Run to Win

I received another email from Patrick at Universal Sports, this time with information about the London Marathon:

This Sunday, April 26^th, Universal Sports will continue the Marathon Month with LIVE coverage of the Flora London Marathon via UniversalSports.com. Fans in the US and Canada can tune-in to watch the world’s top marathon runners compete head to head in this coveted event.

The Flora London Marathon brings another star-studded field to the streets of London. Reigning London Marathon champion, Martin Lel from Kenya leads a an Elite Field, which includes fellow Kenyan, Sammy Wanjiru, Abderrahim Goumri from Morocco and USA Marathon runners Dathan Ritzenhein and Khalid Khannouchi.

Fans can visit UniversalSports.com/marathon to watch the Marathon LIVE, receive up-to-date broadcast schedules, breaking news, video highlights, special features, photo galleries and more.

What: Flora London Marathon
Day: Sunday, April 26
Time: 4:00am ET LIVE

ON-DEMAND: Fans in the US and Canada can watch the Flora London Marathon on-demand.

What: Flora London Marathon
Day: Sunday, April 26
Time: 9:00am ET

As much as I’d like to watch this race live as well, I won’t be able to get over the pond to do so this year.

Which means I better get to bed early because it’s going to be an early wake-up call on Sunday…

Just yesterday, Kara Goucher was considering the London Marathon. It took about a day or so, but her coach, Alberto Salazar, has talked her out of running.

The AP is listing her possible attempt at running London 6 days after Boston as having been unprecedented, but I know that that isn’t true. At least 5 people ran both in 2005, when London fell the day before Boston.

Pam Reed not only ran London and then flew over the pond to run in Boston, but also ran from Boston to Hopkinton before the start to get over 50 miles in on the day.

While it is probably the wiser move for Kara not to run next weekend, it still would have been awesome had she managed to have another great performance in such a short span of time.

(Photo Credit: Roger Morse – Less Info: Associated Press)

Try to imagine that you have an honest chance of winning the Boston Marathon.

You run the marathon, and there are still 8 women in the lead pack past 20 miles because the pace is so slow (remember, you have an honest chance of winning!)

Then imagine that you are outsprinted in the last mile to finish 5 seconds behind the winner and 4 seconds behind 2^nd place. You ran a great race, but you fell a little short of your own expectations.

What is your first thought?

If you said, “Kick back and party, then go run the London Marathon in 6 days,” then you just might be Kara Goucher…(video after the break)
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Just like last week last year, most of what I wrote this week centered around the Boston Marathon. This week I described what happened as opposed to what was coming up.

• The website updated automatically as I ran with text alerts, notifying the site about my disappointing finishing time. I missed out on all of my goals, so while the race was a failure it was still well worth running.
• Getting home from the race was far more difficult than running the race. The Nor’Easter left a good portion of New England in a state of emergency. I couldn’t take the train home because the tracks had been ripped up, so I had to take a late bus back to Maine. When I got here, there was no power anywhere in the area except for the penitentiary and the local peeler bar. It took me 5 tries to find a way home where the road wasn’t blocked due to downed trees and power lines or due to flooding, and I only live a dozen or so miles from the train and bus station.
• I continued the April series on Mind Games by sharing a lesson that I learned during the marathon and that directly led to missing my goals during the race. You should never let fear overcome your common sense. I was afraid of the conditions that I might face rather than looking at the conditions that I was facing, and this led to overdressing and being way too warm for a majority of the marathon.
• I described my Boston Marathon experience in pretty good detail, breaking up each part of the experience into a separate article:
  1. The Athlete’s Village
  2. The Race (including a mile by mile breakdown with splits.)
  3. Post-Race
• In running news unrelated to Boston this week last year, over 5000 runners had issues with the heat during the London Marathon. (Conditions were much better this year, with finishing times amongst the leaders dropping by as much as 2 minutes.) Some shot putters saved a woman’s life during a track meet when they looked across the street and saw that her building was on fire. They had to talk her out of trying to stay in the building to find her cats and shared their warm up clothes with her since she wasn’t wearing anything other than her undergarments.
• This week two years ago, I got back to my animated exercise series by describing how to do a bridge. I later expanded on that by discussing the benefits of the bridge as an exercise. I recommended that you always run facing traffic, unless there are local laws to the contrary. I also continued the series on the New Rules of Lifting by discussing the twelfth and thirteenth rules.

This morning was the London Marathon, and coming through in an impressive 5^th place was Ryan Hall with a time of 2:06:17. He came across the line over 2 minutes faster than he ran last year in the race.

Ryan Hall managed to stay with the leaders through 30 kilometers, and finished just over 1 minute behind Martin Lel who won with a time of 2:05:17.

The women’s race was won by Irina Mikitenko in 2:24:14. Gete Wami fell hard at a water stop late in the race and may have injured her hip but still managed to finish in 3^rd in 2:25:37.

(Searchable Results: http://results-2008.london-marathon.co.uk/ – Hat Tip: Runner’s World)

The London Marathon was today, and over 5000 runners were treated with over 70 being sent along to the hospital after the temperatures got up near 70°_F. This equals the 1996 heat record for the race.

Martin Lel won the men’s race by three seconds in 2:07:41, outsprinting Abderrahim Goumri and Felix Limo. The lead men went through the halfway mark in 63:39, and just about everybody in the pack of elites got a turn to lead early in the race. Ryan Hall led the race at 35km, but fell back to 7^th by the end of the race to finish as the first American.

Chunxiu Zhou ran a commanding race to finish first amongst the women in 2:20:38. Gete Wami finished second over a minute later, with Constantina Tomescu-Dita trailing in third. The women were right on their goal pace for the halfway marker, coming through in 69:58. Yolando Mercado Torres was the first American woman, finishing over 22 minutes behind the Chunxiu Zhou. She kept a very consistent pace throughout the race.

The marathon had a record field size this year, with 35,674 finishers. Almost 50,000 registrations were accepted of the 125,000 applicants, with over 36,000 reaching the starting line.

(Sources: Flora London Marathon – BBC.com)

Paul Tergat won the New York City marathon last November, and has been training really well in the lead up to next weekend’s London Marathon. Tergat had to pull out of the London Marathon at the last minute, though, due to a calf injury.
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Next year’s Tour de France will start in London; this will be the third time that the Tour has passed through England and the first time that the race has begun there.
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