My WWWP5k!

My half marathon plan called for a 40 min cross train last night, but I jumped on a train to Chicago at noon Friday, which meant I’d have missed my 4.5 mile run. And there was no way I was going to give up miles on the road for minutes on the stationary bike, while I have healthy, happy legs and a desire to run. My Friday run is with a bunch of coworkers who call themselves the Fallsports Athletic Club (Fallsports is a bar near my office) and run a 5k every Friday, and, like any bunch of engineers would, have a website that responds to text messages and tells us if there’s a cancellation, allows us to record our targets, and our times.
So, since I couldn’t run with my coworkers, I decided to run with the office crew from Automattic. That’s right, instead of the Fallsports Athletic Club 5k, I did the WorldWide WordPress 5k.
With my coworkers, I do the first part of my Friday training run as a 5k, and report the time. I figured the folks at Automattic wouldn’t mind me keeping up with my training regimen while I joined in on the fun, so I resolved to do the same thing, with the additional logistical restrictions of having to provide some photos, rather than just text messaging my time to WordPress and calling it a day!
Of course after planning the whole thing out, I left my camera in my car with my gear, so I only got photos at the end of 4.5 miles. But through the miracle of Google, I give you, the AUGMENTED REALITY WWW5PK/FAC 5k/4.5mile training run!

I set off from the start line (that empty Angelo’s Pizza is now a tasty hot dog/reuben place that I would eat at if I weren’t running 5k’s to pay penance for all the hot dogs and reubens I’d eaten in the first place.) and I was all alone, running along the road on a cool Thursday evening. Dearborn, like most of Michigan, isn’t particularly pedestrian friendly, that’s no surprise that I didn’t pass any other walkers or runners on my way to Shemansky Park.

Shemansky Park is just a small neighborhood park, a triangular patch of grass right near Ford’s Development Center. (I swear, the little brick sign that’s there is nicer than my rendition of it, but apparently hasn’t been there long enough for Google Street View to catch a shot.) It’s a ~0.46mi loop, and the run to get to it is just a bit more than that, so 5.5 laps of the park finishes off our weekly 5k, and for me that day, finished off the WWWP5k!
I didn’t have a camera with me on the run, so I kept a second watch with me to take the obligatory finish time photograph! 34:30 is a slow 5k compared to my recent runs, but I was nursing a hamstring that wasn’t perfect after Sunday’s 9 miles. Once I finished the 5k I tacked on an extra lap and then ran the route back to my car, which got me to my training goal. The whole thing was done in 49:30, making for a very respectable 10:55 pace on this Thursday.

And even though it didn’t have any of the company of my fellow runners, I’m looking forward to opening up the WWWP5k tag once I get this posted, and reading about the ‘race’ we all ran together. Congrats to all the finishers, fast, slow, and in between.

Give us your hungry, your tired, your hot messes in spandex!

Automattic is ‘sponsoring’ a kind of ‘internet 5k’ called the World Wide WordPress 5k. I’m excited about this, so I’m already plotting how to get my staff photographer (wife) to come capture my ‘finish line’ shot.

When I started this blog, I hunted around for running blogs, wandering the dusty corridors of abandoned marathon journals, the brightly colored rooms of motivational bloggers, tried to pass by the kitchens of myriad foodie-runners in the search for a ‘real’, active, running blog. I gnashed my teeth that the tag ‘running’ didn’t just jump out at me every time I clicked on a blog. That people kept yammering on about their own interests, and not just filling my screen with day-to-day info that I could learn about running.

I was frustrated when I saw someone’s running blog filled with ‘off-topic’ posting about baked goods, or wedding invitations, or worse; their day-to-day life. Soon, I realized I was doing it wrong. I was approaching WordPress as another extension of my googling. I was trying to find resources, not people. I opened my mind, got a little free with the subscribe button, and started reading about cooking in North Carolina, wedding planning in Southern California, weightloss with no holds barred, photoblogging in Pittsburgh, cupcakes made with Bailey’s  pretty much everywhere.

Also, drinking, drinking and more drinking.  I didn’t have any idea that 20 and 30 something runners could be so passionate about good beer, tasty wine, fun cocktails and beer at the finish line.

And a funny thing has happened, since I started reading these blogs. I see the running info I wanted, and hadn’t seen before, and I care about it more. I  wonder what is going on in the lives of the bloggers I subscribe to. I read the running posts, and I feel motivated by them, but I also love the comedy, the tragedy and the funny pictures. I find myself looking forward to running more, and having the courage to post more, because I realize that “no one cares” is both the truth and the fallacy of blogs. If no one cared, this whole thing would have collapsed a long time ago. But no one will care if you don’t give them something to see. Something human. Something more than an repackaged about.com article or a Garmin Connect rss feed.

And to me, that’s what the WWWP5k is going to be about. Showing people, like months-ago-me that fitness blogs aren’t just fitness logs. That the best running blogs are sometimes crazy, fun, painful, off topic, photo filled, sarcastic, geeky, or even just apologetic.

So I hope a ton of people do the WWWP5k; it’s pretty easy, especially if you’re already logging a ton of miles. Run a 5k between April 4th and 10th, and blog about it, especially a photo of you at the finish line. Even if you never blog about running, or fitness.

So give us your hungry, your tired, your hot messes in spandex. Find a way to do WWWP5k, and we’ll all get a run in, together.