In awe

run1 – 6 miles this run. Total traveled for GVRAT so far 6 miles.

I found myself something to rally around for next few months. When my Facebook notification popped up from one of my former race directors – with something like this: would you like to run across Tennessee?

At first I was skeptical. Ya you go run yourself across TN. I am interested but I’m not there yet in my ability.

Then I saw the word “virtually”. I’m sold. As long as I could sleep in my own bed.

Take my money. Please. I insist. Take a few dollars more for some good cause.

I paid my entrance fee and off I went during my lunch hour. I am running off to TN for the next three months (virtually) in small cap. Whoo hoo.

As I ran, I started to calculate the feasibility. Sure, in 100 days, if I do 6 miles a day, will get me 600 miles. 1000k is 621.4 miles. I need about 4 more days. Gaah, I should do about 10k for the next 100 days. It is definitely doable. I can add in 13-14 days of rest (give me 114 days). It will take 3 months and 24 days.

Here is where my first run ended.

My progress is being tracked somewhere on here. You can still sign up for the race [1]. They say they will give a map of my progress by tomorrow. I am doing my own map with some wizardry from Google and images from there to give a sense where I am in Tennessee! Actually after consulting the map, I am in Arkansas. Pretty awesome.

Virtual run summary. I started at about 4 pm GMT, local time was probably 11. Many probably were there in the early wee hours, maybe 5:00 or 6:00 AM GMT and were already on their way. I didn’t see anyone myself, but knowing the field now have over 12000 entrants, I will bound to run into some. People can still join until August 1. My plan is to start putting in some heavy miles to give enough buffer and maybe if I still feel up to it I will run back to the start in a month or so. Hopefully I will get to the front of the pack soon.

Today though, I am just easing into it and chose to stop after a brief jog. I did about 6 miles starting from the Mississippi River and running along the levee. And ended somewhere near a post office.

[1] https://runsignup.com/Race/TN/Memphis/TheGreatVirtualRaceAcrossTennessee1000K

I wish I can find some images of the mississippi River of the starting point.

This is a lot of work to pull images off the web, not sure if I can keep up like this every day. But I really wish to see more of Tennessee virtually through the run. Can’t wait until I get to Memphis or any bigger city!

There were a lot farm land.

If I am doing it for real, I would have to find a place to sleep for the night. I wouldn’t have stopped in the middle of the road and call it a day. Today though, being near a PO is good enough.