Run a Half Marathon With Me (in spirit)

[Edit] So, this might have been a great idea, but too little, too late, and would really need to make some kind of “click this button and record your message” application. And maybe someone bugging people go get it done. So consider this project cancelled. :)[/Edit]

Next Sunday, Feb 20, 2011, I’m running a half marathon – the Half at the Hamptons at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. During my run tonight, I started thinking about some of the minor details of the race, like… what am I going to listen to while I’m running? I’ve gone through phases of listening to music, listening to nothing, listening to podcasts, listening to audiobooks during my runs. I know can’t listen to 2 solid hours of music while running – I get bored with it. And I know I can’t listen to anything that requires long term attention, like podcasts or audiobooks.

Then, as I was running down in the basement on the treadmill, surrounded by my various computers and devices, I thought it would be cool to live video chat with people while I was running on the treadmill. Maybe even other people who were running at the same time. That’s a project for a different day, and not feasible for running a race anyway. But that led me into thinking of an alternative – what if I had a sort of “mix tape” of messages from friends. With the power of the Internet, blogs and twitter, I wonder how many people I could get to record 30 second to 1-2 minute messages, that I could then splice together with some music. Enough to make a two hour mix to last me through a half marathon? Let’s see!

So here is the challenge: record a short message to me, anywhere from 30 seconds to max of a minute or two. Say who you are, and something funny, encouraging, deep, whatever. Remember that I’ll be listening to it while running a half marathon, so don’t start asking me complex coding questions! Email it to me at REMOVED I’ll need time to combine them into a final mix, and I’ll be heading out early Saturday morning, so if you want to do it, try to get it in by Thursday night.

Also, what would REALLY rock is if I could get a volunteer to compile all the messages and choose some cool music to fill out the rest of the time with. Then when I start the race on Sunday, the whole mix would be completely new to me and a surprise every minute while I’m running.

If this comes off, I’ll make the final file available for anyone to download, and will be sure to report the results ASAP on Sunday.