It’s that time of year again! The Visa Championship Series starts tonight with the Millrose Games and continues next week with the Boston Indoor Games. I can’t get to New York today, but will be in Boston next week.
The Millrose games will be televised live on ESPN2 tonight from 7-8:30 p.m. It will also be televised tomorrow on NBC, January 31 from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. ET. If you’d like to play along with Fantasy Track, then you have until 5:40 p.m. tonight to make your picks.
Here are the details on how that works:
How it works
Fans create their ultimate track and field team each week by going to www.visachampionshipseries.com and selecting the athletes they believe will compete well at that week’s meet.
Each Visa Championship Series meet is “virtually” scored, with 10 points going to the first-place athlete in each event, 8 points to the second-place athlete, 6 points to the third-place athlete and so on down to sixth place. The selected athletes score points for your team.
During the 2008 indoor season, after the conclusion of the AT&T USA Indoor Track & Field Championships, Jim Dunaway’s team from Austin, Texas, had scored the most points during the Indoor Visa Championship Series. He won a grand prize trip for two to the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track & Field, courtesy of Visa. David Donley won the overall second-place prize, a $250 Visa Gift Card and Nike gift bag, including but not limited to a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Anthony DeSain won the third-place prize, a $100 Visa gift card and Nike gift bag.
2009 Indoor Pick-N-Win Fantasy Game
Grand Prize: One Grand Prize winner will be awarded a $2,000 Visa Gift Card and a Nike gift bag, including but not limited to, a Nike/USATF bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Approximate Retail Value: $2,100.
Second Place Prize: One Second Place Prize winner will be awarded a $250.00 Visa Gift Card and a Nike gift bag, including but not limited to, a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Approximate Retail Value: $350.
Third Place Prize: One Third Place Prize winner will be awarded a $100.00 Visa Gift Card and a Nike gift bag, including but not limited to, a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap. Approximate Retail Value: $200.
Three Weekly Prizes: Each game week, a Nike gift bag containing a Nike/USATF spike bag, jacket, t-shirt and cap, valued at $100, will be awarded. Weekly Prize winners will be determined by the top score achieved during the appropriate week from among all eligible entries (excluding the Grand Prize winners) received by the online deadline.
Pick-N-Win Fantasy Game New Features
Invite a Friend: From the Pick-N-Win website, players have the ability to email a friend the Fantasy Game link and invite them to participate.
News Page: Athlete scratches and additions to start lists will be updated on the news page.
Facebook: From the Pick-N-Win site, players can click on the Facebook link and go to the USATF Facebook page to discuss strategies with other players and interact with their competition.
The game kicks off with the historic 102nd Millrose Games (Jan. 30) and continues through the Reebok Boston Indoor Games (Feb. 7), Tyson Invitational (Feb. 13), and the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships (Feb. 28-Mar. 1).
The first deadline for players to make their final 102nd Millrose Games picks is Friday, Jan. 30th at 5:40 p.m. ET. The game will conclude on Feb. 28 at 11:55 a.m. ET.
Today, I’m going to share a few of the meals that I consumed in the week leading up to the race that allowed me to successfully navigate the 50 mile course.
Early in the week, we took a trip to the Valley of Fire. Beautiful place! Walking around there all day was hungry work, but thankfully we packed some sandwiches that we made in our room before heading out.
It’s important to relax now and then, which is surprisingly difficult to do in the daylight ambience of The Venetian in the middle of the night. Thankfully, I had an Italian beer to help me wash down an excellent pasta dish.
Walking around Vegas can be very tiring, though. There are a lot of people, nothing is near anything else, and if you follow the signs to get where you want to be then you’ll take pretty much the longest route possible that passes as many slot machines as they can bring you near. We were pretty tired by the time we found this Creperie in fake Paris.
Our original plans were to do a hash run on New Years Day, but instead we met some friends at the Egg Works. As it was lunch time, I decided to try one of their Burgers. I don’t think that Erin thought that I’d be able to fit it in my mouth.
She was wrong.
Sometimes, though, a burger just isn’t going to do it. Especially when you’ve been walking around in Vegas. Thankfully, there was a goldfish handy…
I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other on running skirts. I don’t plan on wearing them, I don’t mind other people wearing them, and I doubt highly that my wife will ever wear one since she thinks that they look ridiculous.
Plenty of the women in the group that I coached over the Summer wore them pretty regularly, and they certainly have a following.
That said, I could definitely see going for the martini water stop »
If you were hoping to run the Boston Marathon in 2009 and you haven’t registered yet, then you are going to have to work a little harder to get in:
Registration is closed for the 2009 Boston Marathon.
The Boston Marathon does not have a waiting list, late registration on race weekend, or race day registration.
The names of all official entrants are published on the B.A.A. web site.
Please note that bib numbers are not transferrable. Those attempting to transfer their bib numbers, as well as those in receipt of a transferred entry, will be disqualified.
The Boston Athletic Association thanks you for your cooperation.
The 114th Boston Marathon will be run on Monday, April 19, 2010; tentatively, applications will begin to be accepted in September 2009.
If you already registered for the race but you can’t find your name in the entrant’s database, don’t worry just yet. It may take time for them to verify your qualifying results and they may (or may not) still have some paper applications to process.
