Musing About Race Virtual Videos and Someday Running in "Real" Ones

Of late I've been watching quite a few running race videos on YouTube from the runner's perspective...but if you've been reading this blog, you already know this.  At this juncture in time, I'm pretty confident that not only can I run pretty much any low altitude half-marathon (I'm a perennial sea-level Floridian) but can also cover the distance in marathon races by splitting my running with walking.  So, when I watch (and run with) the Cardiff, Paris, Toronto, Brooklyn, Hartford and Boulder half-marathons along with the NYC, Disney World, Flying Pig (Cincinnati) and Boston marathons, I can easily picture myself there within the pack, albeit in reality the runners I'm "with" in those videos would have (with the exception of one race) left me behind in the proverbial cloud of dust. No, it's not what goes on between the starting and finishing lines that holds me back from participating in these races in the "real world".  It's more that with some, like Boston, you have to be pretty damned fast just to be eligible to run, and with others, like NYC and Brooklyn, it often comes down to lotteries and connections in order to get into them.  And then there is the transportation issue of getting to these places (and back home). Once there, I'd still need to find a place to stay and plot out transportation to the race site...New York City looks like a monumental nightmare in this regard.  I'm a bit miffed of late that my hometown of Gainesville has turned its back on city-based long-distance races with the demise of the LifeSouth Five Points of Light Marathon/Half-Marathon annual events, which went on from 2006 to 2022...I ran in its half-marathon six times. You can still run races in these distances, but they're all way the hell out in the boondocks on the remote Hawthorne Trail, with basically trees as your cheering spectators...oh joy. "Out of the way" races...sometimes the organizers are even ashamed to call them "races"...seem to be on the upsurge with the many 5K Parkruns sprouting up in parks across the land and "Run Your Buns Off" and "Medal Madness" remote races, all off the city streets and tucked away in parks, requiring multiple there-and-back laps among the disinterested flora and chirping birds to attain their races' distances.  This just doesn't fit it with my vision of engaging in races as a form of running tourism, although I do appreciate and participate in my local Depot Parkrun (gotta love them red-winged blackbirds).  So, although I'm thinking of trying out a special weekend during which I fly out to some distant race site where city streets are still an important part of the course, run it and then be back in town in time for work the next week, it's right now just a fantasy...but one that might someday be realized...