Run to Win

It has been less than a month since USATF CEO Doug Logan challenged the JAAA to a dual meet series pitting the two nations best sprinters, jumpers and hurdlers against one another in team competition.

The meets have been scheduled, and will happen in May and June of 2010. That will give the USATF and the JAAA 13 months to put the event together, sign the athletes to commit, and arrange media sponsorship.

“We look forward to taking on our American friends in head-to-head competition in 2010,” said JAAA President Howard Aris. “We are confident that this kind of team competition, featuring the most exciting events in athletics, will prove captivating to fans around the world.”

The meet on US soil will probably be in the Southeast, so if I can’t manage to make my way down I really hope that it is broadcasted on a television station that I’ll have access to or is streamed over the web so that I can watch it live.

This is bound to be a pretty exciting meet and it will be interesting to see how the nations do in heads up team competition.

(More Info: Doug Logan’s Letter – USATF)

Romain Mesnil’s contract with Nike expired last year and wasn’t renewed. “It was probably for budgetary and strategic reasons. It’s the crisis,” Mesnil said. Mesnil is one of the best pole vaulters in France, right now.

So what’s the best method to find a new sponsor?

Apparently, running naked through the streets of Paris with your vaulting pole pretending to go over some national monuments.

After filming himself and putting the video up on YouTube, Mesnil has gotten quite a bit of press coverage and has shown up on multiple prime time broadcasts over on his side of the pond.

Here’s the video – there’s a black box covering his groin for most of it but you do see a little crack at one point so if you are sensitive to that sort of thing (or are at work) you’d best wait ’til later to watch.

The video is less than a minute long: (Click here to continue reading…)

The following article was written by Christian Griffith, a member of the Georgia Ultrarunning and Trail Running Society. He already has over a dozen marathon or longer races scheduled for this year alone.

You can read more about him at his blog, run100miles.com

Can you relate?

I just got back into town, and I’m rushing around, my wife’s rushing me around, I gotta buy printer ink, I’m sore, easily aggravated, and thinking about a million different things a minute …and all at once.

Car stereo’s loud, but I’m not listening. Too consumed with a cross between suburban living and post-race family responsibility catch-up.

As one of many errands, I”m rushing through the busy technology circle, headed to Office Max… when…

Ducks.

There’s a posse of ducks that live on this lake in the middle of technology circle, and when it rains, they cruise around looking for food (I think), oblivious to all the traffic and normal goings-on, and just mosey across the various busy streets in little groups.

Two ducks were crossing the street.

Just a’takin’ their sweet ol’ time.

One of ‘em bent down and pecked at something on the street, found it interesting, and decided to continue for awhile.

And there I sat, in my giant, gas-hog Excursion, 35 feet away from a bustling, 55 mph parkway intersection, and frozen in my tracks until the ducks decided I was going to continue my day.

That simple, momentary and voluntary powerlessness reminds me of how I feel when I’m ultrarunning.

The stark contrasts I experience between daily life, and spending 12 hours running in solid rain, through mounds of mud, with weekend friends, is pretty damn cool.

Ultrarunning is life’s interruption – my time to stop and “smell the roses”.

The ducks finally moved, and I resumed life’s conveyor belt.

Registration is going quick for the L.L. Bean 10k. When registration opened on Tuesday, it only took until noon before the last pair of free shoes was taken.

As of this morning, a scant 48 hours later, there have been over 700 registrations which means that the free shirts are also gone now.

If you are interested in running, there are less than 300 online registrations remaining.

Once the race has 1000 registered runners, there will no longer be any pre-registration available, although if you get to the race early enough there will be an additional 200 spots available for race-day registration.

So here’s a big congratulations to the L.L. Bean race directors for getting so many race registrations this fast! I wonder whether they’ll get all 1000 registrations before the weekend?

Don’t forget to sign up if you haven’t already for tomorrow night’s coaching session! We’ll be starting promptly at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

The phone call is absolutely free (your carrier may charge you but I won’t) and I’ll be grilling Mike on how he raises as much money as he does by running for charities. If you’ve ever run for others or considered doing so, you are going to want to be on this call.

