Get the story behind the design process of the new Nike Flyknit technology.
I don’t run in Nike’s, but have to say their technology and how they present it in this video makes me want to try out the Flynknits for my marathon in June.
Source: nikestadiums
Platte River Half Marathon Race Report
As many of you know, this year I am training for my first marathon, the Seattle Rock N’ Roll Marathon on June 23rd. I have had a marathon on my bucket list for years and now I’m finally going to actually check it off (knock on wood I don’t injure myself before then).
My training has been pretty consistent given the not so ideal winter running conditions we had in Boulder and the lack of snow in the mountains has kept me in town instead of my usual weekend ski adventures. I did a fair bit of dreadmill errr…treadmill work back in December, but I really can’t do anything more than 5 miles without losing nearly all motivation. Most of my training has been outside and through pretty much all the elements. The Platte River Half Marathon was intended to be a fitness test type of race for me to see how my training has actually been working in a race situation.
I went to bed last night with rain hammering down on my windows and the wind howling too. The weather forecast was calling for rain and snow all day for the race with a stiff headwind of 25mph and gusts to 37mph, GREAT! I even had my meteorologist friend, Phil, who is also a big time runner give me a point forecast for the race. He thought it would be about 40 degrees and rain, I was really hoping he was wrong about the rain part of his forecast.
So this morning when I woke up, I thought I would see a coating of snow and continued rain and snow falling from the sky. Instead, I found there to be very little snow on the ground and the Flatirons were coated beautifully in a frosting of snow overnight with the SUN shining on them. Awesome, sun and coolish temps, almost ideal running weather.
I made it down to the start line 45 minutes before the start which was in downtown Littleton, Colorado where 3,500 other runners were also jockeying for a spot in the port-o-potty line. Oh joy! This race, indicative of its name, runs along the shores of the Platte River from Littleton to downtown Denver for the majority of the 13.1 miles. The sun was still shining when the race began and I quickly found a group of runners to help me keep pace as we winded through the streets of Littleton upon entering the Platte River trail to Denver. The race organizers were smart to have the race spend about 2 miles off the trail to allow for natural pacing to occur, which it did.
I entered the Platte River path and it was on to D-town. I felt amazingly awesome for the first 5 miles and was holding about a 7:40 pace, a bit faster than I wanted to be going so I backed down the pace to 7:50 for the rest of the race. My goal for the day was to break 1:45 or 8:00/mile pace and after eating Mexican food last night (such a stupid idea), my stomach was not overly agreeable this morning. Thankfully my stomach was back in shape for most of the race with only a few periods of cramping after downing blue sugar water known as Powerade.
So Phil’s forecast was not entirely blown today, the winds that he predicted definitely made an appearance with a good solid 20mph sustained headwind and bigger gusts at points. Luckily the Platte River trail is lined with a lot of trees to block the wind, but headwinds while running are just as painful as when they are on a bike.
So in the end I came across the finish line with an official time of 1:43:20 which put me in 33rd place in my category and 202nd overall. I am super happy with my performance and learned a lot while keeping a race pace and it’s definitely harder than on a bike that’s for damn sure. If only there was a way to coast while running, I’ll have to work on that for my next race which is the Greenland Trail 25K on May 5th.
Race Stats:
My latest product review will be up later this week. We’ve had a more than average snowfall this winter in Boulder and trusty 32 North Stabilicers Sport have helped me to keep my running mileage up.
