modus anotorias
Making Peace with the Human Race (Sort Of)
Coming off back to back half marathons (specifically: the Long Beach Half immediately followed by the Nike Women’s Half Marathon) the last thing on my mind was following up with a third consecutive week of racing. Hey, how about a 10K at midnight? Uh, no thanks. How about a personal invite from Nike to be a VIP blogger for the The Human Race in Downtown LA? Wait, what? Even better… how about in exchange for taking part of the event, have a free pair of Lunarglides to test ride during the run. Like I would say no to a race anyway…
As tired and hyper focused on the next half as I was, when the call came from Nike to join the LAist folks, I was literally off to the races… in poor condition as I was.
I remember running the Human Race last year (my very first 10k) we had started at 8pm and Kanye West did a concert at the end. This year’s Human Race was a little different… You had the option of running the race virtually, there was no official timing system, and LA’s race started at midnight (ZOMG).
Race week: I just flew in from SF Tuesday in the middle of the night to half recoup the following few days before the race. Not the easiest time to go through, I was worn out from the third week in a row of taper/recovery runs and was dying to get back to real training so I could focus on my speedwork. When Friday evening rolled around and my Lunarglides arrived along with some other Nike swag, I started to get excited again. I had been dying to own a pair of Lunarglides ever since I tested them at the Nike Expo in SF.
I had recruited my friend Jen to join in the racing at midnight festivities since misery loves company. I met her and one of her buddies around 9pm so we could get ready and don our matching red tech tees to the Coliseum in Downtown LA. Upon arrival, we were lost in a sea of 8,000 runners (75% of them in their early 20s or younger). Despite being super anxious about the race, running at midnight, what might be lurking in the shadows of Figueroa, it was easy to get distracted by the music (Diplo anyone?), the gait analysis, beer shack and buff USC college athletes roaming about.
Midnight finally strikes. We’re off! I immediately lose my friend Jen. Armed with a dimly lit Garmin and my Nike+ system, you’d think it would be easy to keep pace. At least beat my last Human Race time. That’s the way it might have worked out perhaps if I hadn’t had milk and cookies as pre-race fuel for dinner. Milk? Really? Mile 4 hits and I come crashing down with the soul crushing stomach cramps. Keeling over, sweating, I thought about not finishing the race. DNF a fun run. Who does that? DNF a 10k after back to back halves? Damn me and my pride. I tried not to think about it, ran through a tunnel and distracted myself with the thumping music… is that really Diplo? Awesome! Back to shoving along… slowly. Of course I finished, painful and stupid as I felt for trying. I focused on flowing with the rest of the crowd, letting them carry me along the way with their pace.
I even managed to sprint towards the finish line… as soon as I saw a girl ahead of me in white Victoria Secret sweat pants with PINK across the butt, I told myself I had to finish ahead her. As I passed her and ran to the finish… all the pain, the tears, the complete dejection and heartache immediately washed away. The lights, the music, the crowd (where did all these people come from?) the end of the race. I can’t help but be happy crossing a finish line, even during my worst race with my personal worst time, I was happy when I crossed.
I remembered at that moment why I was there… the same reason as the other 7,999 people were there. We were runners, people who understood the true meaning of self-satisfaction and personal improvement. People who thrive in constantly raising the bar on themselves. No one loves to run because it’s easy. When it came to the Human Race, Nike made a great show of promoting the sport worldwide and raising awareness via the LA race for a great cause, Pete Carroll’s A Better LA - a very cool charity near and dear to my heart.
I finished in 1hr 10min not a PR but not terrible all things considered. Even with the mishaps, the fatigue and not the brightest racing schedule, I would do it again. Nike races are always fun, even if you find yourself in Downtown LA in the middle of the night wearing nothing but your running clothes, an iPod, a ton of sweat and a grimace… it’s fun. Just Do It. Sure, why not?
