A New Endeavour - Virtual Races

Miles in 2013: 553
Days until the NYC Marathon: 92 Days

For those of you who know me it's an understatement to say that I LOVE the running BLING!  I have a whole wall in my house to display my running medals - I even relocated some wedding photos to give my bling prime real estate on my wall.  To me passing those medals on my way out the door is a reminder of all of the time, miles, and hard work that I've put in.  It also motivates me to go collect some more, especially because they are so shiny!  I even started making ceramic medals for my training group any time we ran a 20 or more mile training run.  Recently I stumbled across something called "virtual runs."  To my none running friends they thought that meant they could lay on the couch and earn a medal.  That's not what this!  A lot of people don't have the luxury of living near frequent races or the ability to travel to them.  Enter virtual races.  The basic premise is you sign up for a race, pick the distance and run the miles wherever you can, your medal comes in the mail, and you celebrate your accomplishment.  The majority of these races benefit some sort of charity which I think makes them even cooler.  There are so many options of distance, charities, and medals to choose from.

Only about 2 years of running has produced all this bling!

For the next 3 months I will be participating in the 5k's and Half Marathons sponsored by Jost Running.  The August medals are super cute and baseball themed.  Proceeds go to the ALS Association.  The window for the 5k is next week so I'll be posting after I run those 3.1 (maybe a little more) miles.  The Half Marathon window is not long after that so it's a good thing a have a ton of miles to do this month getting ready for NYC.  Stayed tuned for my virtual race reports!

5k and 10k Medal (My favorite!)

Half and Full Marathon Medal