RACING - Races Go Virtual

Eric Kile is pictured running with friends during his “Grandma’s Marathon.”

BY ALLIE JOHNSON

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, most races this spring and summer have been canceled, leaving many runners disappointed.

Most races, however, are giving runners the chance to run the distance virtually—on their own time and their own course—and still receive their race medal, finisher shirt and any other swag if they submit their results by a certain date.

Some runners, like me, might throw in the towel on their training and wait until next year to run their races. But many others are taking to the streets of their own neighborhoods to finish what they started.

Eric Kile

Age: 39

Virtual race: Grandma’s Marathon

Date run: Saturday, May 23

Eric Kile at the start of his marathon.

Eric Kile wasn’t going to let another cancelation keep him from finally running his first marathon.

After nearly a decade of running half marathons, last spring he signed up with a friend for the Green Bay Marathon to finally tackle 26.2 miles. But the morning of the race, it was canceled because part of the course was flooded. He ended up running the half marathon that day instead.

Eric decided to give the marathon another shot and signed up for MDRA’s spring training class this year, setting his sights on running Grandma’s Marathon on Saturday, June 20.

He said his thoughts at the time were, “Maybe I’ll train for Grandma’s...Grandma’s can’t get canceled, right?”

When Grandma’s was canceled, Eric realized that if he was ever going to actually run a marathon, this was the time to do it because he didn’t know if he would sign up for a third race. So, he decided to run Grandma’s virtually.

“I was going for it because I wasn’t going zero for two,” he said. “I was here. I was trained. It was time for me to possibly keep it going.”

Since he could choose the date of his virtual marathon himself, Eric moved up the race to avoid the summer heat. He said he continued to follow the MDRA training plan, shortening it a little bit.

On Saturday, May 23, Eric ran his first ever marathon. He started at 5:30 a.m., running from the front steps of his house in St. Louis Park, around the Chain of Lakes in Minneapolis and back. The finish line was in his own driveway.

Eric Kile finishing his marathon in his driveway.

Eric said he had a great support group cheering him on that day without which he wouldn’t have made it through the race. His wife, Amy, and his dad biked alongside him, handing him water and gels. Amy also jumped in to run a few miles as did some friends from her running group. Between his wife and the friends, someone was running with him the entire time.

“I probably had it better than an actual marathon. It was like I had my own little team the whole time,” he said.

Eric couldn’t say for sure yet whether he’ll run another marathon in the future. He said he felt like running the race virtually “doesn’t completely count” and that while he had a positive experience overall, he felt like he was missing out on the race day experience.

“You miss that whole race day experience of getting up, getting there early, being on the line and running with a group of people and having people cheer you on,” he said.

Eric did have some words of advice for other runners planning on a virtual race. Don’t go at it alone.

“That would be my only advice because that was the only reason why I got through the 26 miles like I did,” he said.

Chris Brozynski

Age: 42

Virtual race: Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon

Date run: Saturday, May 9

This was supposed to be the year Chris Brozynski would finally run the Boston Marathon.

He had qualified for the race at Grandma’s Marathon last summer with a time of 3:05:28. This year, he was hoping to run a sub-3:00 marathon, either at Boston or at the Chicago Marathon in the fall.

When the coronavirus pandemic postponed the Boston Marathon until September (before outright canceling it and making it virtual), Chris looked around for another spring marathon to run in the meantime.

“I couldn’t bear to waste all the [training] time,” he said. “So, I decided to sign up for the Lake Wobegon [Trail] Marathon. It has less of a crowd so I figured there was more likely a chance that it would go on.”

Chris Brozynski with his cheering squad.

But even the Lake Wobegon Marathon fell victim to the global pandemic. With his goal of running a sub-3:00 still on his mind, he decided to run the Lake Wobegon Trail Marathon virtually to see how close he was to accomplishing it.

“I figured I still had some time to recover” before Boston, which had not yet been canceled, he said. “I wanted to see where I was at in training, how close was I to that sub-3-hour marathon.”

On the day he should have been lining up at the start line in Holdingford, Minnesota, Brozynski instead lined up on the path at Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis. He ran around the lake over and over until he hit 26.2 miles—about eight loops in all.

