Run to Win

In 1998, Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Tyree Washington and Michael Johnson set the American 4×400m record with a time of 2:54.20. That record is in discussions to be removed, with the 2:54.29 that was run in the 1993 World Outdoor Championships getting reinstated. Young was banned for life in 2004, and Pettigrew has recently admitted to doping as far back as 1997.

“Removing this record is the right thing to do, pure and simple,” USATF CEO Doug Logan said. “We have no interest in a record that the facts – not rumors – have exposed as being achieved by fraudulent means by at least one athlete on the team. Obviously, Tyree Washington and Michael Johnson played no part in the doping activities of others, and it is a shame that they may suffer as a result. But our message is clear: compete clean, win clean and break records clean. Or, get out of our sport and out of our record books.”

I hope that the record is removed, and I hope that athletes are taking notice. I am sure that Michael Johnson would agree; he has already returned a gold medal from the 2000 Olympics that he had won on a different team with Pettigrew. Michael Johnson will still own the American record, since he was also on the 1993 team. The real victim here is Tyree Washington.

(More Info: USATF)

How far would you run to see a movie?

Last week, there was a 1 night showing of The Spirit of the Marathon in 1 theater here in Maine.

Crow Athletics and the Spudland Racers got together to send some runners down to Brunswick to catch the movie last Thursday evening.

The catch? They lived in Bar Harbor, which is 130 miles north of Brunswick.

The idea started out as a random conversation between a few friends wondering how cool it would be to do a relay down to watch the movie. Things spun out of control, as they usually do, and the media got wind of what was going on.

“The amazing thing is the word or mouth thing. We never asked for the excess media attention. We just said let’s run to Brunswick, simply because we can,” Gary Allen said. The idea of running from Bar Harbor to Brunswick “happened so quick we haven’t added a lot of hype about it.”

You can read about some of the local media attention here:

• Village Soup » Runners get into spirit of marathon
• Lincoln County News » Maine Runners Make 130 Mile Trek To View Marathon Movie
• Bar Harbor Times » Bar Harbor to Brunswick on Foot, to see a Movie
• Bangor Daily News » Running for ‘Spirit’

So, how far would you run to see a good movie?

This week I am giving away a free copy of Coast to Coast; just leave a comment describing a story about running for a chance to win.

Coast to Coast is about the November 2004 relay run by the cross country team of the Rochester Institute of Technology. They began the relay by dipping their batons in the Pacific ocean, and finished the relay by jumping into the Atlantic ocean. The relay took 12 days 3 hours and 48 minutes, and the baton moved continuously forward (mostly) on it’s 2,730 mile trip across the country the entire time. Each runner ran for 2 miles at a time and then resting for three and a half hours until it was their turn to run again. The book documents everything from the planning stages to the execution of the relay, and touches on a few ways that the run effected the athletes afterward.

The book includes a lot of information about the trip, such as: (Click here to continue reading…)