Never Tell Me The Odds!: From the Hospital Bed to Club 71

Brief Dark Side race weekend change of plans. My little sister will be joining me. We ran the 2011 Disneyland Half and 2017 Star Wars-The Light Side Half marathons together albeit at our own paces and she is much faster than me. This time around we're both running all 3 weekend races. This will be my very first 5K ever and my sister's very first multi race weekend challenge.
 
Weekly Update For the Week of November 26, 2017

Monday November 27, 2017

3.3 miles

Tuesday November 28, 2017

Elliptical for 50 minutes. I'm going to see how I like elliptical vs walking for cross training.

Wednesday November 29, 2017

3.29 miles

Thursday November 30, 2017

1.87 miles 35 minute walk on the treadmill. This makes me less sore than the elliptical so I may use walking for cross training. It's not that I mind soreness, but I don't like to constantly feel it.

Friday December 1, 2017

Rest so I could watch the NCAA Women's College Volleyball tournament on TV since BYU is ranked in the top 10 and hosting the first two rounds.

Saturday December 2, 2017

4.21 miles. I sort of got mixed up as to where I was after I finished the 3 mile run portion of this run and wound up walking around the neighborhood until I recalibrated where I was. This is what happens when you run later in the afternoon and it spills into the evening. I felt good after a longer than planned though so that's good. This run gave me an opportunity to examine exactly where I'm at in my running. In short, I'd like to be faster. But that won't happen if I don't actually work on running faster. The condensed Avengers training gave me an opportunity to really think about the run-walk-run method. I dialed back my initial efforts to increase speed because of pain that I wanted to keep as soreness instead of injury. But I'm going to revisit that now.

Training for Avengers in 3 weeks gave me an opportunity to, in the words of Yoda, "unlearn what you have learned." I looked at my training with fresh eyes as it were and realized that I can experiment with speed during the weekly maintenance runs and see how that unfolds during the training. I'm interested to see how this all plays out at the Dark Side Half come April.
 
Brief training update for Star Wars - The Dark Side:

Monday December 5, 2017 3.85 miles

An important run in that I sustained my longest period of run-walk-run over the duration of an entire run. I had never really worked on this at all in prior training through Dark Side 2017. Instead, I would just work up to manageable speed. However, the condensed Avengers training led to experiment with more running in an attempt to help make up in a small way for the weeks of not training since no race was on the horizon.

So I ran for 1:30 and walked for 3:30 consistently throughout the entire 45 minute run. I thought this was monumental. But then I felt the hip pain.

That's it for the week. I noticed that my left hip in particular was really bothering me.

Doing some online research led me to hope it was just a temporary issue that would heal up. The word alignment kept sticking out to me, particularly as I observed how the pain subsided substantially over the weekend, only to flare up after work. I wondered if the settings on my new office chair were causing the problem, so I adjusted them. I also found that a long walk on Saturday helped it feel better, so I decided to resume normal running.

Monday December 11, 2017 3.92 miles. The first couple of interval runs made my hip hurt, but I decided to cautiously try to work through it. Fortunately, I worked through it.

Wednesday December 13, 2017 4.16 miles. Definitely feeling better as everything is normal now. Adjusting the settings on my office chair fixed the alignment problem. I'm also feeling stronger on the intervals. Hopefully in a week or so I can increase the duration of the running portion of the intervals.

While I know my old method is sufficient to finish, I'd love to be able to run faster, thus giving me more cushion to enjoy the photo stops and such at Dark Side.

Between the release of The Last Jedi on Thursday, dogsitting for a family member, and a talk at the Walt Disney Family Museum Saturday afternoon, I couldn't get in a 3rd run last week. This week marks the official beginning of Dark Side First Order Challenge training, so it's time to get the runs in.
 
12/18/17: 0.93 miles.

So much for a strong start to the official beginning of First Order Challenge training. This run started out substantially tougher than I expected. It got worse when I started to run and then when I finished the first running portion of the session, my legs started to tighten up. Maybe I was too spooked about an injury, or maybe my heart really wasn't in this run, but I ended it after about 16 minutes.

12/20/17: 4.27 miles

Whatever went wrong Monday night had more or less passed by this time this run started. I powered through the initial protests of my body would rather be home being lazy and finished strong. Still running for 1 1/2 minutes and walking for 3 1/2 minutes.

12/22/17: 3.55 miles.