Is the Nike+ running site a lost cause? Having recently run two popular Nike races, I know time and money is most likely to be spent elsewhere (I also don’t have much of an idea as to how significant “running” is among all the sports that Nike covers). They recently re-released the Nikerunning site to have more of a social networking feel. That is to say, you can add friends who are also Nike+ users, create challenges, send each other messages, etc.
If the site was less flashy (ie Adobe Flash) and easier to navigate through, I would be likely to visit it more often. But because the UX is highly lacking (took me 2 days to figure out how to search for friends and your user profile isn’t public - people can’t add you if all they have is your Nike+ user name) and I only know a handful of other runners who consistently train with Nike+ … I would say I visit this site about once every two weeks. Probably spend 5 minutes on it.
Running Social Networking Sites to be Evaluated
1. DailyMile - http://dailymile.com
2. Athlinks - http://athlinks.com
3. Livestrong - http://livestrong.com
4. Runningahead - http://runningahead.com
5. GoWagon - http://gowagon.com
If I miss any that you think are top strong contenders let me know. I’ll also be posting a list of all sites I’ve heard of from others in case you are interested. Bear in mind, I’m looking for social networking, training and RACING info heavy sites.
Running: Workout Logs + Racing + Social Networking
I’ve had the great fortune of meeting a handful of awesome friends on twitter who love to run races as much as I do. Since they are scattered all about the country, I try to keep up with who is going where in case they are doing a race I might be interested in so we can meet up. I also like having people in my life who will give the occasional virtual high five on a workout well done. I also love reading race reports (but not personal blogs - wayyyyy too many to keep up with - yeah I get the irony since I’m blogging about this so bear with me).
That being said I’ll be doing a few site evaluations on suggested sites popular sites and will be posting them here for your perusal. All will come with some pros+cons and maybe one that is suggested to me will be the end all be all and solve my twitter running posse predicament. I won’t do a full run down of ALL sites available online (come on now, I do have a life) but will try to pick 5 really competitive robust sites.
I’ll be posting my methodology and rating system/meaning used for the sites soon (once I figure out what those should be). Of course, they won’t be as sophisticated as any of the Wasserman methodologies but based on my own self-serving needs :)
My Gait Analysis from the Nike Expo. Behold, the rare neutral runner with a forefoot strike. Now if I only I ran faster…
What I've Learned About Running In One Year
A year ago today I started the mammoth undertaking of training for a HALF MARATHON with my friend and ex-running partner Meagan. I vividly recall “running” down the strip in Venice and BARELY making the mile mark. That was it for the day. I also remember thinking once we were done that I was NEVER going to be able to do 13 let alone 13.1. Since then, I’ve run 4 half marathons, my first full marathon and am training for two more halves before the end of the year. So what have I learned?
1) Twitter is Awesome - I would be nowhere without a lot of the amazing athletes I’ve met via twitter and have had the great luck to met in person at some of my races (hello why do you think I even continue to race?)
2) Every Mile is An Accomplishment - that whole run your race crap… after the LA Marathon I couldn’t run for a month and a half. I went from a 9 min/mile to a whopping 14… still working on that one.
3) Run Your Race - I shied away from admitting how much I love the middle of the pack distance because maybe it meant that I wasn’t a real runner. But then again, those guys who win the medals at the Olympics for the whatever meter dash… you don’t usually see them winning any marathons. 13.1 it is!
4) I have miles to go before I sleep. I don’t have any particular goals except to get faster and best myself other than that, who knows but I don’t see an end to what I’m doing now which is good.
Today I’ll be celebrating by running with the LAist crew at the Nike Human Race LA starting at MIDNIGHT. Geez.
Playlist for Long Beach Half Marathon
You know what? I trained *really* hard for this race. So of course I was *uber* lazy about my playlist. I’m playing two Tiesto albums (one studio and the second an old mix) back to back. Everything old is new again. Holler. Also, in case you can’t tell, I did the ol’ Apple+C and Apple+V from Wikipedia for these. The playlist is 2hr 40min 29 seconds.
