Fitness Swellness: Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee race recap

AND DONE!

Finished the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee and became a RAT (as everyone in this race has affectionately been calling ourselves based on the race acronym) on Sunday afternoon, June 28th! 59 days (gun time) but 58 days since I registered on May 2nd! My journey? And how did I finish in less than half the time I expected to use to complete running 1,021.68 kilometres? (ICYMI, this is where I stood after the month of May running this race). Here is my obsessive runner mind works:

WEEK 1: Registered and decide to only run—because I’m a glutton for punishment? Perhaps. But also because I think I approached it as I would running a marathon. And I never plan to walk for a marathon… Purposeful, active walking (that is, you can’t just take the distance from your FitBit for your daily steps) and hiking is permitted and encouraged for this race, in fact, but I’m stubborn and I decided I’m only counting running.

As I kick off the race, I’m nervous about running 8.5k daily so that I can finish August 31st (and scared I might really regret joining this race), but figure I’ll run longer some days so I can have some days of rest.

WEEK 2: I’ve been run streaking since April 19th (before the race started), so might as well keep this run streak going. No days off.  I can’t bear having a 0 in the GVRAT daily miles!

WEEK 3: Oh. I’m pretty low in the standings. I better up my distance, so I start running 15k on some days. Rest days? What’s a rest day? NO REST DAYS.

It was around week 3 that I read Laz’s FB post that the top 3,000 finishers win something special (not sure what it is…probably a pin?), so I become obsessed with moving up into the top 3,000 finishers (I think I’m around 12,000th spot at this point).

WEEK 4: “If I up the days I run 15k to 16k, then the miles in the daily miles column will be double digits…” (15k is 9 miles, whereas 16k is 10 miles) so I up it to 16k at a minimum. And whaddyaknw, holy moly, I’ve run 450 kilometres in May!

WEEK 5: My friend and fellow GVRATer Aylin asks me if I’m finishing in June. No, I tell her, I’m finishing around July 4th…but I immediately take out a calculator and start figuring out if June is feasible. With 18k daily, and a few 22k run days, I can finish by June 30. What’s 18k when I’m already doing 16k at a minimum, after all? It’s just another 2k, what’s another 2k daily? ALSO, NEVER HAVE I BEEN SO UPSET THAT JUNE ONLY HAS 30 DAYS.

WEEK 6: Remind me why I decided not to include all of the walking and hiking I do? At this point I’m running 2-3 times a day and am pretty scared of getting a stress fracture from overuse. I’ve dialed back my pace a lot and I halfheartedly do some stretches at this point. How have I been run streaking from since mid-April when I have always said I’m not designed for run streaking?!?! Why can’t we have a group rest day like a few people posted about in the FB group?!? The handful of days I fell asleep before adding my daily mileage I’ve fallen about 100 spots in the standings so I can see what logging a 0 with a rest day will do to my current position in the race. And this is all knowing that this being a virtual race and self reporting, we are all racing with different circumstances—some are running phenomenal mountains with dramatic changes in terrain and we are all dealing with different weather conditions, some are walking all of the race, and yet I’m still obsessed with finishing this race as high in the standings as I can.

WEEK 7: I’ve been in the top 3,000 for a few weeks now, and keep moving up the standings, so I’m happy, but I figure a lot of people are aiming for June 30th…and decide I should aim for June 29th…so when I can, I add a bit of distance on top of what I have set out in my calendar…

WEEK 8: If I run more every day, and rejig what I have planned for the next few days, I can cut out yet another day and finish on June 28th… In anticipation of finishing this race, I finally get around to watching the documentary Barkley Marathons: The Race that Eats Its Young and am amazed with the runners who attempt this brutal race.

Sunday, June 28th: Even though it was beyond hot and humid, I ran 35.5k on Sunday (the most I’ve logged in one day for this race) and completed 1021.68k! Plus, I reached Volt Level on the NRC app (Volt Level is 15,000 km!) in the morning, so it was a super big day for running for me! (More on reaching Volt Level in a post soon to come!)

Aylin came out and did this little finish line for me and Billie Jean (in the video clip below). Billie Jean ran 850 kilometres of the race with me (due to the heat, I left her at home for some runs), and with that I CAN’T BELIEVE IT BUT AM DONE! I forget when I broke into the top 3,000, but I finished 1,229th! And 524th female (btw, there are more women registered in this race than men, yasss!).

