Race: NikePlus She Runs LA
Date: April 28th, 2011
Start Time: 9:00AM
Location: Cheviot Hills, CA
This was not your conventional 10k race where participants congregated at a pre-determined location and all ran the same race course. Nike-sponsored “She Runs LA” program is actually a virtual race where each participant runs the distance in their own neighbourhood (or essentially wherever they wish). At the completion of their run, if one wanted to be entered into the sweepstakes for Nike products, one would need to upload their run results to the Nike Running website — the caveat, they’d have used their own Nike+ system (i.e., Nike+iPod, Nike+ App on the iPhone, etc.) in order to send the recorded time/distance.
That being said, I ran my own 10k race at west Los Angeles’ Cheviot Hills Park. It’s a 2mi loop, which meant that I only needed about 3 rounds (and then some) to complete this Nike+ 10k challenge… Well, I completed it but was somewhat miserable the entire time!
It was warm (around 72 deg F) and the run reminded me how much I had fallen out of fitness, compared to only a few weeks ago when I was running a bunch of personal bests! Ahhhh. Anyway, the course was also quite hilly and that, along with the temperature, contributed to my high heart rate and labourious breathing. Average pace was 13 min/mile! Anyway, that’s that. I’m deffo going back to running at least twice a week (once during the week the other during the weekend) in order to get my fitness back for the Camp Pendleton mud run (a 10k of obstacles!) and Seattle half marathon, both in June.
Back to this race — another fun thing about this She Runs LA challenge is the post-race party tonight at the Nokia Theatre in LA Live. Paid participants got two tickets for the concert! There’s also Bliss Spa and other vendors at the party so it should be a fun evening. Then there’s the race shirt — a cute, pink Dri-Fit tank top which reads “She Runs LA” on the front and then “Powered by Nike+” on the back… See awesomesauce pic below 😉
We’ll see how the party goes tonight but so far, not a bad experience, albeit a difficult 10k run for me! 🙂
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