This photo captures a big milestone. One that I once thought was unreachable.
I’ve been running consistently now for a couple of years. When I started out, I used the Nike+ Running (now called NRC) app. If you use the app yourself, you may have noticed it has a number of “Run Levels” that you move through as you accumulate mileage.
The highest run level was “Black”. You had to run 3,106 miles to reach Black level.
Who is crazy enough to run that much I often thought. Never did I ever consider ME reaching that many miles on my feet.
As I started to run more, I purchased a GPS watch and moved on to other apps to track my runs (Garmin Connect), but I hold on to NRC out of nostalgia and for friendly competition on the Leaderboard.
Just the other day, before I set out for my first ever 17 mile run, I noticed something on the NRC app — I was so freaking close to Black level. Whaaaaa!? It sneaked up on me.
Two thoughts circled my head during that run, 1) will I even make it to 17 miles, and 2) at mile 11 I will have reached Black level!
At mile 11 we stopped and took the photo above.
Oh, and NRC has added a new level now. It’s called “Volt” and you need to run 9,320 miles to reach it. *sigh*
Alastair Vance 