Day 3,007: Virtually insane: The Virtual Jeff Galloway 13.1

It might be hard to believe that we ran 13.1 miles this morning just to be considered for a half marathon streak, but we did it!

I'm pretty sure I made clear that I had no desire to run in a half marathon, letting Sunday's Publix Georgia Half Marathon slide by the wayside.

But then yesterday I get this email from the Jeff Galloway 13.1 saying they have a virtual race that ends at 5 p.m. today. I didn't run in the Dec. 14 race because I was way in the Pacific to run in the Honolulu Marathon.

It mentioned that anyone who ran in this virtual race (and pays the not-so-virtual-but-very-real race fee of $49) would not only get the official race shirt and finishers medal but also would get credit for running in the Dec. 14 race.

This is important only for crazy people: The email said that those who run in the first five races will get a special award.and that those who ran in the 2014 race will have guaranteed entry into future Jeff Galloway 13.1 races.

So this was all good, but the only problem was that between the Dec. 14 race and now I never knew this possibility existed. It would have been nice to have done that over the weekend when the in-laws were in town and I could run by myself and not with a stroller.

The other problem was that my window was pretty limited since I also had to pick up the little one from preschool.

But it kept rattling on in my mind and I thought that I could try this with the almost 6-month-old in the single BOB stroller and then stop when the baby was fussy and continue on. (There was no time limit for this event, only that you had to run/walk 13.1 miles and that everything had to be submitted by 5 p.m.)

So we started off to the North Highland post office to drop off a book I sold on Half.com. Then we went down to Virginia Avenue and then on Monroe Avenue to Park Street into Piedmont Park. Here I decided I would run as many loops around Lake Clara Meer (about .9 mile) as I could until the baby woke up or got too fussy.

Amazingly this worked out way better than expected. I had two miles in the belt before I got into the park because of the post office detour. Then I was able to run a combination of eight more miles in the park (I would detour if there were loud noises that could wake up the baby such as leaf blowers or truck beeping).

Ultimately around mile 10.25 the baby woke up and was not happy. I intuited a need for a diaper change so I went back home to change her out at 11.4 miles. Then we went back into the stroller and eked out the last 1.7 miles!

I finished the route in 2:12:53, which obviously is not a great time but 1). I didn't care about my time and 2). I was pushing about 40 extra pounds of weight.

Interestingly if you take the common thought that every extra pound adds 2 seconds per mile to your time, 80 extra seconds per mile for 13.1 miles is equal to about an extra 17 minutes to doing this course, which would put me in about 1:54, which is what I typically run in a half marathon race.

It was a nice feeling. If I didn't have other (baby) responsibilities, I would feel like I was in pretty good shape to perhaps train for a marathon (more crazy talk!) later in the year.

I felt about as sore as I would running a regular half marathon and had a pretty mellow runner's high afterward.

I guess doing this run was for the best!

Time: 9:05 a.m.
Temp: 52 degrees
Gear: Technical T-shirt, long (Atlanta Marathon promo), shorts, Nike Zoom Air Pegasus+ 31.