A 3 mile run for tonight went off without a hitch. Wanted to get it in today so that it wouldn't loom over tomorrow or Christmas Eve. Also successful because this marked the first time I've successfully had 3 interval runs in one week. This also means that I broke the lazy streak that had taken over the past few weeks. It always takes me a few weeks to settle into a training groove, so hopefully I got the laziness out of my system.

Continued success with interval training means it's soon time to push the boundaries and increase the duration of my running during the run-walk-run portion.
 


12/26/17: 4.1 miles. Not sure how to classify this run. I attempted to up the interval portion from 1 1/2 minutes running to 3 1/2 minutes walking to 2 minutes run/3 minutes walk. This proved to be too much too soon and pretty much exhausted me after 20 minutes at which point I dropped back to the old 1:30 run/2:30 walk ratio to finish my run. It wasn't a failure, but it was also too difficult.

12/28/17: 4.24 miles. After Tuesday's challenges, I concluded that 2 run/3 walk is too much right now, but decided to try a 1:35 run/3:25 walk ratio. This went much better.

12/30/17: 4.51 miles. Planned 4 mile run for Dark Side went fine. Continuing the 1:35 run/3:25 walk ratio.

Total December miles: 37.74 miles.

Total 2017 miles: 372.52 miles.
 
1/1/18: 4.15 miles

1/3/18: 4.3 miles. This also officially starts my training for the Star Wars Virtual Half Marathon. I'll extend my 12.5 mile run in late March out to 13.1.

1/6/18: 5.52 miles

My plans to get some cross training in didn't happen this week. But there's always next week.
 
Episode Whatever: Attack of the Runners Knee

It is a time of frustration and some uncertainty. Training was going so well. I found success in increasing duration of running during run-walk periods. The galaxy was the limit. But then last Saturday night hit.

Last Saturday evening, I felt some pain in my left knee. I wasn't too worried. Lessened on Sunday and 90% pain free on Monday. So I went running as planned.

1/8/18: 4.42 miles. This run felt incredible. Almost effortless. As if I glided through the running portions. And then Tuesday came. And I felt pain in both knees constantly. All day long. It never really went away and I knew something was wrong. Did some reading and it sounded like runners knee. Decided to take Wednesday off altogether. Woke up Wednesday morning and the pain had subsided quite a bit. Stuck to doing nothing Wednesday. Felt comparable on Thursday as I did on Monday. Decided to give it a go with one caveat. SLOW DOWN. Don't push it.

1/11/18 3.49 miles. Began with some weight training focusing on my quads, glutes, and hips. My research made it pretty clear that my recent slacking off in doing strength training has come up with a price. Felt pretty good for the first 20 minutes or so. Debated about stopping at 30 minutes, but decided to go for 45 minutes. Which happened. Knees hurt again upon finishing, but I spent time self massaging Thursday evening.

Woke up Friday morning feeling great. Intermittently throughout the day, soreness would come and go. After more debate I decided to go to the gym and at least do some more strength training. More reading Thursday night helped me find some new ideas.

Observation about the strength training. 1. It was difficult, but I could really feel a difference afterwards. The soreness had subsided. So much so that I decided to give the elliptical machine a go. Went for the hoped for 35 minutes. More self massage at home afterwards. Would I ran on Saturday? Should I run on Saturday. I knew I was going to the Globetrotters game with my little sister Saturday afternoon so any running would have to be Saturday morning.

1/13/18: 3.54 miles. Woke up feeling good. Decided to give it a go. In fact felt so good that I went against my intention to take the entire 3 mile run easy and resumed my normal speed and usual intervals. After the run, hit the weights again. Felt pretty good. For a while. After the Globetrotters game, I could really feel my knees hurting. Thankfully, still not close to Tuesday. I suspect sitting stationary for the game contributed to my problems.

Woke up this morning with knee pain, but it's not bad. It could certainly be a lot worse. Still not close to Tuesday pain levels.

I've read a lot of different opinions over the past few days. Some say to stop running altogether until the pain subsides. This kind of scares me. Having taken 2 weeks off of running during half marathon training before, I remember how brutally difficult that first long run back is. But then again, it's still early on in training. I don't want this to get worse.

For a few weeks now, I've been doing preliminary thinking about either the 2019 WDW marathon and/or Goofy/Dopey. But my knee pain has spooked me. I'm probably overthinking this too much. But the thought of attempting to train for a full and having runners knee is no fun.