Kaleidoscope
1. “Kaleidoscope” (featuring Jónsi) 7:36
2. “Escape Me” (featuring CC Sheffield) 4:17
3. “You Are My Diamond” (featuring Kianna) 4:10
4. “I Will Be Here” (with Sneaky Sound System) 3:26
5. “I Am Strong” (featuring Priscilla Ahn) 5:39
6. “Here On Earth” (featuring Cary Brothers) 4:55
7. “Always Near” 1:33
8. “It’s Not The Things You Say” (featuring Kele Okereke) 3:14
9. “Fresh Fruit” 5:23
10. “Century” (featuring Calvin Harris) 4:42
11. “Feel It In My Bones” (featuring Tegan & Sara) 4:52
12. “Who Wants To Be Alone” (featuring Nelly Furtado) 4:36
13. “LA Ride” 4:13 14. “Bend It Like You Don’t Care” 3:23
15. “Knock You Out” (featuring Emily Haines) 5:06
16. “Louder Than Boom” 4:10
17. “Surrounded By Light” 2:39
iTunes Bonus Tracks # Title Length
18. “Organised Chaos” 5:12
19. “Bad Behavior” (featuring Dizzee Rascal) 4:29
In Search of Sunrise 4: Latin America [Disc 2]
1. “Estuera vs. Re:Locate - Palma Solane” 5:16
2. “Leon Bolier presents Inner Stories - Beyond” 4:36
3. “P.O.S. - Gravity” 4:16
4. “LNQ - People I Used to Know” 6:29
5. “Mads Arp - Slow It Down (Mathilda Mix)” 5:08
6. “Dominic Plaza - Sounds Rushing (In Search of Sunrise Edit)” 5:15
7. “Matthew Dekay vs. Proluctors - Bad” 6:12
8. “Electric Pulse - White Noise” 6:20
9. “Erik Shepard featuring Grayarea - Gravity” 6:13
10. “Tiësto - UR (Junkie XL Air Guitar Remix)” 7:31
11. “Odyssee - Evolution” 4:32
12. “Progression - Sands of Time” 5:06
13. “L.S.G. - Netherworld (Oliver Prime Remix)” 5:57
14. “Sensorica vs. Jin Key - Only One (Rave Mix)” 4:03
Malibu International Marathon Course Info.
I got this message from the Malibu International Marathon via facebook:
“Blue Benadum October 6 at 11:19am
One of our directors ran the course yesterday in 2:48! The report is; It’s a flat and really fast first 18 miles. The tendency will be to go out fast. Mile 19 brings some challenging rolling hills until the end, so try and hold back a bit in the first half. We’ll be posting per mile splits of Blue’s 2:48 on the website for people to see and compare with the elevation charts. Hopefully this will help people prepare for the race. Happy training, run hard!”
Obligatory Pre-Race Post
I had a counter for the Disney Half Marathon on my iGoogle homepage and deleted it today… I figured once you get to 5 days, you are basically there already. Disney wasn’t really supposed to be a big deal to me, it was a half I decided to do for fun, to get back into long distance running after my marathon injury and an excuse to wear funny ears. Now I find myself picking and prodding at all the things that I could have done wrong with my training. Did I not run enough miles? Cross-train too little? Too much (um, doubt it)?
I wasn’t really focused on the speed part at all, the most important thing to me was being able to go the distance. I remember when 13.1 miles seemed like crossing the Pacific - I also remember when 13.1 miles was just a training run I would fit in before work in the middle of the week.
Next month will be my one year anniversary (October 23rd to be exact) for running. It’s been a rollercoaster of a ride so far… several hundred miles later… and I still have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea how Disney will go, all I know is that I am far from where I want to be to feel anywhere near ready. I at least felt a glimmer of the endurance distance runner in me come out a bit today. We’ll see if the rest is there in time for Sunday.