 

I was uncertain when I registered for the race if I’d come to really regret committing to such a long distance, but the GVRAT has truly been saving me during this pandemic. To have this running goal to fixate on and to occupy my time when I’d likely otherwise be at home getting more stressed and anxious about life and everything happening in the world, it’s really been the best thing to come out of living under lockdown.

So now what?

Lazarus Lake commented on my FB post in the group (which is the closest I’ll ever come to being connected to the Barkley Marathons, hahahahaha!), asking if he was going to see my at the 1,000 mile mark or back at the start—you see, there’s the option to run Back Across Tennessee! So…I’ve registered to run BAT! I’m undecided if I’ll run entirely back across Tennessee or just aim for the 1,000 miler (which is “just” another 600 kilometres). I have two months to complete it, but I will definitely be including my active, purposeful walking and hiking into my distance and taking my time for the return as I’d like to have more time to enjoy the summer weather, cook more (it’s fallen by the wayside with all the running) and to give my body a break (I don’t think running 1,000+ kilometres in two months was very kind to my body).

Here we go back across Tennessee!

 

Leave a Comment July 2, 2020

Fitness Swellness: My goal for the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee

When I started the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee, I fully intended on using the full four months (the race is from May 1st until August 31st) because anything more than the 8.5k daily (or approximately 60k per week) sounded very close to impossible.

I started week 1 with this schedule in mind. I’d just run nearly every day in April to complete 200k and I was kind of regretting having jumped right into a race that would have me running nearly daily all summer.  So I’d run 8.5k one day, but the next if I was tired I ran 6k, figuring I’d make up the distance with a longer run on a day with nice weather later in the week. I was very conscious of not falling behind on distance because it could quickly add up and become impossible to complete the race in time.

Then came week 2. And logging my miles into the GVRAT system, I saw where I stood amongst the 19,000 other runners, and well, that competitive side kicked in. I regularly upped my mileage, and now my usual run is 15k, and I’ve taken no days off. Taking a rest day usually means running 10k at a pace that feels easy.

And my goal for the month of May has changed over these past three weeks as well. I initially planned on 250 kilometres; then when I realized the race is actually 1021.68 kilometres (because that’s the actual distance across Tennessee) I added on the extra 22k to May, making my goal 272k. But then with my increased mileage, I realized I’d easily reach that, and I upped it to 300k, then 322k.

So this photo, which I took about a week and a half ago, was intended as a photo for reaching my goal at the end of the month. Except I’ve just reached 322k today, May 24. As for this upcoming last week in May, I’m going to stick to roughly the distances I’ve been logging daily, depending on how my body feels. Today and last Sunday, I can tell my legs need some rest after the 21k I’ve logged two Saturdays in a row.

The race has become a really welcome distraction in my life during the coronavirus pandemic, and my overall goal for the race is now to complete the 1,021.68 kilometres as soon as I can, within reason. I’m wary of injuring myself (this is more mileage I’ve ever run in fixed period of time, and run streaking is also something I haven’t done much of, and knock on wood, I’ve never had a running injury before and I don’t care to have my first injury now).

I’ll recap May at the end of the month, but right now I’ll continue my routine (which besides running, sometimes multiple times a day, translates to so much showering and running-gear laundry!).

Leave a Comment May 24, 2020

Fitness Swellness: I’m running 1,000 kilometres in the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee

So…I’ve set a major running goal for summer 2020: I’m going to run 1,000 kilometres in the next four months.

But let’s backtrack a bit so you can get some context. On April 30th, I reached a distance goal of 200k I’d set for myself for the month of April. I’ve run more than that distance before in one month, but always when training for a marathon. For me, 200 kilometres without a marathon goal race in the calendar is a lot. I’m not the kind of runner who loves doing anything much longer than 10k unless I need to for training. And my preference is to run three days a week, four if I’m feeling ambitious. In April, I ended up running 24 days. They were mostly run at a comfortable pace; given the higher overall mileage and greater frequency, my focus was just getting the distance completed. My legs were tired and my pace never really improved, but I was fine with that. It wasn’t about speed. These runs in April became some much needed almost daily stress relief and nice outing in the fresh air while living in quarantine.