More information:
http://news.runtowin.com/2009/03/18/have-you-ever-run-for-a-charity.html

Last September, Bekele, Tergat, and Gebrselassie wrote an open letter to the International Olympic Committee to try to get cross country reinstated into the Olympic Games. Cross country was originally removed after the 1924 Paris Games when unseasonably hot weather combined with the course going by an industrial chimney spewing noxious fumes led to 23 of 38 runners not finishing the race.

The International Association of Athletics Federations has officially backed the request for a cross country race, stating that it is perfectly reasonable to hold the race on snow for the Winter Olympics, which has the benefit of giving countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia an interest in the Games. Discussions will resume after the 2010 Vancouver Games.

Lamine Diack, the President of the IAAF, said: “The IOC have now written to us to ask our advice and we have told them that we are in favour of it.

“We are prepared to organise cross country in the Winter Olympics.

“It would be a good move for our sport.”

As I stated 6 months ago, I’d love to see cross country included in the games, and holding it the Winter just means that there will be tougher conditions that will be more fun to watch.

The traditional winter sports will probably find a way to block cross country running from the Winter Games, but hopefully there is enough support to overcome that.

(More Info: Inside the Games – Photo Credit: Trail Monster Running)

Once again, the L.L. Bean 4^th of July 10k is going to give away free running shoes to registered runners.

The first 400 runners will receive a pair of New Balance 1063 running shoes, their premium neutral-cushioning training shoe. It retails for $125, so if this is a shoe that you can wear then it is a great deal for the $18 race registration fee. In order to get the shoes you must arrive on race day to pick up your packet. Along with the shoes, the first 700 runners will receive a technical race shirt.

Registration opens on Tuesday, March 24^th at 8:00 a.m. EDT. The first 400 to register for the run before May 14^th will receive the shoes. They will then have a treat of a course through Freeport on the Fourth of July.

This is the second year that L.L. Bean has offered free shoes and last year there were a lot of happy runners. This year, they have a spiffy new website for the race, which has all of the information that you’ll need if you are interested in running: http://www.llbeanroadrace.com/

If you are going to be in Maine this Summer then I’d definitely recommend this race; it’s well run, there is a fun 1-mile run for the kids afterwards, and they give out a lot of awards that are actually worth using. Last year, I won a duffel bag.

When you race, do you do it for yourself, or do you raise money for others?

If you don’t raise money and donate it to charity, then why not? Has it never occurred to you? Did you have trouble deciding who to raise money for? Did you get stuck at the point where you needed to figure out what to actually do to raise that money?

Mike Brooks has raised money for charity before. In fact, he has donated tens of thousands of dollars that he has raised through his running to various charities such as Camp Sunshine, which provides a retreat for children with life threatening illnesses here in Maine.

Mike has raised money through marathons (he has run 3 in every state), ultramarathons (he has run through Death Valley), and through distance trials where he has run for 24, 48, 72 and even 144 hours (that’s six days of running!) The kicker?

Mike has only been running for about 13 years!

Mike’s latest exploit is going to be a 10 day race, where he hopes to average at least 50 miles per day. He’ll be starting in late April and finishing at the beginning of May.

Next week, I am going to hold another telephone coaching session, which is completely free to call in to. I’ll be asking Mike how he got started into running, how he chose the charities he donates to, and I will definitely be getting into the details for how he manages to raise so much money for his charities.

The coaching session will be on Wednesday, March 25^th, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. EDT.

If you have ever thought about running for others, then sign up below and I will get you the call in details. If you have any questions that you’d like for me to ask, then please enter it in the box below. I’ll do my best to make sure that I cover everything you are interested in.

Directions: Please type in your question below (optional),
enter your name and email address,
then click the “Here’s my question, Mike!” button.

Type Your Question Here…

First Name:

Email:

Mike has a website up about his Ten Days for Sunshine Run: http://www.tendaysforsunshine.org/