Virtual races, use them to your advantage.

I admitted before that when I first started out running I was self-concious. I wanted to train, I wanted to run a Disney race, I wanted to improve my times. But after signing up for and running my first race (San Francisco Giants 10k), what was next? The next Disney Race I signed up for was the Star Wars 10K but that was 6 months away. How could I keep myself challenged, stay motivated, earn more bling? 


Now one thing I learned early on was that the racing addiction and quest for bling can be expensive. I found a ton of races in my area by searching online, and seriously wanted to sign up for every one. The one issue I found is that I work most weekends and of course that's when most of the races are. Ok if that wasn't going to benefit my schedule I would have to find a way to stay motivated but have a goal so shoot for. And that's how I discovered the Virtual Race. 


What is a Virtual Race? A virtual race is one that you sign up for online and race on your own terms. You chose the time, location and distance. Once you hit your goal you can submit your times and they send you your bling. Most of the virtual race sites even connect to your fitness tracker letting them know once you've hit your goal. Now most of the sites have no clue when you "start" or "finish" so you have to use the honor system. 


You can run virtual races on the treadmill or outside, morning or night, beach or country road, it's your choice! And since the virtual races are not a huge organized event the pricing on them compared to regular races are considerably cheaper. The popularity of virtual racing has exploded in the past few years, mostly because of its flexibility, so the options of cool medals has grown.


Now in all honesty you can make your own medals with cardboard, ribbon and tinfoil at home and create your own crazy races with crazy names, but we chose to break the virtual race rules a little and use them to our training advantage. That way we are earning a medal every month and training and running on our free time. Less stress, less craziness, and certainly cheaper. 


We set our own training program up and practiced every time we found an awesome medal. It was a cool way build up endurance. It's also an easy way to practice our hydration and race day nutrition. Basically  it allowed us to become better runners. 

Drawbacks of virtual racing? It doesn't have the same energy, community or friendship as the actual race day atmosphere. But of course arguing the other side is that there are some really cool online virtual run groups and the excitement and community is the same. 

Our favorite virtuals so far:

Yes.Fit

Hogwarts Running Club

Whovian Running Club

​So I guess our over all advice is use the races to your advantage. Use them to train, but do it on your own time at your own pace. Use them to become a better runner and earn more bling. And of course, use them to have fun and adventure. 

Have you done a Virtual Race before? ​​

​-Mark & Nicole