Yesterday I participated in the Nike Human Race in London, UK where 30,000 people gathered in Wembley to race those in 25 participating countries. I always enjoy the Nike 10km runs and have tried to do them each year…  last year, they took a break and there was nothing so I was glad to see that they were back with something, which I hoped would be fantastic and fun. I tend to go along with friends which make the experience so much more fun… anyway, here is my little rant!

I’m not generally any good in reading instructions but my friends had called me to tell me to meet them at 5pm at Wembley Park station where we would descend and make our way to the new stadium. There wasn’t too much information with regards to what was happening except that there was a concert and that we had to get into the stadium by 6pm.

Well, being in the UK means that the weather is very unpredictable and the heavens just opened up and it poored buckets whilst I was at the station, I prayed that it would stop and was thinking that perhaps a ride back home wouldn’t be such a bad thing.. the last thing I wanted was to be drenched and to get a cold.

Anyway, when everyone turned up at the station, the rain had stopped and we walked down the famous Olympic Way towards the new Wembley stadium, seeing a sea of red was quite impressive I must admit and felt proud to be part of it all.

The next half an hour was generally walking around and checking in our bags and making our way into the stadium itself. Although we were designated 4 waves which historically had all started after each other, there were no set instructions as to how the race would have been conducted… in fact, when the race materials arrived, it was only then did we realise that it was going to be a late Sunday start..

Anyway, into the stadium we gathered and stood… and stood and stood!! There was a band called Pendulum (I’d never heard of them) and also Moby. To be honest, I think most of the people just wanted to run but we waited almost 2 hours before we were allowed out and do the business. I didn’t particularly enjoy the concert too much despite the acts’ best efforts in stirring the crowd into a wild frenzy.. if I wanted to listen to techno rave music, I would have gone to a techno rave music type event. The waiting around got quite irritable and I got hungry, cold and thirsty… the thirst I could deal with as there was plenty of water available but having a mere £1 was not enough to buy any pizza which was being charged at a record £5.50 for a slice and a drink!!! Shocking!

The weather at this time was still holding up… however, as soon as they announced that it was time to do the run… the heavens opened up again! It was not pleasant!! It rained heavily for the first 5 km and I was soaked head to toe… the 10 km circuit was a real disappointment also, they had cobbled up a track in the midst of an industrial estate and the car parks of Ikea and other retail chains. At various parts, the visibility was so low as it was gone 8pm by this time and wet, that I ran through puddles which were about 3-4 inches in depth.. I was soaked anyway so it didn’t really make much difference to my overall being.

To be honest, it was a real big disappointment.. Nike really did a really poor job I thought compared with how well they had organised the events before. The track was very very disappointing… there were bins with nasty smells coming out of them which we ran through.. ugh!!

The only great thing was how you get a text alert almost immediately with the time that you finished. Mine was 51 mins and 22 seconds which was a little disappointing for me.. I was aiming for under 50.