Run to Win

About a month ago, the United States challenged Jamaica to a Dual-Meet Series where the two sprinting powerhouses could face off against one another in team competition.

Jamaica accepted the challenge a few weeks later.

Former world-record holder Asafa Powell is not very impressed with the arrangement, however.

“I don’t really see the importance of it. There are many Grand Prix and Golden League meets out there that we are going to be competing in against each other, so it doesn’t make any sense to me,” Powell said.

Frankly, I think that Powell is missing the point.
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This week last year centered on racing, covering distances from the 100 meter to the 50 kilometer.

• First, Asafa Powell set a new 100 meter world record in Rieti, Italy with his time of 9.74 seconds. He has since run faster than that, but no longer holds the record.
• Second, the Back Cove Weekly Race Series finished up. 2007 was the first year that I was one of the sponsors, and I managed to win free shoes for a year by having the fastest 6 times on the course. I only won by an average of 1 second per race!
• Third, I wrote about my first ultramarathon experience at the Pisgah 50k Mountain Race. I had quite a few articles about the race, so anybody that is thinking of running might want to take a look through. The race is either today or tomorrow this year, and I wasn’t able to make it back. Hopefully next year.
  1. Pisgah 50k Trail Race (2007) – Pre-Race Review
  2. Pisgah 50k Trail Race (2007) – Race Review
  3. Pisgah 50k Trail Race (2007) – Post-Race Review
  4. Pisgah 50k/23k Trail Races – 2007 Race Results
• This week 2 years ago also saw the Back Cove 5k Race Series finishing up, that time with Mike Caiazzo and Lindsey Davis taking the series honors. I won the last race, and placed 3^rd overall. I added on to my icing series from a few months earlier by explaining how to ice sensitive areas on your body such as your eyes or testicles, and I reviewed Breaking Away, a movie about cyclist in the 70s. On the news front, New Jersey began testing kids for steroids in an attempt to catch them young.
• This week three years ago, I pointed to some resources about deadlifting, namely a video on how not to deadlift and one on proper deadlift form.

As predicted, there was no new world record this afternoon in Brussels. Usain Bolt did win the race in 9.77, which is still very speedy. He was 0.06 seconds ahead of Asafa Powell, who got a much better start and led over the first 50 meters.

The first American to finish was Travis Padgett in 5^th place in 10.15 seconds.

The meet was streamed live at Track Shark, which should also carry future Golden League meets. Results are available at the IAAF website.

World record holder and Olympic Gold Medalist Usain Bolt is scheduled to face off against former world record holder Asafa Powell this afternoon in Brussells in the 100m for what was supposed to be a showdown between the 3 fastest men on the planet. Unfortunately, Tyson Gay pulled out of the meet yesterday to avoid further aggravating his hamstring injury.

Both runners are coming into the race strong. Bolt set the world record mark at 9.69 seconds during the Olympics, and won at Weltklasse in 9.83 seconds last week. Powell had a disappointing 5^th place finish in the Olympics, but set a personal best mark of 9.72 seconds in Lausanne, the 2^nd fastest unaided 100m race in history and equal to Bolt’s former record set last May.

The meet is going to air tape delayed on ESPN at 11:00 EDT tonight (and on Sunday on ESPN2 at 3:30 p.m. EDT), but you can watch the 100m race live on SportsCenter this afternoon on ESPN at 2:25 p.m.

Both men are going to try to chase down the world record, but I don’t think that the weather is going to be conducive to lowering the mark set in Beijing and expect that it will hold for at least another week or two.

Update: As predicted, no world record. Bolt ran 9.77 and Powell ran 9.83.

(Photo Credits: Victah Sailer (Bolt) & Jonas Witt (Powell))

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)

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:
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Usain Bolt has proven to be the first person to break Asafa Powell’s mark of 9.74 seconds in the 100 meter race on a track.

He was up against American sprinter Tyson Gay (9.85 seconds) this weekend at the Reebok Grand Prix, and was aided by a false start that wasn’t called back until the runners were 20 meters down the track.

“I was glad for the first false start,” Bolt said. “My first start wasn’t that good. I knew if I got Tyson on the start, I’d get him.”

Gay said he knew it was over after he saw Bolt push out.

The Olympics this year should provide some great competition, which is as it should be.

Bolt is normally a 200m/400m runner, but his recent successes almost guarantee that he is going to stick with the 100m as his signature race in Beijing.

(Photo Credit: Victah Sailer courtesy of Runner’s World – More Info: AP)

Update: I crunched a few numbers about how fast Bolt was moving:

This week last year I wrote the counterpoint to my intervals FAQ by describing answering questions about tempo runs. The tempo run is not a very well defined term and can mean different things to different people, so sometimes it helps to have a definition of what somebody means when they are talking about them when you first run with them.

In running news, there were 2 big stories. The first was that Asafa Powell had recovered from his tendonitis and was back on the track and ready to compete.

The other big story that broke was about the proposed IAAF ban on prosthetics in international competition, which was a ruling made specifically to address the case of Oscar Pistorius. I ultimately decided that prosthetics should be banned, a decision that the IAAF ultimately agreed with but then had to overturn in appeal over the past year. Now a year removed from when this whole situation began, I feel that Oscar probably does have an advantage over able-bodied athletes due to his prosthetics, but I highly doubt that any advantages he has outweigh the huge disadvantage of not having any legs or the additional blood volume that having legs would allow him.

This week 2 years ago I ran The Vermont City Marathon, followed a few days later by the Back Cove 5k.