Run to Win

The Maine Marathon is next Sunday on October 4^th, and volunteers are still needed! It’s a big undertaking for one of Maine’s showcase events, so if you have some extra time and can help out you should head into Portland.

Volunteers will be given a T-Shirt and a coupon to attend a 2010 Portland Sea Dog’s baseball game, and all volunteers will be entered into a drawing for 1 of 25 Peak Performance gift certificates that will be raffled off.

If you’d like to volunteer, you can see what volunteer positions are still required and can sign up by visiting this page:
http://www.doitsports.com/volunteer/jobs-by-date.tcl?event_id=159487

(Don’t forget, Atayne will be doing a trash run as well if that is more your style.)

There were 202 people that thought that there was some beautiful running weather this evening at the Back Cove with sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s, which led to the closest finish so far this year with 4 guys hunting for a win with only a 5 second spread.

Nick Wheeler won the race in 17:02, followed a few seconds later by Stover Bedard, Andrew Clamence and Ross Nickerson.

Lilian Childress had a slightly larger lead, winning the women’s race in 21:42 with a minute cushion.

(More Info: Full Results – Photos)

Cooler and wetter conditions greeted the runners last night at the Weekly Back Cove Race Series, where 72 finishers crossed the line. The series already has 415 registered runners.

Daniel Salvo led the way this evening, beating Seth Differ by 11 seconds in a time of 18:45.

Robin Metcalf had a slightly larger lead than Blue Butterfield in the women’s race, winning 20:10 to 22:20.

I chose not to go into town last night, as I needed to make up for losing a few hours in the middle of the day to visit the doctor’s office over a tick bite.

(More Info: Full Results)

For those in the Southern Maine area that are interested, WCSH 6 News Center 6 at 6 will be doing a segment sometime this evening between 6:00-6:30 on Camp Sunshine and Mike Brooks’ 10 Days for Sunshine run.

Mike is going to attempt to run 500 miles over the span of 10 days starting next week, averaging almost 2 marathons per day as he runs around a 1 mile paved loop.

I recently did a coaching call with Mike where we discussed his fund-raising efforts for various non-profit organizations, including Camp Sunshine. (I’m still in the process of editing the recording and transcript.)

I’ll link up to the video tomorrow morning once it is available on WCSH6’s website.

(And don’t forget – after you get done watching the news tonight, head over to Maine Running Company to listen to Greg Meyer speak about Boston and running your first marathon or half marathon.)

This is just a quick note so I can get some sleep, but the sample tracks for the coaching session with Tom Ryan are now available! If you had previously signed up for the interview, you should have a link waiting in your email box. If you haven’t signed up yet, then you can do so here:

http://www.competitiveaging.com

The site isn’t pretty right now, but it’s functional in terms of getting the sample tracks out there so that you can listen to them. The new site will get put together this weekend, and the CDs will be available on Monday. I am planning on giving the first 50 CDs away, so sign up now to make sure you get the info for when they are available!

Last night, I explained my reasons why I think that Ariel O’Connell did not win the Nike Women’s Marathon this past weekend. After all, she wasn’t the first to cross the finish line.

Thanks to a thoughtful reader, though, it appears as though Nike might be changing their minds. Here’s the reply he received through their help desk system:

Hello,

Nike is announcing today that it recognizes Arien O’Connell as a winner in last weekend’s Nike Women’s Marathon with the fastest chip time, completing the full race in 2:55:11. She shattered her previous time and achieved an amazing accomplishment.

Arien will receive the same recognition and prize, including a Tiffany bowl, the full marathon elite group winner received. Arien was unfortunately not immediately recognized as a race winner because she did not start the race with the elite running group, which is required by USATF standards. Because of their earlier start time, the runners in the elite group had no knowledge of the outstanding race Arien was running and could not adjust their strategies accordingly.

Learning from the unique experience in this year’s race, Nike has decided today to eliminate the elite running group from future Nike Women’s Marathons. Next year, all runners will run in the same group and all will be eligible to win.

Nike has a proven track record of supporting athletes and we’re proud to be able to honor Arien and other athletes who surpass their goals and achieve great accomplishments.

Sincerely,
Nike+ / Nike Running

So Nike is going to own up to their not overly well thought out system and change things next year, and will recognize Arien for the great race that she ran this weekend.

They are not going to take away the win from Nora Colligan, since she did in fact win the race, but are going to have a dual prize to recognize that Arien was the first woman to cross the line that started with the main pack.

I’ll update with a link to the press release when (and if) this becomes official.

Update: Still no official word, but there is an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about it that was published about an hour after my article.

Last year, Tim Montgomery was sentenced to 4 years in prison for his role in a bank fraud scheme. The former Olympian had already had his medals stripped from him, and was convicted of laundering $775,000 through phony checks.

His latest set of woes was set in place by his guilty plea last July to distributing heroin in Virginia. His recent hearing in that case resulted in an additional 5 year prison term once he finishes serving his current 4 year prison term.

I’m not sure what I can add to that story, other than that I hope that he can find something useful to do with his life after nearly a decade in prison. It’s a long fall for a former world record holder, which all began with having to cheat in order to attain that record.

(More Info: ESPN)

A year ago, Haile Gebrselassie set the marathon world record in Berlin. This year, despite losing a week of training this month, he was able to break his own mark under near perfect weather conditions.

“Today, I’m so, so, so happy. Everything was perfect today,” Gebrselassie said. “I had a small calf muscle problem and I stopped for a week, and then I started again a week ago. Then today I had, you know, some doubts … but it was really very good.”

His final time of 2:03:59 is almost half a minute faster than last year’s world record pace. This was the 3^rd time he’s won Berlin.

That is not quite walking…

(More Info: ESPN)