Image is the upload from Dawn Wolfenden’s watch, tracing the course she ran in Europe to complete Brockville RR’s Virtual Freeze Your Buns#1 in January 2021.
The Brockville Road Runners have wholeheartedly adopted the concept of the virtual run. The impetus for this was of course the Covid-19 pandemic and its restrictions on group activities.
Other organizations have also adopted the virtual run concept. This includes Run Ottawa, the organizers of the popular Ottawa Race Weekend.
Run Ottawa’s experience has led them to ponder:
New perspectives: what we learned from virtual racing: Virtual races were never part of Run Ottawa’s offerings before 2020. In fact, the very idea of not having an in-person race never even crossed our minds. But humans are great at adapting. Looking back now, we’re asking ourselves why virtual racing has not been a component of Run Ottawa events before?
Here is the link to the full article that appeared recently on their website. From articles such as this, it appears, unlike Covid-19, the virtual run is here to stay. The concept would seem to be particularly attractive to the organizers of the really big, even huge, 10,000+ runner, events.
Tony Dunbar, Brockville