At the same time, I need to be patient here. I'm already noticing some benefit from the strength training. And that's still very early on. I'm also reasonably certain that I have a very mild case of runners knee.

I have so may questions right now that it's starting to drive me a bit crazy.

1. Do I take the week off altogether? Will that take care of my problems?

2. Do I have the discipline to simply take the week easy? Turn those 45 minute maintenance runs into 30 minute runs. Would going slow yesterday helped decrease the discomfort or perhaps eliminate it? I felt strong enough at the start to resume my recent running intervals and was able to finish it.

3. Maybe I try the elliptical all week. That will help lessen the impact and keep the cardio up. The flip side is that I've come to discover that I like running on a treadmill more than I like the elliptical. The first few minutes off the elliptical always feel weird. That doesn't happen with running. And my quads and calves are always less sore after running than the elliptical.

At the very least, I know that more strength training resumes tomorrow. And must not slacken off. In a worst case scenario, I'm confident that I can always drop the attempts to substantially increase my speed and return to the method that has never failed me. Patience is something I need to learn again. I have an idea that I will know a whole lot more in a week or two.
 


Week ended January 21, 2019 Update:

I decided that I was rather tired of feeling knee pain, so I decided to make running a day by day decision. If it hurts, no running. If the only way to deal with this knee pain is to rest, then I'd rather rest now when it is less difficult to get my speed back than closer to the race.

Monday through Wednesday: No running. I did feel like my knee was slowly starting to feel better every day.

Thursday January 18, 2018: Off to the running store. I felt like the pain was substantially lower that I could venture out again, but before doing so I went to the running store. Great decision. Just watching me walk they were able to identify the likely culprit and recommended custom insoles. Sadly for my Nike loyalty, they did not have any Nike in my size for the style of support I needed, so I am now using New Balance. Just walking around the store in the new shoes and the custom inserts, I could feel an immediate difference. So much so that I decided to go out for a run.

2.33 miles. Honestly, I wanted to go further. But the pain was starting to come back, so I decided to call 30 minutes victory enough for the week. Came home and started rolling my tight muscles.

Friday morning: Woke up and my knees felt tremendous. Best they have in a few days. The running store was right. I would notice an immediate difference in my knee pain.

Saturday January 20, 2018: 7 miles. Based on how I felt when I woke up, I decided to give it a go. Knees did great. The run itself was pretty difficult, but I think that's more to do with a very easy run 2 days earlier after taking multiple days off altogether. I had a couple times where I decided to skip the running portion since I didn't want to push too hard. The trick with a busy Saturday means not much time to roll my muscles. After a few hours, the knee pain returned slightly, but I was able to work through it and it definitely got better. Definitely seeing the difference. Hopefully this week will be back to normal.
 
Week beginning January 22, 2018

1/23/18: 4.17 miles. I noticed knee pain around 30 minutes, but made the mistake of trying to power through it.

1/25/18: 2.33 miles. The knee pain isn't really subsiding. Sure it's not terrible. I could make a go of it if I had to on race day, but still I'm tired of my knee hurting all the time. Accordingly after this race, I decided to shut it down for at least a week. No running. Period. I've spent a couple of weeks now trying to run through this pain and it's just not working. This is a better time to take a week off before the back to back training runs for the First Order Challenge start up. Yes, that first run back after not running in a while may be very difficult, but I'd rather take time off now than be forced to take it off closer to the race.

Honestly, this is perhaps the week when I've discovered how much I'm beginning to enjoy this. Or maybe I'm just concerned about finishing Dark Side in April. There have been some moments where I've questioned this decision to sign up. After all, I sort of did it on a whim. As in I started actually thinking about running Dark Side at lunch one day and before I left the office that very same day I had signed up for the challenge. And the knee pain has caused me to fear being unable to finish for the first time since my very first half. This week proved tricky at times. Towards the end of the week I started to go stir crazy. I really wanted to get back out there and run. Yesterday marked just over one week since I shut it down and I decided to give it a go.

2/3/18: 8.46 miles. Rule number one of today's run. GO SLOW! No ramping up to pre knee pain speed because I feel like I can. The very first thing I noticed was how much better my knees felt at the start of the run. No lingering pain. My knees felt great. This lasted for approximately an hour before I started to notice soreness in my left knee (probably the weaker knee). I decided to monitor this, but keep going. After another 20 minutes or so I decided to go a little bit faster, but vigilant about paying serious attention to how my knees felt. No increase in soreness in the left knee and my right knee feels completely normal. Finished the run at the slightly increased speed. Most importantly, no pain.

