Run Faster

Just in case you haven’t heard about this yet, Nike is sponsoring a 10K race they are calling the ‘Nike Human Race’. The race is scheduled for August 31, 2008.

What’s a bit unusual about this race is that it will be held in 25 cities around the globe - or you can choose to participate by running with the Nike+ system and uploading your ‘race’ results after you run on race day. If you run your race virtually with the Nike+ system there is no fee, except of course for the cost of a Nike+ system if you don’t already have one. There is a $35 fee for participating by entering the event in one of the race cities, which seems like a pretty good deal to me considering some of the race fees I’ve been seeing lately.

And it gets even better - race proceeds, and any pledges or donations earned by the runners, will benefit three different charities:

• The Lance Armstrong Foundation
• The UN Refugee Agency
• The World Wildlife Fund

Nike has also pledged to give $1 million to these charities.

Want more information? Click here, but be warned: music will play automatically when the page opens, so you may not want to do this if you’re surfing at work, at least without muting first.

You can buy a Nike+ Sportband for $59. The Nike+ iPod Sport Kit is less expensive at $29, but it requires an iPod Nano, which brings up the total cost of the system quite a bit. With either system, you’ll need either Nike+ shoes or you’ll have to attach the sensor to another shoe, either by some do-it-yourself hackery or by buying one of several commercial products.

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It was a beautiful day for a race. It felt a little cool at the 6 a.m. start - I’m guessing in the low 50s F - but plenty warm enough for short sleeves, especially since a high of 85 F was expected for the day.

I was a bit apprehensive about the start of the course when I looked at the map the other day. The marathon, half marathon, and relay all started at the same time and location and split after about 1/3 of a mile which I thought might create some confusion. However, the race officials did a great job eliminating any problems with this, making several announcements before the race started about which direction the people in each race were supposed to turn, and there were plenty of volunteers at the split-off to guide people in the right direction.

The half marathon course left the park pretty quickly and started in a eastbound direction down historic Colfax avenue. I thought I might be starting out a bit too fast (about a 9:18 pace for the first mile) because I was thinking I’d only be able to manage about a 10:00 pace, but I felt pretty good so I thought I’d take a risk and go with it.

It seemed like I was getting passed a lot in the first half of the race, although I was holding a really steady pace. It’s always hard for me in this situation to hold back, but I kept on telling myself that I shouldn’t worry about it and should just concentrate on running my own race.

At right about 7 miles, the course turned north for a few blocks, right down the road for the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora. Then, we headed east on 17th Avenue for basically the rest of the race.

I was still feeling pretty good at about 8 miles, so I ate my second gel and started picking up the pace slightly. It was about this point that it seemed like I was starting to pass a few more people than were passing me, which always feels good.

I felt like I was faltering slightly at about 10.5 miles, which was to be expected given how few - and how short - my long runs had been in the couple of months preceding the race. Right about then though, a guy next to me said ‘come on, keep up with me’, which really helped. Also about that time a spectator asked how we were doing on time and the same guy said that we were on pace to beat 2 hours, just barely. That was all the incentive I needed.

The next couple of miles I just worked on holding my pace. Soon we were across Colorado and back into the park with something less than 1/2 mile to go.

That last 1/2 mile felt pretty darn hard, but I still was able to hold pace pretty well. After a couple of bends in the road in the park, I saw the clock time - and I knew if I could just do a final push, I could beat 2 hours. So I kicked as much as I could at that point and was able to finish with a clock time of 1:59:48.8 and chip time of 1:59:19.5 - 545th out of 1966 1969 runners, 40th 38th out of 270 269 in my division, 189th 187th out of 1189 1190 women (note: updated because results on onlineraceresults.com changed since I originally posted this). So I was able to meet all of my race goals - not a bad morning’s work!

Congratulations to everyone that participated in the Colfax Marathon, Half Marathon and Relay, especially Dave at the MS Runner who finished the marathon with a time of 4:09:56. And thanks to all of you that left encouraging comments in the last week - your support was incredibly helpful!

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