was able to sleep.  I was still wired when I woke up.  After an hour of trying to get back to sleep, I finally got up.

Deb used the oximeter again.  My oxygen saturation was better.  Now it was 98 percent.  My pulse was still 65.  I didn’t feel great, but I felt a little bit better.  The caffeine and taurine were starting to work their way out of the system.  I wasn’t out of the woods, but I was improving.

I usually weigh myself in the morning before eating anything.  My weight was about five pounds lower than it was the day before.  One pound of that might have been weight loss from the running, but at least four pounds was water loss.  I made a mental note to drink at least eight cups of fluid when I could.  It wasn’t going to be easy.

I didn’t feel like eating or drinking, but I followed the same routine I would follow if I had the flu.  I nibbled on saltine crackers and drank ginger ale, a few sips at a time.

I only had about eight ounces of ginger ale left.  Then I switched to orange juice.  When I ran out of orange juice, I drank water.

By 1:00 PM, I managed to drink about a quart of fluids, and I ate about a dozen crackers.  I didn’t know if I was ready for a meal, but I reheated the soup.  The broth made the back of my throat sting.  It also made my nose run.  It took effort to finish the soup.  So far, I had replaced about six cups of fluid.

I felt like the caffeine and taurine were gradually wearing off, but I still felt shaky.  I also felt the lack of sleep.  I didn’t have much energy, but I kept chipping away at rehydrating.

I was curious to know what a last man standing race would feel like.  I didn’t really get to find out.  It should’ve felt really easy at least until the nighttime hours.  It probably would have if not for my Achilles tendon and my unfortunate choice of beverage.

Note to self:  never try something new on race day, even if it’s just a virtual race.

Race Statistics
Number of Laps:  8
Total Distance:  33.33 miles
Elapsed Time:  8 hours
Time Actually Running:  6:34:58
Average Pace (Including Downtime):  14:24
Average Pace (Excluding Downtime):  11:51
Fastest lap:  43:25
Slowest lap:  50:55