Run to Win

Thanks to Emily for pointing me at the following video interview from FloTrack.
I think that this quote sums it up pretty well:

"After last week in Berlin, I had so much confidence.

I really felt like I belonged there."

(Click here to continue reading…)

Dathan Ritzenhein had the race of his life tonight, running what was until tonight only 0.02 seconds behind the world’s leading 5k time of the year.

Cutting 20.3 seconds off of his personal best (set at the USA Outdoor Championships in 2006), he followed right on the heels of Kenenisa Bekele’s 12:52.32 and Edwin Cheruiyot Soi’s 12:55.03 to become only the 3^rd American to run under 13 minutes in the 5k with his new American Record of 12:56.27.

Bob Kennedy’s American record of 12:58.21 had stood for 15 years. Ritzenhein finished 6^th just over a week ago at the world championships in the 10000m, running 27:22.28, and was the first American in 11^th place in the Olympic Marathon last Summer. His 3^rd place finish was his first trip to the podium on the world track stage.

Congratulations, Dathan! Great run tonight!

(More Info: Men’s Results – Photo Credit: Jean-Pierre)

Can Kenenisa Bekele be beaten in a 5000 meter run?

It doesn’t appear so. This evening at Weltklasse Zurich, the 5^th of 6 meets in the Golden League track series, he outran his closest competitor (Edwin Cheruiyot Soi) by about 2½ seconds to win the race in 12:52.32. That’s almost 4 seconds faster than his world-leading time of 12:56.25 that he ran in Rome earlier this year.

His win means that he’s only 1 race away from splitting a $1 million jackpot for anybody that can dominate their event in the Golden League series. Kerron Stewart is out of the running after her 0.18 second loss to Carmelita Jeter (who won in 10.86 seconds), but Sanya Richards in the 400 (48.94 seconds) and Yelena Isinbayeva in the pole vault (5.06m) are both still dominating their events and could potentially split the jackpot.

Kenenisa has now won 16 straight 5000 meter races. His last loss was to Bernard Lagat by 0.82 seconds at the Norwich Union London Grand Prix on July 28, 2006. In the past week or so he won both the 5000m and 10000m races at the world championships.

His next 5000m race is scheduled for 1 week from tonight on September 4, 2009. He’ll be running in the final meet of the Golden League at the Van Damme Memorial in Brussels.

(More Info: Men’s Results – Women’s Results – Photo Credit: André Zehetbauer)

127 runners were greeted with overcast skies and temperatures in the high 70s this evening for the 16^th Back Cove 5k. Only 3 races remain in the series for 2009.

The race was led by a couple of first time runners on the season, with Jason Scott leading the way in 18:09 and Jennifer Sporzynski winning the women’s race in 22:19.

Curtis Wheeler (01:44:06) and Abbey Gosling (01:54:10) both retain their comfortable leads in the overall standings. We’re now up to 131 runners on the leader board who have run at least 6 races.

There are still 2 runners who have run every single race so far. Hopefully they can make it to the last 3 races. For that matter, hopefully I’ll be able to run at least one more of them before the end of the season…

(More Info: Full Results – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List – Photos)

In early/mid 2008, my friend Steve Speirs started a website to help people do 100 consecutive pushups. If you ever visited a fitness blog around that time then you undoubtedly saw people making the attempt using Steve’s training schedules (many of whom succeeded, I might add.)

Fast forward a year, and in June of 2009 Steve published his first book, 7 Weeks to 100 Pushups.

It’s a very quick read, and the programs offered in it seem even more accessible than the ones on the website. You should be able to read it in one or two sittings without any trouble.

The first thing that you’ll notice about the book is that it is 7″x9″, which was not what I was expecting when I ordered the book. It has more of the feel of a training log than a book that you would sit down and read.

The advantage, of course, comes from the book staying open on the floor in front of you on the page with that day’s workout, so that you can easily see how many pushups you should be doing for each set. (Unless your cat is wanting to play and keeps closing it on you, anyway.)

7 Weeks to 100 Pushups is divided into 4 parts:
(Click here to continue reading…)

The Weekly Back Cove Race Series is now 15 weeks in, with 1 more month of races remaining.

There have been 6 different winners in the past 3 weeks since my last update. Emily Durgin (19:10) and Curtis Wheeler (16:56) won on August 8^th. Matt Lunt (17:20) and Kristen Sweeney (20:24) won on August 12^th. Kurt Wente (17:40) and Marita Stressenger won on August 19^th.

Curtis Wheeler has (not surprisingly) taken over the leaderboard with a cumulative time of 1:44:06, 47 seconds ahead of Scott Gorneau. Abbey Gosling has only run once in the past 3 weeks and did not drop her cumulative time of 1:54:10 at all, but she still maintains a comfortable 13 minute lead.

Only 2 people remain who have run every single race so far this year.

I have not gotten to the race at all in the past 3 weeks, nor have I been running. My foot is getting better, but is not well enough to run on yet.

Results:Week 13 – Week 14 – Week 15 – Leader Board – Complete Runner’s List
Photos: Week 13 – Week 15

A popular book that came out recently is Born To Run by Christopher McDougall. (I’ll have a review up on the book one of these days – it was a good read.)

If you’re familiar with the book, then you’ll get a kick out of Chris’s appearance on the Daily Show last night (click through for video): (Click here to continue reading…)

Sorry for the late notice, I just found out that the 3^rd Annual Maine Coach & Athlete Cross Country Clinic is today and hadn’t noticed it on the schedule before now. The past two years were very informative; if you’d like to read my notes on those clinics than you can start here:

• 2007 Cross Country Clinic (Part 1 of 2)
• 2008 Cross Country Clinic (Part 1 of 5)

This year’s clinic will take place tonight at 6:00 p.m. at the University of Southern Maine’s Portland Campus, in the Gerald Talbot Auditorium of Luther Bonney Hall. The clinic will feature talks by local coaches and health professionals on topics such as injury prevention, nutrition, and shoe selection.

The keynote discussion this year will be by Irish National Cross Country Champion Keith Kelly, a 6 time all American and the 2000 NCAA XC Champion from Providence College. He’ll be discussing how to train, prepare and compete at a championship level.

If you are a cross country runner or coach and will be in Portland tonight, then I highly recommend making your way to the clinic. I’ll see you there!

(Click Here for More Info [PDF: 274kb])