This week's episode kicks off with just what you all listen to this podcast for--an extended discussion of the weather! Once the guys get through that scintillating topic, the guys tease some interviews they have coming up (want to know what they are? Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or--if you're old--Facebook) before Eli brings up something Tony has in the past raked him over the coals for his views about: virtual race results.
The reason Eli brings this up is that since they last recorded, Tony ran his Bank of America Chicago Marathon Virtual Experience Half Marathon, and his different forms of technology (his Garmin watch and his Strava account) recorded different times with a two-minute discrepancy! The guys discuss all the different ways that a virtual race time can be recorded differently (moving time versus total time, to an exact point or to a distance on a tracker), and then get a little metaphysical in discussing whether and how we can really know what time anyone ran in a virtual race and even if we can say they ran a specific time what that means.
This has long been Eli's point--virtual race times can be accurate enough to track progress and compare against oneself, but aren't precise enough to compare with anyone else with any real meaning. By the end of this discussion, Eli thinks he has Tony converted to his position that virtual PRs are fine to count personally--but if you're going to bring them up as a way of comparing yourself to someone else, you need to mention that it's a virtual PR.
The guys then talk about the re-emergence of regional-level marathon events with the Prairie Fire Half Marathon taking place in Wichita, Kansas this past Sunday, and the BCS Marathon, Mississippi Blues Marathon, and Louisiana Marathon all on the docket in the coming months. Tony says that what he's going to be looking for to judge whether these are safe and successful events isn't anything in the event's plan--we all know what that needs to look like--but what the runners do at the event, and whether they read and then follow new rules that are in place to keep participants, staff, volunteers, and events' host communities safe. Eli says that what he's going to be looking for is for events that are able to take place in-person to be willing to turn people away, and not try to push past their caps to a size they may not be able to manage during a pandemic, and also be willing to understand that--while they have to advocate for their events--the very characteristics that make their event the unique and beautiful snowflake that it is may also make it an event that shouldn't be held, even while another event of similar or larger size may be able to be held.
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