Zach Runs Chicago

Santas at the starting line So it's December - which means that, as I said Friday , it's cold. But it also means that it's the holiday season. And that means that there are a bunch of holiday-themed races everywhere. Yesterday morning I ran one of the Christmas ones: the Santa Hustle 5K. And, as I said in my Newcity review , it was a pretty good time. There were around 5500 runners but, perhaps because of the gimmicky nature of the race, not that many in the first several corrals (from 5:00 minute miles to 8:00 minute miles). I - somewhat hopefully - got into the 7:30 minute mile corral before the race started (I ended up closer to 8) and they condensed everything up to 8:00 into one first wave. Though there were still a few runners who placed themselves up front incorrectly (as there are at any race) for the most part the start of the first wave was pretty clear, as was the rest of the run. I used the Nike+ Running app to track my run for only the second time

You guys, it's cold outside. I know. And when it's cold outside it's harder to get motivated to run. And Nike knows this too. So they've created a thing called the Nike+ Chiberia Challenge . Go check it out. 5 teams of runners will be competing against winter (and against each other) to run the farthest the fastest (fastest in terms of days, not speed of running). It's a pretty sweet challenge. And I'm captaining one of the five teams. Other teams are captained by the likes of Cindy Kuzma , Runner's World contributing editor and nicest person ever and Maggie Wolff , most popular Chicago running blogger and second nicest person ever. But, really, who cares about them?? You only care about winning this thing right? So, go check out the info about the challenge, read about the other (lesser) teams and then go join my team at the link below and let's win this thing: gonike.me/ChiberiaChallenge_ Zach Also, good luck Maggie and Cindy and ot