Tulip Virtual Scholarship Run

I don't have much to chat about today.  I'm still working at home, I'm still running.  I heard on the news that Washington currently has one of the strictest stay at home orders on the west coast.  I think most other states are opening some things, but WA only reopened fishing, hunting, and golfing.  I don't actually know how New York is doing at the moment, we stopped watching so much news.  We were watching it a lot for awhile.  I think that there was so much new stuff happening daily that we didn't want to miss it, but they have backed off on reporting 100% on the virus, and have started adding other things to the mix (which is good) but we don't watch much news regularly.  Plus, it really was filling our every waking thought, so it's good to back off.

Next week is my Dad's birthday and I've had the thought for awhile now that I'd like to go camping in his yard.  It would be a fun surprise, but I'm not really sure.  It's still a little chilly for camping, although eastern WA is much warmer than western WA, but it's still getting down to the 40's at night.  Although, that's not that much cooler than summer nights in western WA. . .

The other concern I have about going over there is Maddox and my nephew.  They are the same age, and my sister and her son are at my Dad's house every day.  So telling them that they can't play would be very, very hard.  I did wonder if I brought masks, if that would be sufficient, but I'm not sure.  I know that the virus spread has gotten much lower, but I am far away from believing it's gone.  I also believe that if we're not careful there will be another wave of it, and I definitely don't want that. 

I did sign up and do a virtual run.  It's a run that I have done every year except 2 (2013 and 2019) since I started running eight years ago, The Tulip Run.  They canceled it this year, but changed it to a virtual run to benefit the high school seniors in this area.  My understanding is that all the proceeds, other than the cost of mailing bibs, and other (hopefully minor) costs, are going to support the seniors in high school.  Last year they changed the run from a 5 mile run to a 10k and I didn't run it.  I have not been very interested in races in the last couple years. 

Historically, I've done pretty well with placing in my age group for this run.  In 2014 and 2016 I got 1st place for my age group and in 2018 I got 2nd place (out of 3 😊) in my age.  My PR (for the 5 miles) is 42.12.  This year I ran 6.26 miles in 1.01.06. 

I won't know "results" until May 9 (that's the time frame they gave to finish the run).  But I wasn't aiming for a medal or a placement, I just thought it would be nice to support my community however I can.  I actually hadn't been planning on running it this year anyway, but saw a post that it was changed to a virtual run.  I guess this way I have a new distance to try to PR.  I've only run  10ks, and my PR for that distance is 54.12, so pretty doubtful that I'll get a new PR anytime soon.  I've been pretty slow lately.  In fact, my min/mile is a full min slower than my 10k PR.