The road to running 200 kilometers in 26 days started in June this year when I saw an advertisement on Facebook about a Virtual Race, the Spartan Challenge.
My fellow triathletes Ramjay Divinagracia, Paulo Joseph Paray and I got curious what it’s all about.
The object of the race is to prove one’s endurance by running X number of kilometers in X number of days and earn a four-inch medal.
It sounded like a good deal. We run — like we would for normal exercise anyway, help an advocacy raise some funds, and as a bonus, be rewarded for it. So we initially signed up to do a virtual race of 165 kilometers with a deadline of 31 days.
A virtual race is like any real race, only you can choose to do it on any day when you are able, in the comfort of your homebase surroundings. One can choose to run, jog, or walk the required distance in any location you choose: the road, trail, treadmill, track, or even in an actual race.
In a virtual race, you also get to run your own race, at your own pace, and simply time it yourself and check your distance.
It then becomes a personal challenge whether you are doing it for weight loss, or with a group of like-minded fitness enthusiasts, with friends, co-workers, or with fellow athletes completing a training regimen for a triathlon or a full marathon or an ultramarathon, or simply just to Keep Fit.
There are different mechanics on how to submit your run entries for recording purposes of the virtual race organizers. It could either be done with Garmin or Strava apps, that has links on the specific race registered for.
Without the Garmin sports watches, virtual racers can also choose to submit instead photos of the completed run, displaying the time and distance travelled, like on a treadmill.
So we began the journey of running 165 kilometers with a deadline of 31 days. But sometime in the month of July, I had to be in Australia so I expedited my runs in Dumaguete. Before I knew it, we had completed 165 kilomters in just 19 days, that’s just like an average of easy 8.6 kilometers each day (although on some days, we were seriously covering long distances.) Truly an exhilarating experience.
The running bug must have rubbed on to the other triathletes as it also got them interested. And so once again, we signed up for a second virtual race, this time called the Heroes of the District 200-Kilometer Challenge with a deadline of 31 days. And because we consistently ran long, we completely covered another 200 kilometers in record time of 26 days.
What we have realized is that virtual races only seem “easier to do”. One, however, still has to contend with the “virtual pressure” that pushes you to go the distance, and log in those kilometers. Afterall, you are still under time pressure to cover X number of kilometers in X amount of time.
In a virtual race when no one is watching, as in a live race, even as in life, Honesty is the Best Policy.
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Dr. Gogo Tiongson is a medical doctor at the Negros Oriental Provincial Hospital. He is an avid triathlete but recently, has gotten hooked with endurance running. By Oct. 1st, he would have run another 80 kms. around the island of Siquijor. He is in his 50s but people who don’t know of him will find it hard to believe.
