Post Nike Human Race

Shown above: Lance Armstrong, myself, and friends Erik and Joseph

Shown above: Friends Paula, Joseph and Erik and myself standing for the National Anthem before the race at the start line

Shown above: Lance Armstrong and myself

Shown above, clockwise: Team Party - Sandy, Joseph, myself, Joseph, Erik, Paula, Kara

Shown above: Ben Harper and Joseph

Shown above: Matthew McConaughey after the race

Shown above: Matthew McConaughey's head (hehe), friend Erik, Lance Armstrong

Wow, what an amazing experience the Austin Nike Human Race was!! 

As explained in my previous blog entry, several of my fellow running friends and I got VIP status at the race. I had anticipated having some luxuries that I'm not normally accustomed to like free beer, free food, free bag check, nicer restrooms and such, but as it turned out it got us even more! As you can see from the photos, we got to line up at the start of the race with Lance Armstrong, followed by his buddy Matthew McConaughey, and then Ben Harper! 

I felt like I officially got initiated into Austin at that moment. Matthew reached across me to shake hands with Ben Harper and I resisted as much as I could from pinching his butt. I mean the thought of pinching his butt! Ha! I have to say, as I'm sure most people would agree, that he's not the best actor around and I almost avoid seeing movies he's in because of it. However, after seeing him in person, I now have a new appreciation for him. I guess you could say he's good-looking. ;) And Jeff, you know I'd let you pinch Cameron Diaz's butt if you could, right? hehe. 

As for Lance and Ben Harper, that was pretty exciting too! I always thought Ben Harper was good-looking but he's more average-looking in real life than I would've expected. My friend Erik, whom you can also see in the photos, made polite small talk and shook hands with him. My impression was that he seemed comfortable being immersed in a hoard of everyday people, making eye contact with people, etc. Perhaps this was because he wasn't preoccupied about actually trying to get a good race time like Lance and Matthew. Even though he had a race shirt on, I couldn't find Ben Harper's race results online, which leads me to believe he didn't finish. I also read a quote saying he was "thinking about running".  Lance, on the other hand, looked nervous, but he was definitely put on the spotlight a lot more than Ben Harper, being that he was wearing a yellow Livestrong jersey shirt amongst a sea of red shirts, and announced when he walked onto the start line. 

Olympic swimmers Aaron Piersol and Brendon Hansen also spoke at the podium in front of us at the start of the race. I was definitely star struck!

Well, needless to say, I was all amped up at the start of the race, not only because of all the training runs leading up to it, but now I'd have to race against Lance Armstrong! As soon as the shots were fired, I was sprinting as fast as I could. I was gonna show the world how fast I could go! Ha, that was a joke! It lasted about a mile or so and I just about died of heat and ran out of breath, while almost getting trampled by sub-8 minute-milers (show offs!)! Then all I could think was, "how the h#ll am I going to get through the rest of this race!?". Just at the point I 'hit a wall' I was looking up a huge hill, one of many to come. So, at this point, all I could do was finish, and that was what I did. I ran most of it, but definitely walked a lot of it as well (mostly the hills). Live and learn: next time don't sprint like there's no tomorrow, even if you do have Lance Armstrong alongside you - er, in front of you. 

After the race I walked back to the VIP pavilion like a zombie, half aware of what was going on around me, downed a bottle of water in a minute, stretched, found my friends, drank a beer, ate a little something (even though I felt nauseous), and later went to meet Jeff down the street to join in on the post-race festivities. After changing clothes and sitting down for awhile we all drank beer and had a great time long enough to close down the bars. 

Thanks to all my [running] friends for being such a great team and support group to keep my ass in shape to commit to it. We looked so smokin' hot in our red headbands and wristbands! Ready....(hands in)...GOOO....PARTY!!