As of this moment, there are about 20,000 people in the entrants database, with an estimated 25,000 that are going to be allowed to run this year.
If you haven’t registered yet and you want to run, then you had better see if any local charities or clubs have any entries that they’d be willing to give you. If you raise money for the official charities, you can usually get into the race after official registrations have closed.
Despite feeling ill and being unable to keep liquids down for over 1/3 of the race, Josh Cox still managed to set the American mark in the 50k in 2:47:17. That beats Alex Tilson’s 2:51:48 set back in 2002, but was a bit short of Thompson Mugwana’s 1988 world record time of 2:43:38.
Cox ran his record at the Arizona Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, where he went over the marathon finish line in 2:20:32 only to continue on to a nearby track to run 19 laps and bring his distance up to a full 50 kilometers.
“I felt good at about mile 14, and then for the final two laps,” Cox said. “I had a lot of stomach issues, I don’t know why. Maybe I overcompensated for going the longer distance. Maybe I took on too many fluids early in the race. I just kept throwing down fluids. But I didn’t have any after 20 (miles).”
If you are curious about just what type of training you need to do in order to run an American record in a race like this, just watch this workout that he ran with Ryan Hall last November:
Meb Keflezighi chose a good race for his first half marathon win as he managed to beat Dathan Ritzenhein by 10 seconds this morning in Houston at the USATF half marathon championship race. He won the race in 1:01:25.
“I just wanted to make a statement that I’m back and that I’m healthy and that if I’m healthy I can be very competitive at the US level of the international level.” – Meb Keflezeghi, 2009 January 17
Meb went out hard and built a solid lead, but kept his effort a little more conservative from mile 8.8 on in case Ritz got too close and he’d need a closing kick. Ritz did manage to close the gap by quite a bit, leading 3rd place Brett Gotcher by 34 seconds. Brett just focused in on Ritz over the last 5 miles and let him pull him along from half a minute up.
Magdalena Boulet won the women’s race by a slightly larger margin after the race went out in a relatively slow 5:45 pace, which is easier than some of her marathons have been. She took advantage of that to come through with a 19 second lead over 2nd place Kelly Jaske. She broke the tape in 1:11:47.
I’d also like to point out a great performance from a teammate of mine from college, Jeff Abbott, who ran in his first USATF championship race with a time of 73 minutes even, finishing in a very respectable 51st place.
Last night was the Maine Track Club annual banquet, celebrating the club’s 30th birthday. The evening was a lot of fun, with plenty of folks attending, plenty of good food, plenty of door prizes, and a plethora of awards.
The club honored it’s founder, Brian “Ziggy” Gillespie (who was the coach for “Run to Win” when I first moved to Maine and provided the inspiration for this site’s name) for his contributions to Maine running since the 1960s. Ziggy is (as far as I know) the only person that appears in both the Maine Running Hall of Fame as well as the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame. He has coached numerous successful teams throughout the years, put on more races than I could count, and helped make the Maine Track Club what it is today when he started it back in the 1970s.
The table that I was sitting at did pretty well with the awards. We had two folks win gift certificates as door prizes, we had 3 age group awards (myself, Floyd Lavery, and Amy Lilley), I won the Outstanding Contributions award, Martha Lippa received recognition for having run her first marathon, and Carry Buterbaugh won Runner of the Year.
I’d also like to mention the two volunteers of the year, David Colby Young and Don Penta, who do an outstanding job photographing the majority of the races throughout the state. It did make things a little interesting while they were receiving their awards, though, as the folks who had the cameras handed to them then had to figure out how to use them.
David took video of the evening and has a few photographs up on his site, Maine Running Photos.com. Don’s photos will probably appear on the site within the next week or two.
The Adventure Racing World Series is going to make it’s way to North America in 2009 now that they have added Untamed New England to it’s lineup of qualifying races. The Adventure Racing World Series currently consists of 10 races spread throughout the calendar year and across the globe. With the addition of Untamed New England, Americans now have a more local option for qualifying for the championship race in Portugal next November.
For three days, July 9-12 2009, teams will race non-stop through the mountains, rivers, and forests of Untamed New England. They must travel under their own power. Teams will navigate with map and compass through pine forests, wetlands, and mountains; paddle rivers fed by melting snow; bike staggering mountain passes and twisty trails; dangle from ropes on exposed cliff faces.
The racing is non-stop until they cross the finish line. There are no aid stations, no support crews, no specified “rest” periods; it’s just the team, totally self-sufficient, against the Untamed New England course.
Adventure racing can be a lot of fun and is a whole different experience than your standard road or trail race. I’ve never done a multiday event, but I had a blast at the shorter adventure races that I’ve done in years past.
I’m glad that the world series has added a North American event. The world series also has events in Brazil, Portugal, Ecuador, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and France.
The Millrose games will be televised live on ESPN2 tonight from 7-8:30 p.m. It will also be televised tomorrow on NBC, January 31 from 1:30 – 2:30 p.m. ET. If you’d like to play along with Fantasy Track, then you have until 5:40 p.m. tonight to make your picks. 
If you were hoping to run the Boston Marathon in 2009 and you haven’t registered yet, then you are going to have to work a little harder to get in:
