Nike Human Race 10K (Read 2548 times)

The race here is at 8:30 pm. One of the marketing emails Nike sent me was to be sure to get some Nike sunglasses to keep the glare at bay during the race.

So is everyone ready to run?

I ran it here in Albuquerque. THere was no official race set up it was just a group of us who signed up at the running store that got together to run it. The store was nice enough to set up the course and also support us with water and gatorade. It was a great experience and a perfect time for me to practice some marathon pace miles! MTA: I bought the shirt from Nike with the bib number on it. My number is/was 310330!!!!

I ran it all by my little self near Charlotte early this morning at 6:00 am. It was my first 10k and my only goals were to 1) finish, and 2) get in under 1:10. I had a great time and was pleasantly surprised to still be breathing at the end and to have come in under an hour at 59:58.

Ran it in LA. It was way too crowded but still fun. Ran it really easy with my sister and her husband, first time going that distance for both of them. I contemplated lining up at the 8min mile corral but I'm glad I didn't after being in the massive crowd. Would have been a hard race to try and run fast.

Also ran in Chicago, and had a nice race. I thought the organizers did a pretty damn good job handling the 14,000 runner crowd, and everything seemed to go off without a hitch. The race was a definitely a bit crowded at the start, but no worse (and maybe even a little better) than other big races in Chicago. Some elbows and shoulders were getting thrown around in the tunnel under McCormick Place, but I've learned that running can be a contact sport in a race this size. All in all, the course layout was just fine (basically identical to the Distance Classic and the Soldier Field 10 -- meh). I've heard other cities had pretty bad courses (e.g., New York) that seriously impeded people running for time; that really wasn't the case in Chicago. Heat, humidity sucked. Shirt was getting wet just standing around before the gun. But I still managed an over 1 minute PR (43:03). Since this race capped off my second consecutive month aggregating over 360 miles, I'm not going to beat myself up that I didn't shave off another 20-30 seconds like I think I could have. I finished in the top 300, which is pretty cool considering the size of the race and level of competition in Chicago generally. It was very cool to see Dathan Ritzenhein before the race and then afterward announcing the first place male and female. Fall Out Boy concert was fun, but I'm 30 years to old (and the wrong gender) for their target audience. Still, for $35 bucks I got a race, first-class amenities, a shirt, and a concert from a band who had at least one song I knew. (Two songs actually, counting their cover of Micheal Jackson's "Beat It." Yes, I'm serious. It rocked.)

I ran it in LA last night and just posted a race report It seemed really well organized in LA--streets were plenty wide, everything super clearly marked. The bathroom lines were even pretty fast-moving, and they were real bathrooms. Of course, if I'd actually been trying to run it fast instead of "Oh God, just finish!" it may have been different, and I was dodging walkers the whole way (except for the speedwalking grannies that passed me. Stupid senior citizens), but no weird bottlenecks or anything. The weather was also fine--nice and cool and dry. Nighttime is definitely the time to run a race in LA.

I ran it all by my lonesome - Toronto was not one of the chosen race towns. We only have about 5 million people here and a really nice waterfront, but guess we don't count. I had a personal PR - yay! It was hot and humid and I wasn't going to run it but once I got going, I thought oh, what the heck and I switched on the Nike + iPod for a 10k run and went for it. Tiger Woods himself congratulated me with my new PR at the end. Good idea, Nike. (Despite what Daddyo says )