Run to Win

Tonight there was perfect running conditions for a good time, so it surprised me that there were still over 100 people that showed up to the starting line this evening! (Perfect running conditions for a good time to me means temperatures in the low to mid 60s and a steady helping of wind and rain. Fun to run in, but not really all that fast.)

The streak continues as 105 people crossed the finish line this evening, with at least 3 or 4 people starting out but deciding to run to the Eastern Prom beach instead of finishing. Over 615 people have run at least one of the 11 races so far this year, and 68 of them have run at least 6 of them and found their way onto the leader board (which has finally seen some changes up near the top!)

Tyler Jasud got his 5^th race of the year under his belt, but he couldn’t quite run down Claton Conrad who won the race in 15:57. Olivia Mackenzie took the women’s race in 20:22.

The start of the race had a little excitement, as Dave Weatherbie got tripped up a quarter to a half mile into the race and hit the ground hard.

David Mann (01:51:29) fell back to 4^th place, as I (01:51:28) overtook his position by 1 second and Scott Gorneau (01:44:50) took over the lead spot with his 6^th completed race.

I went back to running Tabata Intervals this week, although I programmed my watch to correctly keep me going for 4 minutes instead of just 2. Thankfully, I had somebody to do them with this week as Logan Price decided that intervals would be a good use of his time as well. I think that next time I will change the rest to the full 4 minutes and plan on doing 2 intervals instead of 3, because 2 minutes left me pretty tired and I decided to only run 2 of them anyway. We jogged for 5 or 6 minutes after the 2nd interval, and then raced through the finish where I managed to edge Logan out by half a second.

(Full Results - Leader Board)

Marion Jones

USATF CEO Douglas Logan has written an open letter to President Bush urging him not to pardon Marion Jones for her illegal and unethical activities over the past decade.

I can not agree with him more and I plan on writing to the white house with my thoughts on the matter. Marion Jones broke the law, she cheated in her profession, and she lied about both for years.

There should be no double standards for athletes when compared to average citizens of the United States, and pardoning Jones will make us laughing stocks in the international track community. If you think that cycling as a sport gets a bad rap, wait until the United States takes a lenient stance against an admitted doper that broke multiple US laws including involvement in bank fraud.

Pardoning her sends the wrong message, and I think that she should take responsibility for the choices that she has made.

If you would like to send a letter to the White House, you can address it to the following address:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

If you would like to call the White House to voice your concerns, you can dial 202-456-1111 (or 202-456-6213 for TTY service.) To send a fax, dial 202-456-2461.

If you would like to send an email, address it to: comments@whitehouse.gov

The USATF has provided a sample email/letter that you can use when communicating with the White House about your thoughts on offering Marion Jones a pardon:
http://www.usatf.org/promotions/MarionJones/

Click through to read the rest of this entry for Douglas Logan’s open letter to the President.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Jenny Barringer ran second place to Anna Willard at the Olympic Trials where Willard set the American record.

This week, though, they swapped places at a competitive meet in Belgium against top international talent. Barringer edged Willard by 0.03 seconds to run a new American record by almost 5 seconds of 9:22.73. The next runner was over 10 seconds behind the two women.

I am looking forward to the rivalry between these two continuing at the Olympic Games, where the women will be running in the first steeplechase. They’ve just shown that they can compete against top international talent and I hope to see one if not both of them come home with a medal.

Here’s a post race interview with Barringer following her win:

(More Info: Meet Results - Video Interview - Runner’s World)

The annual Clam Festival 5 mile road race was this morning in Yarmouth, Maine. The temperatures were not nearly as high as they were in years past, but the high humidity made the race tough for the 932 finishers this year.

Despite the lack of some of the annual favorites in the race, there was a very deep field this year which led to an exciting finish. Jon Wilson went out hard but spent the majority of the race near the middle to back of the lead pack. He retook control on the trails and in the park as he came into the last mile of the race, however, and made it look easy as cruised in 12 seconds ahead of everybody else in 25:44. A total of 12 people ran under 27 minutes.

Kristin Barry had a little less competition near the end, finishing the race in 27:59. She was followed by Sheri Piers in 28:31.

It was interesting watching the race from behind the finish line this year, as this is a race that I have run every year since moving to Maine. It is generally one of the hotter races each year, falling as it does near the end of July, and it certainly led to some of the sweatiest chip bands that I’ve ever had to remove from runner’s legs.

I quickly stopped congratulating people on how they ran and instead just pointed them straight to the water once I had gotten their chips off. That was about the extent to what some of the people were able to understand. One of the runners put a whole in his singlet in an effort to take it off and thought he was supposed to turn in his bib number instead of his timing chip!

(Full Results - Photos: Fun Run (a) - Fun Run (b) - CD 1 - CD 2 - CD 3 - CD 4 - Awards - Finish Line)

It was a good night for a race. It was relatively warm, but nowhere near as humid as it has been. This led to the gravel path around the Back Cove being nice and dusty, leaving a fine layer of grit on everybody’s legs.

Matt Lane won the race in an easy 17:12, almost 80 seconds behind his performance in week 4.

The real excitement came in the women’s race, though, as the course record has now been broken twice in the same season. This time, Joan Benoit Samuelson took the lead after deciding to drive down from Freeport 40 minutes before the race was supposed to start. She was jogging over to the starting line from the parking lot as everybody was lining up. Joanie cut 30 seconds off of Heather Pagano’s previous record, finishing in 18:11.
(Click here to continue reading…)

Last night at the Golden Gala track meet in Rome, Asafa Powell pulled up in the 100 meters with a groin injury. He is the former world record holder and is one of the favorites in Beijing next month.

“He’s OK, but he felt his groin cramp up and stopped running as a precaution,” said Powell’s manager, Paul Doyle. “He’s not going to take any chances. It’s an Olympic year.”

(More Info: Golden Gala - ESPN)

I’ll admit it. Having never met Curtis Wheeler before, and seeing the pace he set from the very beginning, I fully expected him to blow up within a half mile and fall back to the crowd. Of course, I didn’t find out who he was until after the race, or else I would have known better.

Curtis beat everybody else by over a minute, so he must have taken it a little easy at some point. He was a good 25 to 30 seconds ahead of the chase pack at the first mile. I finally got to meet Tyler Jasud during the race, since he kept catching up to me during my rest intervals and eventually pulled ahead. We had a nice race through to the finish, but he had the stronger kick and edged me out at the line. Well done!
(Click here to continue reading…)

It was not too long ago that Tyson Gay ran the fastest 100 meters that any human has ever done. He had the assistance of a good tailwind, which will keep him out of the record books, but that is still impressive none the less.

Even so, he is stronger in the 200 meter distance than in the 100 meter distance, and was one of the favorites to challenge Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell at the Olympics. Unfortunately, he pulled his hamstring during the Trials and so he won’t be competing.

“Before I went out on the track I felt a little tightness in my hamstring. So I had kind of a bad feeling. When I came off the curve the first two steps were fine, and then I felt it, sort of a pull, about 40 meters in. Once I was on the ground it didn’t hurt as much as when it happened.”

If you haven’t seen Tyson Gay’s fall yet, here’s a video:
(Click here to continue reading…)