Chris wasn’t the only one completing a virtual race that day. His 13 year old daughter, Katie, had signed up to run the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon in Duluth which was also canceled and went virtual.

“She said, ‘When I turn 13, I want to do 13 miles’,” Chris said.

So, Katie ran her virtual race alongside her dad. “It was supposed to be her training run, but she decided to finish it, Chris said.

His wife and kids coordinated the water stops. Some MDRA members, including longtime coach Kurt Jewell and his wife, Jill, came out to support them as well. Kurt ran a few of the later miles with him and Jill helped push both him and his daughter on. He knew some of his other MDRA friends were tracking his race online, too. Chris said he was grateful for that.

“[The virtual race] was a little different without people there—the crowd, the other people there to keep you going,” he said, but added that for once, he didn’t start out the race too fast because there was no one to try to chase.

Chris just missed his sub-3:00 goal, coming in at 3:01:57.

“I think if there were other runners out there, it might have happened,” he said.

Now, Chris is gunning for that sub-3:00 at the Chicago Marathon in October, which is still on as of this writing. He plans to run the virtual Boston Marathon as part of his training.

“[Boston] happens to fall along my 20 mile long run for Chicago, so what’s an extra six miles?” he said. If Chicago gets canceled, too, he says he’ll run that race virtually as well.

Jenny Owens

Age: 40

Virtual race(s): Get Lucky Half (March 14), Hot Dash 10 Mile (March 21), Wicked Marathon (March 28), Hot Chocolate 15K (April 11 & 12— ran it twice due to weather), Garmin Marathon (April 18), Earth Day 10K (April 22), Get in Gear Half Marathon (April 25), New Prague Half Marathon (May 2), Ragnar (May 8-9), Maple Grove Half Marathon (May 16), Ultra Ragnar (May 15-18), Grandma’s Marathon (May 30), Niagara Falls Ragnar (May 29-30), Stillwater Half Marathon (June 6)

Fourteen. That’s how many virtual races Jenny Owens has already run this season, with several more still on the calendar.

Jenny first started running when she moved to Minnesota 10 years ago after seeing her husband come home with medals from his races. Since then, she’s run dozens of races of her own and now paces many of them as well.

She was supposed to be a pacer for a number of the half marathons she had signed up for this year, so there was no question in her mind that she was still going to run them virtually once they were canceled.

“I felt, for me, that it was still important to show up and show that I was still committed,” Jenny said.

However, virtual races haven’t felt the same for her as regular races. Jenny said that while she likes not standing around waiting for the race to start anymore, she still misses the people she helps pace.

“I enjoy pacing so much,” she said. “I miss helping people get to the finish line at the time they want to be at. So, that part’s hard.”

Jenny was taking part in the MDRA spring training class, training for Grandma’s Marathon. She was also signed up for two other spring marathons, the Wicked Marathon and the Garmin Marathon—both in Kansas, where she’s from. All three were canceled and moved to virtual races.

Jenny said she thought hard about whether she still wanted to run 26.2 miles if she had to do it alone. But she decided to still go for all three, since she already had the base for a marathon and had just completed a 20 mile long run for one of them.

First up was the Wicked Marathon, which she ran on Saturday, March 28—the originally scheduled date of the race.

“I was pretty excited to try [the virtual race],” she said. “I knew I had time, that if I didn’t make it that weekend, I knew I had time to submit my results. I knew I could try again if it didn’t work.”

It did work. Jenny set a new marathon PR of 4:32:40 while running her virtual race.

For all three of the virtual marathons she’s now run, Jenny ran through the city of Belle Plaine where she lives, using part of the course from a half marathon she had paced last fall. She said she likes it because she can stop at home for water and bathroom breaks.

“I like the virtual races because I get to determine where I go and where I run at,” Jenny said. “And it’s kind of peaceful.”

Jenny’s husband has run some of the virtual races with her and other times brings her water on whatever course she chooses.

Jenny said running virtual races is what keeps her going and helps her stay positive during this time of uncertainty.

“I hear a lot of people say they’re down and they don’t have motivation,” she said. “I think having a list of races right now or a list of goals, it keeps you motivated to keep going. Then, you have something to be happy about instead of worrying about all the negativity in the world.”

Jenny still has three virtual races left on her calendar this summer. After that, she says, “I have to find something else to do.”