Fargo Virtual Half

Today was the day! WARC ventured out on another virtual half marathon and marathon this morning, starting nice and early before the sun was even up. We had four runners tackle the full marathon, they started at 5 am this morning. There were eight of us half marathoners, and we started at 6 am at Jackson park.

This was my fourth half marathon, my second virtual. A few years ago if you had asked me if I would ever run a half marathon I would have laughed! Now here I am pounding them out like it\’s no big deal. Today was a great day for a run. The weather was perfect, we really lucked out! I was kind of worried when the race got moved to August, thinking it would be very hot, but I was pleasantly surprised. We really couldn\’t have asked for better weather, especially since some of the last few days were scorchers.

This half felt a lot better than the last few I\’ve done, mostly because I felt a little more prepared for this one. My second half, I only started training for it about three weeks before race time since I hopped into it for my dad; and the last one, I kind of stopped caring much once I found out it was going to be a virtual race, so I didn\’t train as well as I probably could have.

When I found out Fargo was also going to be virtual, I was prepared to wait until next year to do it, but everyone else decided they would still do it virtual, so I gave into the peer pressure and did it too. It was a little easier to keep the momentum going for the training this go around, because there were so many of us preparing for it. Almost all of my longer runs were with several other people, which made it a lot easier to get up and get out there. And when I found out the full marathoners were still planning to do it virtual, I\’m not going to lie, I was inspired! I thought if they could do a full 26.2 miles virtually, I could do half of that no problem. Hopefully the next one will be a normal race again though!

Several WARC members, both those running today and those not running today, prepared water stops for us along the route, which was a lifesaver. I can\’t make it through a whole race like that with no water, and it definitely beats carrying it with you that long ways. I had to skip the last two water stops though, because I was getting to that point where if I stopped running, I was afraid I wouldn\’t be able to keep going! But special shout out to everyone who took time out of their morning to make sure we were properly fueled for the run. We all appreciated it greatly!

Even though this half was virtual again and the time didn\’t mean much, I still wanted to see if I could beat my last time, so I ended up pacing off my mom to see if we could get close to breaking that two hour mark. We missed it by less than four minutes, and I was almost exactly on that same time as the last race – only four seconds slower. Should have kicked it in a little quicker for the last few seconds! My final time was 2:03:58.

When all of us half marathoners were done running, a few of us hopped on bikes to go run in the full marathoners, and the rest of us waited at the finish line to cheer them on. It was so fun to watch those runners come in, and we had a pretty good sized cheering squad lined up. It was Jason and Sally\’s first full, and to do it virtual is pretty amazing. Y\’all did awesome and it was so fun to be a part of this milestone with you!

Overall, it was a great morning to spend running with some great friends, and I\’m already ready for the next race! Can\’t wait to make many more memories with all of these awesome people. 🙂

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Reiffenberger