My luck ran out on the flight back to Seattle from Boston.
It started with a sore throat. By nightfall it was a full on cold and the next two days I was wiped out and bedridden.
Being in bed for a long time risks triggering a chronic back condition I’ve had since my twenties. That risk was realized. By Saturday October 16, the day before I planned to run a virtual substitute for the Tokyo Marathon, I was still shaking off the lingering cold and my capricious back made for painful walking.
All the COVID-safe protocols in Chicago and Boston should have protected me from contagion. It makes me wonder how a cold got through all that. Lynn managed to avoid it despite the fact that we did nearly everything together since I came back from London.
Maybe it had something to do with running mile after mile amidst thousands of others through city streets lined with tens of thousands of additional spectators. I’ll never know.
What I did know was that, by bedtime October 16, running a marathon the next day was borderline folly. But then again, what part of this whole campaign hasn’t been?
Virtual road races came on strong in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted social gatherings of all sorts. The process is familiar: register for the race with one’s name, pay a registration fee, run and get a finish time, and collect a T-shirt or the like and perhaps a medal for the effort.
The difference is that there is no start or finish line and no pack of runners to run with. One simply runs wherever desired for the prescribed distance then logs the finish time on the race’s online results page. Typically there is a specific date window during which the race must be run.
Although it’s possible for a runner to compare her results to others, places and standings are not so meaningful given that the courses are not equivalent.
To soften the blow of the cancellation and/or downsizing of the in-person events, in 2020 all of the Majors held virtual marathons with fewer, if any, restrictions regarding who may register.
Many runners, including myself, found the virtual races to be an acceptable if not entirely satisfying outlet for the substantial training they had been doing for races that were summarily cancelled. I personally ran a 5K, two 10K’s, a 15K, two half marathons, and a marathon virtually in 2020.
Despite the return of the in-person events, race coordinators continue to find a place for virtual races even now. It helps to offset the high demand for some races that are hard to get into.
By augmenting the in-person event with a virtual race, for example, the London Marathon promoted a worldwide event with 35,300 runners on the streets of London joined by another 24,000 running at venues all around the world. It appears that London will continue to make the virtual race an annual fixture.
Tokyo, having postponed its marathon to March 6, left runners only the virtual option for the scheduled October 17 race.
I was loathe to stray from the schedule I set for my Virtual Tokyo Marathon so on the morning of October 17, feeling at maybe 70% capable, I decided to go for it. At worst I would call it off midway and make it up some other day. As always, I had no finish time pressure; if it took six hours to complete so be it.
I chose a course similar to one I’ve used for some of my 20-mile long runs. Using roads and trails along the perimeter of West Seattle it’s replete with breathtaking Puget Sound and downtown Seattle views. I threw in a few loops around Lincoln Park to top off the distance to 26.2 miles.
My first few strides were not promising. Each footfall was accompanied by a painful jarring of my back. Nonetheless, I headed for Lincoln Park hoping that it would loosen up with a few more miles.
At the park I met up with Mike and Erika, two gazelles that I’ve befriended on Strava and through working at the running store, West Seattle Runner. They both ran Boston and turned in finish times on the order of an hour faster than mine. Erika ran it in 3:31:41 and Mike ran a 3:16:02.
Erika joined me for a few miles in the park throttling back her blistering pace for my benefit and gave me a much needed lift as I plodded along still hoping for my back to thaw out.
At the halfway mark, well after Erika peeled off for home, things were not going much better. Then at around mile 17 the miracle that I was hoping for came through. The ache in my back vanished and my pace picked up to sub 10 minutes per mile and I was able to sustain that through the end of the race.
I finished the second half a full 17 minutes faster than the first. No walking, no cramps, and no wall. My overall time was no great shakes but it was enormously gratifying to put this one in the books.
But the real thrill was that on this lonely, mostly solo run I actually had spectators cheering me on! On passing Constellation Park at mile 17.5 there were signs urging me on placed by my neighbors, Owen and Amy and their son Milo. George and Beth were there as well cheering for me as I passed.
It was as emotionally energizing, if not more so, as any of the support I received at the in-person marathons I had just run.
They were still there when I returned to Constellation Park for the finish as was Jim cheering from his balcony overlooking the scene. I couldn’t have asked for a better day than this one.
I know from history that my back problems are not over. The relief I felt during the latter half of the run is temporary. For a few more days I will have trouble walking not to mention continuing with my training.
All good things come to an end though. On November 7 is the finale: the last of the Majors, the New York City Marathon.
I don’t know how Shalane fared with her Virtual Tokyo Marathon. I’m sure that it will be announced at some point but I have not yet found her results on line. I did go to the results page of the Virtual Tokyo Marathon 2021 but did not see her entry. (I did not register for that one in time so I chose the Seattle Virtual Marathon instead.)
That portal suggested that results could be entered through 5 pm October 16 Japan Standard Time so if Shalane ran her virtual as per her reported schedule she would not have been able to enter her result. Of course, it may have been a different virtual marathon that she entered.
I ran my virtual in 4:41:55. In order to maintain my goal relative to Shalane’s time she would have needed to do no better than 2:20:58. Though she is certainly capable of that, she has not done so during these Majors so I’m hopeful that I met the objective this time around.
I am a charity runner in the London, Boston, and New York marathons this year. There’s still time to contribute to my cause (assuming that you have not already done so).
If you share the passion that the Michael J Fox Foundation and I have for finding a Parkinson’s cure please consider contributing to any of the WMM I am running in as a member of Team Fox (links below). All donations are meaningful and greatly appreciated.
fundraise.michaeljfox.org/boston-marathon-2021/joesgottarun
fundraise.michaeljfox.org/londonmarathon2021/joesgottarun
fundraise.michaeljfox.org/tcs-nyc-marathon-2021/joesgottarun
