Race Recap: Des Moines Virtual Half Marathon

 Des Moines Virtual Half Marathon, 10/24/20 Cedar Falls, IA

Distance: 13.1 miles

Terrain: Paved recreation trails and some sidewalks

Weather: 20s and sunny

This was a last-minute addition to my race calendar. After last year's awful Des Moines Half Marathon experience (I will not bother linking to ALL the race recaps from ALL the years I've done this race disastrously), I vowed to avoid the race in the future. But this is 2020, and with everything canceled, Des Moines offered their race as a virtual. And the one thing Des Moines does well is swag. So I was in. Plus the kit was a reasonable $40.

Unfortunately the weather was not very cooperative, in that it was very cold, even for Iowa in October. I wasn't used to the cold yet and knew I would overdress. Set out in two long-sleeves and two pairs of tights, and within the first mile I regretted the second layer of both. Took off the overshirt and ended up removing my gloves frequently as well. But I chose a pretty nice course that took me from downtown Cedar Falls all the way to Waterloo (past the Cattle Congress grounds, which always reminds my mother of some sort of bovine House of Representatives, which you gotta admit is hilarious) and back. I was feeling pretty fast despite it being peak Clare Allergy Season, and by the halfway point I was on pace to PR!

But it was not meant to be on this frigid October day. Around mile 9, my left knee started acting up. A fairly rare occurrence for me, but everyone knows that endurance sport is 70% determination and 30% "what's gonna hurt today for no reason?" Fortunately I was still able to jog a good amount, so although my PR dreams were dashed, I did finish in about 2:39, which is a very respectable time for me. And my husband and son were at the park where I'd left my car, so I got a lovely finisher photo (with border courtesy of the DMM app).

I submitted my time via the app. At the end of the race window I went to check my results and realized...they have not sorted these by distance. At all. Like, they have all the results from the 5-mile, half, and full marathons clumped together on the same page. There is no way to know how you actually did compared to others who did your distance. The "average finish time" is 2:55 among all the races and finishers. What the actual eff am I supposed to do with that? It is funny that, even with a virtual event, DMM managed to screw something up super bigly.

On 11/16/20, I finally received my swag in the mail! The shirt is a nice short-sleeve technical V-neck. It is pretty huge, though. I ordered a women's medium and it definitely fits like a large. Or like a medium shirt from Target, perhaps. But it is a great color for me, as I am a classic Autumn. There is also a nice finisher medal with a comfy ribbon, and a Race Wrap with the DMM branding that I cannot wait to wear this winter.

I'm a m-model, you know what I mean

So overall, it's probably my most successful Des Moines race yet. I had a fast time, I didn't have to wait a hundred thousand years for food/Gatorade afterward, no aid stations running out of everything, no early course closures, no hideous jacket in the swag bag. An excellent, though freezing, fall run.

Pros:

-I got to do my own thang.

-Swag is nice.

-Didn't have to travel to Des Moines (god love it).

Cons: 

-Shirt is definitely bigger than advertised, but that's okay. I feel bad for petite women though. I bet a small would have fit me perfectly, seriously, what do 5', 95-lb women do? We don't need this ridiculous vanity sizing in the ATHLETIC WORLD. Save that for Target and Old Navy.

-Results are a hot mess.

-Every other Des Moines Marathon weekend race I've ever done.

Race Grade: A-. It gets my best DMM grade ever, mostly because DMM had almost no hands in it.