So yesterday I met a goal that I had made for myself of running a 10k. The race that I participated in was sponsored by Nike and was titled The Human Race. This was because it took place all over the world and you did not necessarily have to be at a particular location. How is this possible?
The Human Race
The Human Race sponsored by Nike was a 10k race that took place in major cities around the world such as Chicago, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Munich, New York City, Paris, Portland, Seoul, Singapore, Vancouver. It ALSO took place… wherever you happen to live! That’s right. Nike created a sensor that they named Nike+ which goes into special Nike shoes (or you can get a pouch for non-Nike shoes) and it records your running for you including distance, time, pace and calories burned. So to participate all I had to do was run a 10k on my usual training route and then sync my Nike+ data up to the servers by a set deadline. Pretty awesome.
Why the Human Race? Well, this 10k run was also a fund raiser. Nike pledged to give a certain amount of money to three different charities for each runner who participated. So not only was I meeting a personal goal, but I was helping to support a good cause.
Setting Goals
Well, how did I come about running in this race? I was working on running for several months back and then I saw the advertisements on the Nike site for the Human Race. Back then I was running around 2 miles and so a 10k (about 6.2 miles) was a pretty big stretch. Especially considering that it was the middle of July and I only had a month and a half to train. So what’s the worse that could happen? I can’t run it… big deal.
So I setup a training schedule on my Nike+ profile, set my sights and got to work. Here is a screenshot of my training runs leading up to The Human Race.
Race Day!
Well, “how did I do” you might be wondering? Firstly I’d like to say that I did it! That’s right, my main goal was to just complete the run which I did. After church and a quick lunch we went home and I started preparing for the run. Of course Hurricane Gustav brought the weather. I thought it was going to poor down rain on me so I went ahead and ran a bit sooner than I’d hoped, but it turns out that it was just slightly windy and completely overcast… perfect! The run was a bit different than being with an actual group of people running a race; I was less inclined to “push the pace” and instead just settled into my usual pace. You can see a graph of my run here.
So as you can see I ran the 10k in 1 hour 6 minutes and 51 seconds, which amounts to about 10 minutes and 45 seconds per mile. Yeah, I’m not setting any world records here but I did make the distance. Here is a screenshot of the run details.
And finally here is my placement within The Human Race Nike+ runners as of the time of this writing (they are accepting data through Sept 3, 2008). Yeah, I’m down close 18,000th place; I think there were some folks in crutches that did better – lol. If you click the image below you’ll see more results including the top 10 runners… their run times make me sick to my stomach!
So What’s Next?
Is this the end of the line for my running? Far from it! This was initially just a stepping stone on my way to the Pensacola Double Bridge Run which is a 15k run in February (2009). I’m still pumped about running that race, but I’ve also seen some races a little closer including another 10k and some 5ks. I think that I’m going to get right back on my training and start working on my pace. Hopefully I can start coming in to the finish line a bit faster than the tortoise… of course slow and steady DID win the race!
Well, thanks for reading and thank you to everyone who encouraged me in my efforts!