Co-published on Read.cash and Zirkels.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of participating in my very first 10K. I have always been a short-to-intermediate distance runner, playing a bunch of sports like ultimate frisbee that require quickness and cutting. But over the past few years, I have been building up my endurance. I would go on the treadmill or go outside and reduce my mile (or 1.6 km) time to below 7 minutes. Then, I increased the distance to 2 miles and worked my way to covering the distance in 15 minutes.

Eventually, I got used to running a 5K (or ~3.13 miles), managing to cover the distance in 25 minutes. My wife, who has participated in a bunch of 10K's, wanted to participate in a 10K that was coming up pretty soon. For me, who never ran over 5K in his life, let alone 10K, it was quite a jump. However, I decided to participate with my wife. Also, it was a great time to test out how many satoshis I could earn on sMiles.

I have been using the Bitcoin running app for about 6 months. The amount of satoshis I earned varied from day to day. If I were to go out and walk around in NYC for a day, for example, I would clock in at almost 20K steps and earn around 20 or so satoshis. On days where I go to my professional school, I get around 10 satoshis thanks to student parking being quite a distance away from the actual school. The app also has a few games that basically act as glorified faucets where you can earn some additional sats. On an average day, I would earn around 15 to 20 sats.

So my wife and I go to the start line, strapped on our phone armbands, and played music that best pumped us up through our earbuds. I ran the 10K and... I managed to do pretty well for my first time. Honestly, I thought I would have to slow down to a walk a few times, but I managed to run non-stop the entire way. Out of caution, I ran at about a 10 minute mile pace and lo-and-behold, my official time clocked in at 1:01:54. When I finished, I still felt that I had plenty left in the tank, so theoretically I could have ran the distance in less than an hour if I really tried.

When I took my phone off my armband and opened the sMiles app, I went above 13K steps and earned 12 sats.

Is it much? No, not really. But I did have some fun running with my wife and the other participants. The sats were a nice bonus to go along with the experience. The discovery of what I accomplished yesterday has encouraged me to keep improving my endurance and participate in more races.

If you want to earn some Bitcoin from walking/running, the sMiles app is available on both iOS and Android.