For the third year in a row I have joined the virtual race across Tennessee. I am, once again, only trying to run across one time. I don’t even think I will extend it to the 1000 mile version. Just doing the 1000km should be good enough. (Since it tracks in imperial, that is 639 miles.)
That means I have four months to do that distance. But at the end of two months I am at 588 miles (92%), so I’m clearly going to make it. That does not stop me from being competitive. There is live tracking of how people are doing, and I’ve started focusing on being in the top 100. As I type this I’m in 86th place, but that can change at any time as people all over the world are running while I may be sleeping.
Actually, let me correct that; people around the world are walking while I may be sleeping. When I look at the pace of people in the top 100, most of them seem to be going at a walking pace. or slower I count just nine people who are going under 10 minutes/kilometre. There are people who are at about my distance in the race who have a clock time of 200 hours. I’m just over 85 hours on the clock. I suppose that is one way to make the distance while not being too hard on your body.
I, however, have started to be hard on my body. Since the end is in sight, people are going further each day. (And there may be some people who have a longer daily run/walk but I’m only ahead of them because they didn’t start on the first day.) I’ve been going a bit longer for the past few days. It started with doing 10 miles one day, 11 miles the next. Today I did nearly 12 miles. My usual daily run used to be around nine miles. Normally I track in kilometres, where I try to do a minimum of 13.
I am taking advantage of the longer distances. My first inclination was to just do my city coverage faster, but that is a bad use of the distance. I have given myself some nominal borders that I don’t run past to contain my coverage to a reasonable area. But if I am going further, why don’t I push that boundary and make things look better.
For instance, I live nearby the community of Copperfield, and it is partially within my zone. That means there is a limit to how much I can cover it. But if I can now break out of the zone, I can increase my percentage of coverage.