The Nike Human Race was held in 30 cities around the world, 5 of them in the USA. Austin, TX was one of the 5 US cities. 6:30 PM start so it was 96 degrees and high humidity where 15,000 of us were crammed into downtown on Congress Avenue. I picked up Tom H. and Karen H. and we drove to Austin and got there about an hour before the race so we got parked at the Post Office for $7.00. An easy walk over to Congress Avenue and 6th street for the start.
We took a quick trip through the portapotty line and then headed over to the starting line. We made a decision in this heat to just do a fun run of this event, no sense to race in 96 degree temperatures. So we enjoyed the pre-race show as they introduced several gold medal winners from the US Olympic team who were from Austin, and introduced Lance Armstrong also from Austin. Lance is now working on his running race life and had a great race finishing 6th place in this race.
Overall of the 30 cities worldwide Austin finished in 2nd place overall as a city so despite the heat many of the runners took this race seriously. Tom, Karen and I just ran a easy pace and finished in 60 minutes, nothing to write home about other than the event and the heat and taking part in a worldwide show. We saw Karen F at about the 4.5 mile mark. She finished a little over a minute ahead of us. For all of us this was basically just a hot early evening run.
After the race Lynn and Karen H. and I went over to Rounders and had pizza. Karen had not brought a 2nd shirt with her so she put a towel over her shoulders to cover her sports bra, which we agreed fit into the Austin motto of "keep Austin weird". A relaxing stop before going home. | 