How did I come around to making my goal to run 1,000k this summer?

On the last day of April, here is my series of texts to a running friend:

4:06 p.m.: I completed my 200k goal for April and reached 14,000 km on Nike Run Club. My legs are tired, though. I’ll scale back my distance in May.

8:16 p.m.: In crazy runner fashion, now I’m thinking maybe my May goal should be 250 km.

11:40 p.m.: (upon coming across an article on Facebook about the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee 1000k) Oh, and look what just popped up in my feed! That would be 250k a month!

What’s the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee 1000k? The GVRAT is a summer-long race from the creator of the extremely vigorous Barkley Marathons, Lazarus Lake. The distance from the southeastern corner of the state of Tennessee to the northwestern corner is approximately 1,000 kilometres (or 621 miles). The race started on May 1st and goes until August 31st, which means participants have four months to run 1,000k. I was already considering 250k for May… so why not making it four months straight?

(N.B. The distance across Tennessee is actually 1,022 kilometres…and tbh, I’m not clear if it’s 1,000k or 1,022k I have to complete–as it stands, I will complete 1,022 to ensure I complete this virtual race!)

I hemmed and hawed about registering and I had some mixed feedback from friends about whether I should register or not. One reason I was compelled to register? Completing the 1,000k in the virtual race would also coincide with reaching Volt status on Nike Run Club (NRC), so it’d be kind of epic to complete both at the same time.

However, a reason I was iffy about registering (besides the daunting distance through the heat of the summer) was that if I had to prioritize, I’d rather run a marathon in the fall. My plan is to run Detroit Marathon again since I had such a great race last year there. But with the pandemic, who knows if marathons will actually be held this fall. If I were to register for GVRAT, and fall marathons do indeed take place, I’d have to figure out how to manage my training. While I would complete about 250k in a four-week period roughly a month before the marathon, to be completing 250k each month while hoping to run a great marathon is asking a lot of me, mentally and physically. And in training for a marathon, I’d be focused on improving speed and doing hill training, rather than simply completing distance. So juggling the two goals would be a challenge.

I waffled a bit, but I decided it would help to have a goal like the GVRAT to focus on and help me manage  the stress of the pandemic. I can’t control many aspects of life right now, but I can manage my running workouts. It will be a good distraction, and having a running schedule would add some structure to my calendar. Also, normally, I often have to juggle marathon training around traveling for work; now, it will likely be a long time til travel picks up again, so I have plenty of time while at home in Toronto and I can invest that time towards this running goal.

And so I registered for the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee and joined the 16,000+ runners worldwide taking part as well. You can also register your dog, and Billie Jean will likely run most of the 1,000k with me, but I can’t be sure of that (sometimes I may run home from an errand when she’s not with me, plus I can’t have her run with me very long on the days it is unbearably hot and humid), and so I haven’t officially registered her in the dog category of the race.

How I will structure my 1,000 kilometres

Currently, my plan is to switch up the distances. If running daily, 1,000k works out to approximately 8.5k daily. I prefer to have some rest days so I plan to change it up from week to week with some longer runs so that I can take a rest day. That said, I don’t really enjoy running more than 20k when not in training for a marathon. Right now, I’m thinking a decent week might be to run four 15k runs, plus a short recovery run. Also, I predict many of Billie Jean’s quick pee breaks will likely become short, slow and easy runs. I’m going to play around with the schedule and see what works best for me mentally and physically. The race rules allow you to walk (but it has to be a walk with the purpose of walking/hiking, not simply the tally of your day to day steps).

Here I go! Virtually traveling on foot across Tennessee!

A few days into it and it’s nice to have this distraction. GVRAT team is working hard on getting the online tracking system up and running. The site has fun stats including where you are in the standings, projected finish date, and shows you approximately where you are on the course. Today, I finally reached Memphis!

Who else is doing the race? By the way, registration is still open… anyone else want to register? The more the merrier, we can cheer one another on! In any case, you can follow my progress across Tennessee on my social media (follow me on Instagram and Twitter!) and here on the blog!

Leave a Comment May 4, 2020