Now for the big question. How do my knees feel now? After my 7 mile run two weeks ago they felt fine, but began to get a little bit sore after a few hours. Today my right knee doesn't feel like I ran at all. It's normal. There is intermittent soreness in my left knee, but nowhere near what I felt 2 weeks ago.

While I still remain in wait and see mode, I'm feeling relief right now. The 3 week training plan for Avengers marked the first time I deviated significantly from the Galloway plan I used for all previous races. I know that will work. This speed experiment was a test to see how fast I can go. Maybe get a better finish at Dark Side even with all the character stops. If that works, it could translate into attempting a marathon.

Well, I still don't know how this is all going to play out. But today was the first run I've had in weeks that did not result in significant pain later on. So at the very least I feel confident that I can go back to what has worked and finish Dark Side. I'd like to see if I'm capable of more as a runner, but not at the expense of pain that makes this much less enjoyable. If slow is my ceiling, than I can live with that. It's enabled me to do things I never thought possible.
 
Just when I thought I was back on track after dealing with the knee pain, I caught a cold. This is a terrible time of year for me to get sick. A lot of work and too little time to get it done.

2/5/18 3.26 miles

2/7/18 3.21 miles

2/9/18 Supposed to be 1 mile for First Order Challenge cancelled due to my cold.

2/10/18 Supposed to be 7 miles for First Order Challenge cancelled due to my worsening cold.

Runs for week of 2/12/18 all cancelled due to my cold.

Running with a cold is a feel thing. I know it can sometimes be done, but due to my professional demands, I didn't want to spend my precious non working recovery time running because I couldn't afford to risk this getting worse.

Good news is that I started to turn the corner on Friday and feel almost completely back to normal today. Certainly well enough that I'm going to resume running tonight after work. My tenative plan for the week is to resume full Dark Side training. Maintenance runs of 30-45 minutes tonight and Wednesday with a 2 mile and 9.5 mile back to back runs Friday and Saturday. I'm not worried about the shorter runs, but the 9.5 mile run may be cut short if it's too much too soon. My last long run was 8 miles on February 3rd, but I've only gotten 2 of the planned maintenance runs in since then so we'll see how I respond to a long run.
 
Congrats on the new shoes and insoles. Have you considered seeing a PT about your knee? We have a lady locally who just deals with athletes, watches them run on a treadmill then works on correcting form, issues, taping. Just one visit to someone similar might help.
 
Congrats on the new shoes and insoles. Have you considered seeing a PT about your knee? We have a lady locally who just deals with athletes, watches them run on a treadmill then works on correcting form, issues, taping. Just one visit to someone similar might help.
Unfortunately, I don't really have the time right now to do that on account of work being insanely busy. It's definitely something that I've given some thought to though. As it stands right now, the self imposed rest and going slower have solved the problem. My knees were feeling substantially better after the first week off. The second week off due to illness made my first run back challenging, but I'm not too concerned about that. The fitness will return in time if I keep at it.

At the end of the day, I've made peace with the possibility of having to slow down in order to accomplish my primary goal, which as always, is finishing. Every time I've experimented with increasing speed, I've seen problems shortly thereafter. This time the problems just took longer to manifest. I've also noticed that every time I use going slower to address the problems, they go away. So at the end of the day, if slow and steady leads to me finishing the race, I'm okay with that. It's never failed me yet.
 
At long last a consistent return to running. After a self imposed week off to rest my knee and a reluctant though correct decision to take a week and a half off due to a cold, I finally started running again this past week. Given that I had completed just 2 short runs days after my 8 mile run 3 weeks ago, the goal this week was simple. Return to running and don't be afraid if that return is slow. Ideally the back to back training runs for Dark Side will start up this week since my cold necessitated cancelling the first back to back training weekend, but I was willing to cut that 9.5 mile run short if necessary.

2/19/18 3.24 miles. I took this one slow at 15:46 per mile. As I expected the first run back was difficult, but in the end I decided that the exhaustion around 30 minutes had everything to do with wanting to stop running and nothing to do with needing to stop because it was too much too soon.

2/21/18 3.26 miles. Another run at 15:46 per mile. I felt a lot stronger during this run.

2/23/18 2.46 miles.

