Nike Human Race: Inhumane conditions

I ran the Nike Human Race in Austin and in a word, I'll describe it like this: brutal!!!!!!!!!!

Weather at the starting gun: 94 degrees

And heat is something I'm used to (though I've never raced when it was that hot.)

But what made the heat so bad was all the damn hills.

And I don't mean gentle, rolling hills. I mean hills so steep that if you parked your car on one of them and didn't apply your emergency break, you wouldnt have a car anymore.

The hills started on mile 2 and never let up. Yeah, there were a few downhills as well, but not nearly enough of them. I stopped counting the steep inclines at mile 4. By then, I was just trying to survive the hills and the heat, which was very dangerous.

I've never stopped for water during a race shorter than a half-marathon. Never. Until Sunday. At about mile 3.5, my pride went out the window (and so did any chance of any pr) and I wound up stopping three or four times for water.

The heat took its toll on lots of people. I saw lots of people pull over to the side of the road, gasping, stretching, doing whatever they could to keep going or to keep the contents of their stomachs from plain site. When we were walking back to our car, we saw the medics all over this one guy on a Congress Street sidewalk. Oxygen, ice, IVs. It was not a pretty site.

My final unofficial time was 48:12 for the 10k. I dont know how that ranks me in Austin (the results were still coming in at midnight CST) or the world.

I will say this: Everyone had to wear red shirts and seeing the sea of red was pretty awesome. They also had Lance Armstrong, Olympic swimmer Aaron Piersall, and former WNBA player Cynthia Cooper running the race.

If they do this next year, they need to do it earlier in the morning when its not so hot, or pick a course not so hilly.