I Refuse to Run a Virtual Marathon

And I’m embracing life as a hobby jogger.

Yesterday, I received notice that the Boston Marathon would be turning virtual and that runners who qualified that didn’t want to or were unable to do it could get a refund. If runners choose to go through with the virtual marathon, they will have a six-hour window to complete a marathon and provide “proof of timing” to the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.). It was officially cancelled by Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, and in an e-mail sent to all Boston Marathoners, the B.A.A. said this:

“Our top priority continues to be safeguarding the health of the community, as well as our staff, participants, volunteers, spectators, and supporters,” said Tom Grilk, C.E.O. of the B.A.A. “While we cannot bring the world to Boston in September, we plan to bring Boston to the world for an historic 124th Boston Marathon.”

While the news is not at all surprising, it was still disappointing that the race I trained pretty hard for wouldn’t happen at all, but of course, everyone’s safety and health is more important than my training.

But as for a virtual marathon, I refuse to do it. First of all, it requires a GPS watch to provide “proof of timing”, and I am philosophically opposed to GPS watches. I just am — I don’t like to know how fast I’m running. As a runner, I hate worrying about numbers, I enjoy the unknown, and I would much rather focus on how I feel and enjoy the scenery around me than obsess over my pace.

In addition, to provide proof of timing, runners would likely need a verified GPS watch as well as uploading times to Strava — and I am not a big fan of Strava either. I am probably an old school of a runner, but I don’t enjoy knowing how fast I run, and I don’t enjoy documenting to other people how fast or how much I run either. I just run. It’s as simple as that.

I’m glad that competitive runners are being given the option of a virtual marathon to take advantage of their fitness. I’m just not one of those people for the reasons I noted.

Who knows when competitive running is going to make a return? It’s clear that marathons and highly crowded races are extremely high risk for the transmission of the Coronavirus — so I would rather be safer than sorry too if I were a race organizer.

It would likely be irresponsible for any marathon to happen the rest of the year, which I know is heartbreaking to many people in peak physical fitness or first-time qualifiers to dream races like the Boston Marathon. That’s why I respect the race organizers for making the virtual marathon a standstill while the whole competitive running world is at a standstill. Some runners may find this year and next to be the last of their competitive running careers — a tragic way to finish your running career.

For now, I, too, am a hobby jogger during this pandemic. Like my good friend Andrew Kliewer has written, hobby jogging is the purest form of running, with no obligation to push through mileage quotas and hard workouts, no fear of being devastated by a crippling injury, and no outside pressures on running — just being able to run.

Kliewer (which is what I call him) talks about the ability to explore different routes, not worry about distance, and even take a day off when we need to. As former cross country teammates, I will always recall the many runs Kliewer and I have done where we took turns pushing the pace and forcing ourselves to wake up at 6 a.m. to get in 15 miles or so.

I don’t think with the pandemic and my values of not owning a GPS watch or using a tracking app like Strava, I will be running a race, let alone the behemoth of races in the marathon any time soon, but I endeavor to still go on runs, to push an extra couple miles if that’s what I feel like doing, or just stop running and go home if that’s what I feel like doing.

Right now, the pressure as a runner is off. We realize that competitive running, for all the fun and companionship it brings, is less important than our global and existential need to survive and prioritize global health concerns.

If you want to run virtual races and marathons, absolutely do. But I don’t. In fact, I might even go for runs solely based on how I feel, and leave my watch at home, and allow myself to venture out and then come back completely unaware of how long I run.

That’s running as I love it — running at its finest. It’s the time where I can escape the connected world of information overload and the constant need to work to a disconnected world where the only important thing is to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I qualified for the Boston Marathon this year, but I have faith enough in my ability to qualify once this pandemic is over too. Until then, I refuse to run a virtual marathon or race — I’m just going to run.