"Every little step you take...will make history..."-Kanye West

It's official. I've signed up for the Nike Human Race in LA on 8/31/08. What better way to celebrate being 31! Actually I can think of several, but how many times can you say, "I raced a million people all over the world." A big shout out to Mark B. for this suggestion.

At first I wasn't sure I even wanted to do this. Last year while running around Coyote Hills (training for the San Diego Rock 'n Roll Marathon), an unbelievable pain ran through the left side of my left knee the day after. It hurt like a mother f*cker! I hoped it would disappear in a week. I thought it was probably just old age. So a week later I tried again and the same pain popped up. Not good. After several attempts of trying to run again I figured out that I could only last about 20-30 minutes before my knee would give out. Long story short, I ended up not running the marathon and swore off long distance running.

Fast forward to about a month ago. Here's a snippet of Mark's conversation with me:Mark: you down to RUN?

i'm recruiting right now

me: as in miles?

10:13 AM Mark: YES

are you in the market?

i bet i can get you there faster than you think

me: WOW

how long we talking about? my knees are f'd up

10:16 AM Mark: i think you can do it

we're talking 10K

10:17 AM that's 6.2 miles

me: holy!

Mark: dood...i just ran 5 on saturday morning

i don't know how....but i just did

me: nice

hahahhahaha

Mark: let me get you hype right now

10:18 AM me: are there gonna be naked chicks running along with us? ...Mark: aight. You ready to run?

i can give you 5 good reasons

me: name them

10:44 AM Mark: 1. Running the Nike Human Race is for a good cause. (charitable event)

2. The race is in L.A. so possible beauties

(also a chance to get out of Fewark)

10:45 AM 3. Good exercise for body (training and the race itself)

10:46 AM 4. Only $35 bucks. (includes nike personalized # runner shirt and free Kanye concert at the end. Drinks are availabe during the concert.

10:47 AM 5. JUST DO IT. Join a million runners for a worldwide 10K like no other. http://nikeplus.nike.com/nikeplus/humanrace/index.jsp

10:48 AM me: i do like #2 and 4

And I basically made my mind up there. I would only be running about 6 miles, nowhere near a marathon, so I figured why not. But I didn't want to register until I knew I could actually run 10k without my knee failing. It happened on Monday--and my knees feel fine (relatively). What did I do different? I started out slower, ran on flat ground, and did a lot of foam rolling.

Here's a look at my last five runs:



Click the gray arrows to scroll through runs. The red arrow takes you to the Nike+ site where you could see the rest of my runs. The green line represents my pace. My pace is definitely not even. Damn those slow jams!

If you scroll all the way down you can also see a calendar of the training I've done so far. It beats having to post my workouts all the time. Thanks to Joy for suggesting this. If you need some fitness advice, don't hesitate to ask. I'm no means an expert, but I got a few tips if you're open to new ideas.

I also want to give props out to my running buddies. You know who you are. I hope you guys registered!

Wish me luck!