Run to Win

Parry O’Brien revolutionized the shot putting competition in the early 50s when he begin spinning 180° before loosing the shot. He broke the world record 17 times in total, and won 2 gold medals and a silver medal over 12 years. He retired from athletic competition in 1966, but was still in shape and active. He had a heart attack while competing in a masters 500-meter freestyle swim meet on Saturday.

(Source: ESPN.com)

The London Marathon was today, and over 5000 runners were treated with over 70 being sent along to the hospital after the temperatures got up near 70°_F. This equals the 1996 heat record for the race.

Martin Lel won the men’s race by three seconds in 2:07:41, outsprinting Abderrahim Goumri and Felix Limo. The lead men went through the halfway mark in 63:39, and just about everybody in the pack of elites got a turn to lead early in the race. Ryan Hall led the race at 35km, but fell back to 7^th by the end of the race to finish as the first American.

Chunxiu Zhou ran a commanding race to finish first amongst the women in 2:20:38. Gete Wami finished second over a minute later, with Constantina Tomescu-Dita trailing in third. The women were right on their goal pace for the halfway marker, coming through in 69:58. Yolando Mercado Torres was the first American woman, finishing over 22 minutes behind the Chunxiu Zhou. She kept a very consistent pace throughout the race.

The marathon had a record field size this year, with 35,674 finishers. Almost 50,000 registrations were accepted of the 125,000 applicants, with over 36,000 reaching the starting line.

(Sources: Flora London Marathon - BBC.com)

This week last year I had settled into the house and had time to write quite a bit. All of the news had to do with running, and there were various tips on working out and weight lifting.

• I finally got back to my animated series this week last year. This time, the animation was of my photographer performing a bridge rather than of myself. In general, he’d do the exercise while I set up the camera, and then we would swap positions and he’d snap the pictures. We didn’t get any good ones of myself, so I used the ones of him. I also discussed the benefits of doing bridges after a query from Bud Gibson on the subject.
• The Patriot’s Day 5 Miler is always on the same day as the Boston Marathon (except this year when it got cancelled). Last year was the first time that I ran the race here in Portland.
• I recommended that you always run facing traffic, unless there are local laws to the contrary.
• In marathon news, Paul Tergat got injured and had to scratch the London Marathon, and Lance Armstrong announced he’s running the New York Marathon. Rumor has it that he is running it again this year, as well.
• I continued my thoughts on the New Rules with New Rule #12 (fast vs slow lifting) and New Rule #13 (warm ups may not make you warm).

After the race, it was cold. Anybody that knows me knows that I do not say that lightly. No matter which block you were on, it was windy. The finish line is similar to New York City, where they do their very best to funnel you away from the finish line as fast as possible. There are plenty of race volunteers and medics in the finish chute, and you have to walk about a quarter mile to get to the water bottles.

None of the volunteers knew who had won, or whether the Red Sox had played or not. They really needed a radio. One of the big disappoints this year was that there was no game updates as I ran. In 2005, the game was being blasted on the radio, people had their own scoreboards up that they updated for the runners, and it seemed that any spectator or volunteer that you asked could tell you who was winning the race and what the Red Sox were winning by.

Once I got to the water area, I did learn that Robert Cheruiyot had won the race. Nobody was sure who had won the women’s race, though. I also saw a few familiar faces as some Mainers were manning the water station. I stopped to chat for a little while and then moved on.

I think that Boston handled the food much better than New York. Rather than a prepackaged bag, they gave you an empty bag. You then got to wander around like a kid on halloween. I almost regretted having just bought a case of Powerbar Harvest bars, as before I knew it my bag was overflowing with them. The banana tasted really good.
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Three students from Germantown and one from West Philadelphia saved a woman from a burning building yesterday afternoon after they saw smoke coming from the house during a track meet. They sprinted to the house and heard the woman inside.

Germantown team member Dwyne Hall says the teens heard a woman yelling for help when they got to the house and found her on the first floor, planning to go upstairs to find her kittens. He says three athletes from Germantown and one from West Philadelphia talked her out of it and guided her outside. Hall says the woman was wearing only undergarments, so one boy gave her his sweat pants and another his sweat shirt.

I am glad that the students were able to talk the woman into leaving the house, and that none of them got hurt.

(Source: ESPN.com)

Last night, I shared a few thoughts and memories of the Athlete’s Village before the Boston Marathon. The following are my watch splits, which will be off a little bit from the official splits. I will share those later. For a change, I hit almost every mile split. The only one that I missed was mile 26, so instead I have mile 26.2.

Mile 1: 7:16 / 7:16
The first mile was perfect. Our goal was to go out around 7:00 minute pace, and we made a short pit stop so that we could avoid doing so later. It worked for me; apparently it wasn’t enough for my friend, though. I started the watch at the mats, which were about 5 seconds in front of the starting line. The first mile is basically straight down hill, so it is important not to get carried away.

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The weather did not wind up being nearly as bad as everybody had claimed that it would be. That being said, I had some trouble keeping up with my race plan. I started out all right, but I never really got into the groove. I’ll follow a similar pattern with Boston as I did after New York, and split up the pre- and post-race summaries from the race splits.

The day began with my friend and I taking the shuttle bus to Hopkinton. Some National Guardsmen forgot to relieve themselves before we left, so they had the bus stop along the way when it wasn’t moving too much anyway. Once they were off of the bus, one of the women near the front yelled, “No peeking!” and she got off as well. My friend and I just waited until we got to the Athlete’s Village.
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In a continuing collaboration with Scott over at Straight to the Bar, we will be talking about head games for the month of April and delve into the thought processes that you may have while you are working out or competing.

Today I would like to discuss fear and how easily and it can interfere with your performance, especially in a competition (such as the Boston Marathon). When you prepare for something, and you practice and test what you are going to do, then you go a long way towards easing the fear of failure or of performing in front of a crowd or of just putting yourself on the line. They will never completely go away, but being prepared will help you to overcome your fears and perform up to your abilities.
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