Pump those muscles, man.

What’s the biggest downfall for us nerds? Becoming fat couch potatoes and Wii fitness doesn’t count against it.Evolution Freelance Media in partnership with the Realistic Nutritionist will be making 2010 the year of healthy living. The Race will be a series of articles about living healthy in our vast world of technological repression. Until we can become cyborgs, it’s time to get off your ass, put away the balance board and eat some Veggies.

The Goal

The Race: Twenty-Second Annual St. Patrick’s Day 8K Race Sunday, March 14

The goal for the first sponsored Play This member run may be small, but the time spent training is something we don’t really have to spare. Did we mention there is a diet of sorts that needs to be followed and it excludes coffee and soda? That alone requires us to transfer blood into our veins instead, which is weird.

Did we mention we are looking for a charitable cause to support as well, because that is probably the key to this. Although we have not yet selected a cause* to place donations contributed on behalf of our runners, they are currently being accepted from Paypal, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the decided charity.

If you would also like to run in the name of Play This, e-mail us and we’ll have some nifty prizes for you (announced in March) and you will be running for a good cause.

The diet

Is currently being formulated by the Realistic Nutritionist and will be based on carbs, hell yes. The full detailed plan will be placed in the next article to the series and on the Realistic Nutritionist’s site. The plans will also help other individuals such as your self to get in shape or stay healthy, while having long work hours (50+ a week) with other important commitments. That being said, I’ll be the vessel of her diet plan experiment.

The Plan

Run, run and run some more or achieve a completion time of 30 minutes for the 8K. The current record for my age group was set in 2006 at 24:32.

The plan for training for the 8K race will be based on a 10K running plan, which essentially you build up distance and take one or two days off. The first day has already passed, with a simple goal of 2 miles. The 2 miles were completed just under 12 minutes, with a 6 minute per mile run time. While that isn’t very good, by the time the race rolls around it will hopefully be reduced to 5 and a half minutes per mile.

The basic run plan will also be displayed in a chart in the next article of the series. Ensure you take a rest period after the hardest push for distance running and if you choose a break in the middle.

Now for those of you couch potatoes that are trying to pull the, “I have Asthma and flat feet” card, shad up. I too have rather terrible asthma and running helps defeat it.

All donations for the run will be listed on the charity tab of our site as well as where you can place them.

*Our default charitable group will be the ASPCA in the instance of a unanimous group decision can’t be reached.