What do you do when races have been cancelled for the foreseeable future? With major events from the Boston Marathon to the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB) called off due to concerns around COVID-19, many of us—who love a good training plan and often plot our entire year around specific races—are at a loss as to what to do with ourselves.
Fortunately, we are also a resilient bunch. We’re creative and are constantly coming up with new ways to chase that runner’s high. We don’t need the promise of prestigious courses, screaming spectators, and #medalmonday bling to lace up. When you take the standard road or trail race off the table, it becomes an opportunity to figure out what else fuels you. So which one of these options would motivate you most?
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Group Challenges
The past two months, I’ve been part of a group of runners challenging each other to run 50 to 60 miles a month in the Nike Run Club app. A leaderboard shows you where you stand, and it’s an easy way to hold myself accountable on days I’m not feeling it. “What I like about the Challenge feature is it gives you the ability to connect with friends all over the world, a common goal to work towards virtually, and an outlet for friendly competition,” says Nike Run Coach Jes Woods. Anyone can build their own Challenge and invite friends to participate in the Nike app; if you don't want to DIY, apps like Strava feature monthly challenges you can join.
There’s science to back up the benefits of that friendly competition, too. When researchers looked at five years worth of data from over a million runners, they found that if one person ran for about 10 minutes more than usual on any given day, that runner’s friends would extend their workout by approximately three minutes, according to a study published in Nature Communications. Seeing your friends run stats might be the push you need to stay in the game, especially when your motivation is lacking otherwise.
Virtual Races
In the past, virtual races have felt like an addendum to IRL races. Just 26 percent of runners polled in the 2020 National Runner Survey said they had participated in a virtual race, but I’m willing to bet that number will skyrocket this year. With so many 2020 races canceled, many race organizers are offering virtual options (and that includes Boston). Even when you’re running solo, it’s a reason to stick to the structure of a training plan Everything You Need to Know About Virtual Racing.
“It gave me a reason to be more specific with my training,” says Matthew Meyer, an RRCA-certified trainer and running coach at Mile High Run Club in New York City, who participated in the What Chari Hawkins Learned From Marathon Training virtual race. “I rarely run shorter distances, so it felt nice to mix in more short and fast work.” Plus, he adds, “you really have to mentally go there. You can’t depend on the crowd or fellow runners to keep you motivated, but that challenge can help you build huge mental toughness.”
Want to sign up for your own virtual race? Runner’s World is keeping Why Runners Botch Pace on New Race Distances Everything You Need to Know About Virtual Racing.
DIY Races
While some runners are reimagining big races as virtual routes, others are creating their own races from scratch. Take Zenobiathon, a marathon route that consists of 21 laps up and down a single street (Zenobia Street) in Denver, CO, with 3,000-plus feet of elevation over the course of 26.2 miles. Erik Sunde, co-founder of Races - Places and a product manager at Strava, originally came up with the idea after watching friends use the street to accumulate vert when they couldn’t get to the mountains.
“Initially, our race was going to be a single-day event with everyone running at the same time, but with COVID, we decided to give people the month of May to complete the race and tracked results via Strava,” says Sunde. “With most summer races canceled, we found a lot of local runners were excited to have something to train for. We ended up having 35 runners compete, from first-time marathoners to elite ultrarunners and with finishing times of over seven hours to sub-3 hours.” Giving people a month-long window to compete makes it easier (and safer!) for more to participate—plus, you can strategically wait until the end if you want to know where you competition stands.
Strava Art
During this racing pause, you can give yourself permission to stop obsessing over pace. And so some runners are turning Strava into an art platform instead of a leaderboard, with routes that We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back or show off talented drawing skills. In both cases, it takes an impressive kind of strategizing to map out this kind of run—which gives you a plan and a goal, but takes away the pressure off hitting a certain time.
When Dani Kruger, a Seattle-based runner, found out her May 50K race was cancelled due to COVID-19, she says she completely fell off her training plan. Then, Kruger—who had once hosted an IRL Strava Art club in Chicago—started creating a weekly Strava Art challenge for friends and shared her routes from all over the country via social media (including the Whale Week marathon she ran last summer). “Watching others get out the door to take on the challenge held me accountable to doing the same,” she says. “The art itself means I can’t quit early—no one wants to see a whale without a tail—but the motivation of my community is the best motivation of all!”
Start a Run Streak
How We Fuel on Long Runs When We Cant Stomach Gel streaking—running one mile (or more) a day for a month (or longer!)—with Runner’s World. When Diana Cook, a Denver-based runner, first committed to running at least two miles every day back in January, it was a New Year’s resolution. Now, she says, it's the only thing providing consistency to her life. “With gyms still closed, I can’t do anything else. But even on days where everything feels hard, I can commit to running for 20 minutes every day,” she adds.
Physical activity is especially important right now, when people are spending more time at home and on the couch than ever before. Running as little as 50 minutes a week has been shown What Chari Hawkins Learned From Marathon Training study found that people who stayed active during the early weeks of staying at home were less depressed than those who became more inactive. Without the structure of a training plan, a run streak provides a sense of routine and a reason to keep getting after it. The best part: You can start one Download Your Training Plan.
