If you’ve ever registered for a race, from a small local Turkey Trot to a large International Marathon, chances are you’ve spent some time on Active.com. When I visited active.com this morning they had more than 4,500 running races listed that you could register for, 1,950 triathlons and multi-sport races as well as more than 3,000 area parks and recreation activities.
Pretty darn impressive.
Just last week Active.com partnered with the folks at Sony in launching a new online community – bringing two powerhouses together under one roof, or at least one click of the mouse.
The new Sony Walkman® online community will provide support for runners of all levels by providing a forum for runners to help each other prepare for their upcoming races, exclusive content from U.S. Olympic medalist and 2009 ING New York City Marathon Champion Meb Keflezighi and free co-branded Active.com Trainer plans for the first 5,000 participants.
Pretty cool stuff, especially the shared training plans as I know that a lot of runners struggle with this aspect of preparing for a race. Having a trusted resource to rely on, keeping you on track and making sure you are avoiding the pitfalls of the “too much too soon” variety, is a great, great thing in my opinion.
The new community will also be supported by Team Sony — a group of 120 amateur athletes and Sony Walkman ambassadors who have been carefully selected based on their passion for and involvement in endurance sports. Team Sony ambassadors will use the new Walkman® W-Series MP3 player (NWZ-W262) in their own training and at select endurance events through January 2012. In addition, Team Sony members will be regular contributors to the Sony Walkman site, offering encouragement through video posts, photos, recommended workout soundtracks and more.
Meb will offer tips and inspiration to the Sony Walkman online community as a regular content contributor and resource for training participants. Team Sony members will also be active in their communities using the Sony Walkman W-Series and discussing the benefits of its convenient wire-free, water-resistant and portable design that makes it even easier to train with their favorite tunes.
If you are interested in learning more about the Sony Walkman online community you can click the link below to be taken directly to their site:
http://www.active.com/running/first-race.
Now if you are of my generation, it is hard to see the words Sony Walkman without thinking about the original cassette tape portable Walkman blasting out your favorites from REO Speedwagon or The Buggles. But let me tell you something, the new W-Series Walkman is something else entirely.
W-Series Sony Walkman
The Sony Walkman W-Series MP3 player features a convenient lightweight, rinsable, wearable and water-resistant headphone-style design that is ideal for fitness enthusiasts. The official music player of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, the Walkman W-Series is designed to conveniently and comfortably accompany its user to the gym, trail and treadmill.
The W-Series Walkman comes with Content Transfer software that allows users to easily drag and drop music files from iTunes® for Windows®, Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer and a quick charge function that gets 60 minutes of battery life from a three minute charge.
You can click on the link below for more information about the W-Series Walkman:
The folks at Sony and Active have been kind enough to send a pair of W-Series Walkman systems to us here at Run for Dom. I will be testing one unit to do a full product review, while the other system is going to be given away to a lucky loyal reader in the next few weeks.
Stay tuned for more details, I am currently dreaming up what the requirements for entry will be. With our participation in the Denver Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon coming up in just a few weeks, it would make sense for us to tie the contest to that event.
Perhaps a “closest to Joe’s Half-Marathon Time” without going over will do it.
Happy trails everyone! So glad to see another great online running community get its feet underneath it this week. After all, that’s what this whole thing is about. Bringing people together as we all chase down our goals and dreams.
Who said running had to be an individual sport?
Joe Runs For Dom 