I ran a virtual 10K yesterday! No PR, given my running has taken a hit with having to homeschool my kid while trying to work full time the last 3 weeks, but it sure was a good time!
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That would be a nice course for a race! Not excessively hilly, plenty of nice views, and it could be combined with Newfield Old Home Days.
Skunk Cabbage Half Marathon 2020 is in the books. It was ideal running weather for me: low 50’s and cloudy. I tried to treat it as much like a race as possible, and just made it in under 2 hours. Not too bad for a self-supported and self-motivated race! I made a point to wear as much local gear as possible: my Altra Running Escalante Racers purchased from Finger Lakes Running & Triathlon Company, my #teamflrtc singlet, and this year’s Finger Lakes Runners Club Winter Chill shirt. Unfortunately I didn’t see any skunk cabbage plants.
Link to my facebook post here (since apparently I can only upload 1 picture at a time): Facebook
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Got it in! Strava here: Follow Aaron on Strava to see this activity. Join for free.
Went out for my official virtual skunk cabbage run as a steady training run - no particular pace in mind but intended effort about mid level (get the heart rate up a little). Was thinking between 1:40 and 1:45. Got to about 8 and was feeling okay so decided to go ahead and drop the pace a bit. The last 5 felt good and wound up finishing just a few min off from my previous racing skunk cabbage due to negative split. The new paint marks were nice and the motivation paintings were great too since there were no other runners to justify the craziness as with a normal race. “You can do it!”
I have begun incorporating for some of my mid/long runs as I like the rolling hills.
Looking forward to next year 
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Sorry! By default, our Discourse software restricts new users to 1 image upload per post. I’ve increased that setting to allow 4 images now. (The goal is to prevent spammers from coming in and uploading a ton of offensive stuff.)
Loving the reports and the photos, everyone!
This screenshot from Strava shows my Skunk race. I live right near the course, so I ran some of it backwards in order to cross paths with more other runners. I started around 10am and saw a dozen runners. (I saw some of them, like Scott and Amy Dawson, more than once.) This is the third year in a row when I signed up for the half marathon and then had to drop back, due to unexpected circumstances. This year, it was just that I decided not to push myself, so as to avoid injury and avoid extra PT appointments. Plus to be able to keep running for stress relief.
I didn’t try to race, but took it slow and also stopped to take photos now and then. I enjoyed that, and it made me think that sometimes the journey is the reward. And that made me think of Apple’s former ad campaign, Think Different. So, while running, I tried to think-different about the current coronavirus crisis. I didn’t have any revelations, but I allowed myself to think without anxiety for a while.
Long live Skunk!
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It’s a weekend late so I don’t know if I’m DQ’ed or banned for life or what, but I ran a version of the Virtual Skunk this afternoon. I decided to try something different and run the distance on the Stewart Park woodchip path. My plan was to run a half marathon effort until my watch read 13.1.
Why this particular loop. For one, it’s a convenient three-minute walk from my house and usually not very crowded despite the location and ease of access. Second, because I wanted to get a taste of the hamster wheel courses that a lot of runners are confined to elsewhere around the world. I don’t have treadmill or track access and wouldn’t go so far as to run 15-foot loops around my living room, so the wood chips it was. Picture the an isosceles triangle with sides measuring 3-5-5; that’s the loop, complete with its three acute angles. Most importantly, the woods around the path are teeming with symplocarpus foetidus (aka skunk cabbage plants). Sadly they were not in full bloom today, despite permeating the park with their radiant purple hue a mere three days ago. Perhaps two days of cold weather put them back in their shells.
The path measures 0.85 to 0.90 miles, depending on GPS accuracy, so that made it about 15.5 loops. The trail lacks the standard Skunk course’s rolling hills, but subprime traction on the soft, uneven woodchips made for slow going and provided plenty of potential ankle rollers. I started out too fast and after two miles scaled the pace back from tempo to steady effort. The lost sleep and lack of training that comes with raising six-week-old twins has taken a cumulative toll and insisted that my body ain’t ready to race. I didn’t want to destroy myself and need a week to recover.
I got into a good groove, but one pitfall of a virtual race is that it’s easy to forget to run hard when there’s no crowd or other runners. I kept allowing my mind to wander and slacking on the pace, big time. I flew through the final half mile to reach 13.1, stopped the watch, and finished with a slow AF half marathon. At least it was a PR for a trail half, albeit on a much easier “course”. (Think Monster on the old Virgil route for my previous best in an actual race.)
That’s it. If my run doesn’t count for an official race finish or PR, at least it’s an excuse to go to town on some Taste of Thai curry for dinner. Happy COVID-free trails!
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Hard core! You must now be the Skunk champion of Fall Creek. I run on those chips regularly (for me about 5 minutes from house) and it’s slow going compared to road running. Very good for the knees and the mood! but it would not be the place to set a PR.
My mindset is always “It’s flat, wide, and way easier than singletrack.” Then I try to run a workout and it’s always slower than I expect.