Nike Human Race - TFR's first 10k!!

Yes, yesterday TFR entered himself into his first 10k run - the Nike Human Race based at Wembley.

I'm not sure how much you've read about the Nike Human Race, but certainly the various forumites at Runner's World were not particularly enthusiastic.

Without wanting to rehash it all here, many people were complaining about the fact that it was (a) too expensive for what it was, (b) based in Wembley, so not easy for everyone to get to, (c) a twisty track, (d) based in Wembley, which is not the prettiest run and (e) not particularly well organised to the extent that Nike were unable to give anyone a definite start time.

On the day, Nike's (dis)organisation appeared to be even worse. The poor runners in Waves 1 and 2 were herded onto the pitch, where they stood from before 6pm until around 7.30pm when the first waves headed out (while the heavens were opening up on them through the open Wembley roof). All of this came after two support acts - Pendulum and Moby - who only a portion of the runners were interested in. In my view, these acts were entirely irrelevant but even worse than that, they made the event worse by delaying the start...

Anyway, I was in Wave 4, so started running at about 8.20pm (this, despite having to be inside the stadium well before 6pm).

But once the race was underway, things were actually rather good. I worked hard to keep my heart rate down (so in other words, worked hard at not working hard, ha ha!) and other than blisters from about 7k, had a really great time. The rain probably helped to keep everything cool, and certainly kept the dust down from what is the Wembley building site. The fact that it was dark made the floodlit Wembley stadium even more dramatic (as well as hid some of the less interesting parts of the industrial estate we were running around). And the marshalls, some of which had been there since 4pm, were continually shouting encouragement and clapping - in fact the marshalls were the best part of the event.

As I'd started off relatively slowly, it meant that I was able to pass a bunch of people throughout all of the 10k, which was a very nice feeling and probably contributed to my thoroughly enjoying the race (once it had started).

And my time? 1 hour 5 mins 20 seconds - not bad for my first 10k I think... At least I was happy with it.

Will I do more 10k's? Absolutely - but will probably aim for the larger ones like this where there is more of an 'atmosphere' and more people who are my standard (or worse, hopefully!)

Will I do another Nike event? That depends. I think that the whole concept of this event was completely misguided and I'll be a little more suspect of any future Nike event. Certainly, if they can't tell me when I'll be starting (to withing 10/15 minutes) or think that locking people up in a stadium for three hours before they can run is an acceptable way of organising a race, I'll be going elsewhere...

In any event, I'll be wearing my "I raced the world" finisher's T-shirt with pride!

Rapid weight loss

A bit of a funny week this has been... But a good one!

When TFR weighed in before the Wimbledon Common Time Trial 5k, he weighed around 100 kg (Saturday 23rd).

His WCTT run performance was dismal. Although he felt great around the whole course, and overtook a few people on each lap, when the clock finally stopped, it was very much the wrong side of 30 minutes... He was at a complete loss to understand why, although a bit of analysis on the Garmin Training Center software showed why. When compared with other (faster) runs around Wimbledon Common, it became clear that the run felt easy because it WAS easy... Basically, he didn't push himself hard enough - his heart rate was a good 5 beats per minute lower for the duration of the run...

So anyway, 100 kg on the Saturday.

Then his weight started to drop throughout the week, so that only 6 days later, he is weighing 3 kg less!!

So what might be the reasons for this?

1) Venom Hyperdrive!!! Actually, no. He hasn't been taking VH for a long time (and never really took it consistently... He has a stressful enough job without adding further anxiety with caffeine pills and other 'metabolic enhancers' in VH

2) Exercise? Well he's done a bit more this week than normally - a 1.5 hour bike ride (around 20 miles) on Monday, and a 30 minute run around Kensington Gardens on Wednesday evening

3) Diet? Not sure - although his lunch has become healthier (the Pret a Manger chicken salad rather than a big toasted sandwich) he has still been having a few drinks in the evening. In fact, yesterday's intake consisted of the salad, 1.5 bags of crisps, a few cans of diet coke, two slices of ryvita with smoked salmon, some shepherd's pie and two glasses of champagne. Not obvious diet food!!

So he's at a bit of a loss to explain why this is happening, but it has given him the motivation to watch what he eats more closely. In fact, he was in the office canteen this morning, where every friday they provide free sausage and bacon baguettes (and they're good!) but he went for the muesli instead.

The good thing is that he'll be hauling around 3kg less in this weekend's Nike 10k race.

Talking of which, I must be going so I can pick up my race pack!
Sun 99.1
Mon 98.6
Tue 98.2
Wed 97.7
Thu 97.3
Fri 97.1

Disappointment and motivation

Just a short post from The Fat Runner today.

>> Disappointment

I did the Wimbledon Common Time Trial on Saturday and came in at a disappointing 30 mins 1 second. There are no excuses - the groud was good, not too warm or too cold, no rain etc. It's simply down to the fact that I'm not training enough.

>> Motivation

So I've decided (perhaps foolhardedly) to enter the Nike Human Race - the 10k race which is hoping to attract 1 million people around the world. In London, the run will be starting off from Wembley and it's planned for 31/8/08.

Looks like I'll need to get serious about this training as I've only got three weeks to go from a slow 5k runner to a slow 10k runner...