2/24/18 9.98 miles. Besides being a 9.5 mile run 3 weeks after an 8 mile run with a lot of not even exercising in between, I viewed this as the test run of sorts for Dark Side weekend. When the knee pain began in mid January and kept persisting for a while I began to fear that this was going to wreak serious havoc with my plans to run all 3 races during Dark Side weekend. When I did return to running, I also told myself to slow down. I would take it slow until the knee pain subsided altogether. Well, I'm not there yet. But I was able to complete all of yesterday's long run at a 15 minute per mile pace. Yes, the end was tough, but no more than usual as I increase the long runs. Most importantly, the knee pain is minimal and most certainly manageable.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm going to even attempt to get back to the speed I had before the pain started. I know from experience that my current ability is sufficient to finish all 3 races at Dark Side weekend. This may well mean that whatever dreams I had of attempting a full are never coming true. But honestly, I'm okay with that. The knee pain caused me to see a future where I can't run at all. And I would rather not have that future. The benefits I get from running are not contingent on me ever attempting a full.

I'm back on track. And that's good enough for now.
 
February: 40.57 miles. A little bit lower than January. The beginning of the month I was on a self imposed week off running to rest an injured knee and the middle of the month got sidetracked by a cold. However, I successfully returned to running twice with nothing more than a loss of speed and fitness. I didn't have to cut any of the long runs short for either fitness or injury reasons, completed both long runs at an acceptable race day pace, and have continued running without major knee pain.
 
Do you want to run a 5K, 10K, and Half just days after the busiest work deadline of the year preceded by months of long hours with minimal free time, a huge chunk of which is taken up by training for said races?

You don't want to run the 5K and First Order Challenge after all that. You want to go home and rethink your life.

I don't want to run the 5K and First Order Challenge. I want to go home and rethink my life.

But in the words of Darth Vader: It is too late for me.

So here we are. In all seriousness I suspect all the second guessing I'm doing now will be happily forgotten at Walt Disney World and will eventually be replaced with sadness because there's no way I can run the 2019 Dark Side weekend and I believe 2020 or 2021 is the earliest runDisney is coming back to Disneyland.

2/26/18 3.33 miles

2/28/18 3.37 miles

3/2/18 4.46 miles

I'm now able to consistently average a 15 minute mile. I don't feel comfortable enough with my knee to increase my speed yet. While I don't feel pain per se, my knee doesn't feel completely normal either. But I know I can handle this pace without pain or discomfort. And since this pace is sufficient to finish, I'm at peace with that.

Up this week is the first of 2 preparatory Dark Side weekend training runs. 45 minutes-3 miles-11 miles on 3 consecutive days.
 
Last week was insane. I think the earliest I got home was 8:45pm. Still managed to get my running in. I have to keep reminding myself that in order to finish Dark Side, I have to pay the price now. I don't remember it being this difficult the last two years of late night training, but I digress. Maybe I felt this overwhelmed the last two years as well.

This week also marked the first trial run for all 3 Dark Side races. I had planned to run Monday and then Wednesday through Friday nights, but a late night work appointment switched that plan to Monday and Thursday through Saturday. I prefer the long runs on Saturday, but the tradeoff is going into work late when I have those long runs. But as long as I get the work done, I'm fine.

3/5/18 3.45 miles

3/8/18 3.45 miles

3/9/18 3.21 miles

3/10/18 11.46 miles

I felt good, but sore after the 11 mile run. Much to my surprise I felt a lot better than I thought I would Sunday morning. I'm beginning to believe that Dopey just might be possible after all. I've always feared the exhaustion of running a full the day after a half. Admittedly I could run just the full, but if this is going to be a one and done full, then why not go all out?
 
This is why I am doing Dopey too. Then maybe, hopefully, Disneyland races will come back and I can put off another WDW trip for a while...
I think this mentality plays a huge role in my marathon weekend consideration. If Disneyland races come back and Star Wars stays in mid January, then I choose Star Wars over any marathon weekend race.
 
I still harbor dreams of speed. So this past week, in the spirit of George Costanza's ever growing story about his non existent summer home in the Hamptons, I decided to try taking my speed up a notch.

3/12/18 3.46 miles. Started off feeling good, but after 10 minutes started to feel off. Maybe if this was months ago, I would have tried to power through it, but with the race a little over a month out, I decided to err on the side of slow. So I slowed down a little bit and experimented with various speeds.

3/14/18 3.53 miles at 14:37 per mile.

