After being VERY excited to receive my London Marathon finishers medal and t-shirt in the post, back in October, I fairly promptly entered the Vitality London virtual 10,000 race – what is Vitality’s annual 10k run in central London had, of course, turned virtual for this year.
Virtual events are a bit weird, if we’re honest, but they are certainly better than nothing. I know some people will use them as a time trial or an attempt to hit a PB without having to travel to an event etc, but what I think is best about them is their inclusivity.
They open up the distance to anyone who’d like to give it a go, whether you’re a regular runner, total newbie or somewhere in between. There’s also no time pressure in terms of the organisation and most of the virtual races just want you to show evidence that you covered the distance on a particular day or time period. Many of us might want to get somewhere close to our quickest time when submitting it as evidence, but let’s face it, it’s not like the organisers actually care how long it took you…! The beauty of that is that you can run, jog, walk or dance your way around a virtual event and it all counts as your entry and your evidence. Great fun!
Also, fun fact (well, kind of): the first race I ever entered was actually the Bupa London 10,000 back in 2014 – six years ago. At the time it was sponsored by Bupa, but Vitality took it over in 2016. At the time I spent about three months training for the 10k distance (from zero) and was delighted to complete the run on the day in 1 hour and 1 minute. Had I been as I am today back then I would have wanted rid of that 1 minute 😉
Here’s a rather fresh faced and old Instagram post of me on the day I did it!
Anyway back in 2014 I was thrilled to have completed it after training to build up to 6 miles of running. I did it for charity, raised a bit of money and got a fun medal and race day atmosphere. At the time though, apparently I never got the running bug, as I never entered anything else. But with six years hindsight, I thought it’d be fun to join in the 2020 virtual race on.
Participants had a week to complete the distance, so it was opened up to even more people. This was also brilliant as you could see social media posts from everyone who had already done their 10k’s that week sending in smiley selfies!
According to Vitality: ‘The ‘Celebrate You’ theme of this year’s event will focus on the mental and physical health benefits of getting active which have been so important during lockdown.’ Big love for that.
So, we did it on the last day of the week’s window, which was the 1st November. I had roped my boyfriend R into doing it too and to make it a bit more fun we set off on a chase challenge. We looked at our approximate best 10k times and I got the respective head start (I anticipated my best being about 10 mins slower than his best). The aim was who would get to the 10k mark first!
We set off to do two laps of one of our local commons, me texting him as soon as I started running so he knew when his 10 min headstart was over and he could begin too.
I remember actually struggling with the 10k distance that day, a few km’s in and my legs were feeling heavy – I’m not sure why, but you know we all have those runs. I tried to psych myself up about it being the virtual event, but that didn’t seem to help – perhaps it was the familiarity of running somewhere I knew so well, perhaps it was just a tired legs day, perhaps it was some lockdown fatigue.
Whatever it was, I do remember finding it a bit hard to push through…. especially when I got caught up with just after the 8km mark. I wasn’t surprised, as I knew my pacing was a bit off and I was probably a bit grateful that the chase was over from then!
As R sped past me with me sacrificially yelling ‘go on, I’ll meet you at the end!’ and then continuing the shuffle onwards, I decided that it didn’t matter as we were still both covering 10k and it was a nice enough run nonetheless. We met at the end and I believe my final time on the day 58:27 according to my Strava. Not my strongest, but in a virtual ‘race’ I didn’t really expect to be whizzing around.
We submitted our times to Vitality and a couple of weeks later I was greeted by a parcel (on the way out on a run at the time!) with our t-shirts and medals in – very exciting!
Certainly nice to have something arrive in the post and a lovely London themed medal and running shirt from simply completing a 10k around our local park. A real positive from the year is still getting the buzz from these virtual events and the encouragement for people around the country to take part. The ‘Celebrate You’ theme is also brilliant and some great messaging from Vitality.
It’s a great top and medal this year, so thank you Vitality!
Hopefully next year we can do the 10k in central London like normal. You can keep an eye on entry for 2021 here and there are also lots of other great running, recovery and nutrition resources on their site: www.vitalitylondon10000.co.uk/
Vitality also organise the Big Half marathon in central London, which I’ve entered for April 2021 and very much hope can go ahead properly too. Let’s see.
WELL DONE to anyone who completed the virtual 10,000 this year, whether it was a breeze for you or a slog to get around the miles. It all counts and is a great achievement either way.
I love seeing anyone in my local area with the finishers shirt on! Give them a wave if you see them! #celebrateyou
Ele x
chasingele.com 