Big pimpin’ Jamoosh is back again and this post is a tad less serious than the previous one…
Saturday mornings are normally my longer runs, but this morning brought something different. It was race day! Now obviously in these pandemic times, it was not a race teaming with hordes of other runners, but it was a race nonetheless. A virtual race.
I have only done one other virtual race and that was many years ago when one of my far flung blogging friends created one because there were no races in his area during the winter months. It was fun and it was mainly in fun; no winners (or losers) and a good story to blog about. Ah, the good old days.
This particular virtual race is put on by the company I work for and is part of their annual Give Campaign. They partnered with Run Keeper and Race Roster to make it as official as possible. More importantly, this race is done for charity and before I toed the make believe starting line on Saturday morning, over $230,000.00 had been raised. That is straight cash, homey!
Trump will probably claim this was his idea…
It’s a beautiful race… a very, very beautiful race. I thought of it, believe me. My friends, who are really, really rich, tell me I have the best ideas. So, it will be an amazing, very amazing, beautiful race, that I thought of.
But let’s face it, Trump has never had an exercise related thought in his life. I would say the term “Trump exercises” is an oxymoron, but let’s face it, the guy is just a plain old moron.
Speaking of morons, there are advantages and disadvantages to a virtual race. For example, there is no douche nugget seven minutes into the race shouting that you are almost there. Somebody should punch that guy in the face incessantly while saying, “I am almost done.”
If you are looking for motivation from the runners around you, sadly you are out of luck. And there is no free beer tent, which almost dis-incentivizes us less serious runners – but hey, it’s for charity. It’s for the kids (It actually is, in part, for the kids)!
But… Butter my butt and call me a biscuit, I have never had such good parking. I don’t think I could be any closer to the start/finish line. No need to search for a parking space that is potentially farther from the start line than the race is long? Sign me up.
Oh, I got to design my own course. If I only had a slip and slide… In all seriousness, I did choose a course that was not only light on cars, but would not impact my momentum because of stoplights, crosswalks and other such things you don’t have to deal with on a closed race course.
And how did this race go? I am glad you asked. First, apparently sacrificing small animals to the Weather Gods/Goddesses paid off because it was perfect 5K weather. 54 degrees with just the slightest breeze. Nice. Second, it was early enough before the bulk of other runners, walkers, cyclists and other such folks were out and about so the course was “virtually” wide open. (Did you see what I did there?)
It appears even though there were no other runners, motivation was not a problem for this guy.
Mile 1 – 8:45 / Mile 2 – 8:15 / Mile 3 – 8:06 / Overall – 25:58 / Pace – 8:22
Not bad for an older guy. I will take it. And I will take that post-race Whataburger Hatch Green Chile Bacon Burger meal as a post race treat as well.
If you can do a virtual race and support a charity, I highly encourage you make it so.
Jamoosh Interrupted 