3/17/18 4.45 miles at 14:37 per mile. I'm not far off from my speed a year ago heading into last year's Dark Side half. At this point, I don't think I'll even attempt pre knee trouble speed. I've now consistently ran for almost a month now at acceptable speeds to finish the race and have been able to increase that speed some without problem.

Up this week: My last Dark Side simulation training week. 45 minutes on Tuesday and Thursday, 4 miles on Friday and the Virtual Star Wars Half on Saturday.
 
I'm like a phoenix, rising out of Arizona. Except technically I'm not actually in Arizona. I've only even been there a couple of times. Hopefully, this whole journey doesn't end in disaster like it did when Frank Costanza resumed his cooking again.

I marked this past week a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Namely, I designated it as the Star Wars virtual half weekend figuring that 13.1 really isn't much further than 12.5 miles and this week worked perfectly to do so. I also decided it would be another good test.

3/20/18 3.43 miles. Tougher run than I expected. I think the stress from work is taking a toll. But I did it.

3/22/18 3.44 miles. Went a lot better. Also the first day of 3 consecutive days in preparation for Dark Side weekend.

3/23/18 4.51 miles. In order to preserve my legs for tomorrow and conserve my energy, I forced myself to take this one slow. Sometimes, I hate going slow. This one felt like it dragged on forever. But I got it done.

3/24/18 13.12 miles. Went strong for most of the run, but decided to slow down for the last 20 minutes or so. I calculated that slowing down wouldn't impact my time by very much and I felt like I'd had enough anyways. I believe weeks like this one show us why we train. In order to know how to power though tougher runs. If we've already powered through tough runs during training, then we know how to do so on race day. If anything, race day will somehow feel easier than yesterday since race day brings with it all the fun of photo backdrops, crowd energy, characters, and the sights of Walt Disney World. I also believe race day will be easier because I'll have more time off between the last two races. It's simpler for me to run after work. That's later right now, and when a run calls for a long run as part of a back to back, that often means less than 12 hours between finishing one run and starting the lone run. Not ideal for recovery purposes, but I can do it.

It's kind of strange. I finished the run in roughly 3 hours and 18 minutes. That's actually slower than most of my fastest race times which include photo stops. Maybe because I slowed down at the end, I feel like the race defeated me, but I know that is not what actually happened.

Most importantly I remain on target for race day. This is my last really long run before the race. Due to even more time constraints coming next week, I will shorten the Galloway plan 14 mile run to 8 miles. I simply don't have time to run 14 miles in 2 weeks. But this worked last year. Again this is the benefit of consistent training. When we consistently train, we position ourselves to absorb less than ideal situations because the accumulated fitness does not disappear immediately.

As this marked my very first virtual race, I'll share my thoughts on that idea.

First off, I understand the arguments against virtual races especially when any virtual race medal feels like it's been purchased since no proof of complying with any time requirement is necessary. However, keep in mind that no "unearned" virtual medal takes anything away from any runner who actually met the requirement. I also believe virtual races have a place. Maybe some beginners feel too intimidated to sign up for a race held at a predetermined location. In the case of runDisney, how many runners want at least part of the runDisney experience, but for geographic or scheduling reasons cannot make it to a runDisney race weekend? Virtual races offer at least part of that experience with the finishers medal.

in the end for me this virtual race became little more than a slightly extended training run as part of my Dark Side training preparation. I however still like the idea of a virtual run. In my conversations with non runners in the parks on race weekend, I feel like many of them wish they could do it too, but do not actually believe they can do so. The idea sounds neat, but actually impossible. Honestly, I can't blame them. I used to believe that too. And despite so much encouragement from so many runners I didn't believe them either until I actually did it. In that respect a virtual race offers an opportunity to give it a go. Hopefully it helps new runners build up the confidence to someday run a location based race.

Now, will I sign up for a virtual race again? Honestly, the answer depends on the medal. For a medal I really like, then sure. Count me in. I'm likely to register for the virtual shorts series this year with medals inspired by The Incredibles. I'd probably sign up for a virtual Star Wars next year should they offer it. But otherwise, I much prefer the location based race experience. There truly is something very different about crowd support, volunteers, and ultimately having someone place a medal around your head because you earned it. And honestly I missed not receiving a medal yesterday when I finished my virtual race. It's coming next month at the Expo. But at least I did get something Star Wars related yesterday. My blu-ray copy of The Last Jedi arrived 3 days early. Pretty cool timing if you ask me.
 
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