Posted on May 20, 2008 under Information, Marathon, races |
The Indianapolis Monumental Marathon has officially opened registration. The inaugural event will take place on November 1 and will highlight
a number of great buildings and features in our beautiful and convenient Indianapolis downtown including: the Indiana State Capitol, the Arts Garden, Lucas Oil Stadium, Circle Center Mall, Monument Circle, a number of federal monuments, the Cultural trail and the Mass. Ave. District. We are also happy to showcase several interesting and lovely neighborhoods including the Old Northside, Fall Creek Place, Meridian-Kessler, Butler-Tarkington and Broad Ripple.
The event is being organized and hosted by some of the best in Indianapolis racing. The official management company is Ken Long & Associates who have an excellent reputation in the community with support from the likes of Bob Kennedy.
Billed as a flat and fast course, this would be a good marathon. If I still lived in Indiana I would probably sign up for this one. The Indianapolis Marathon is a few weeks earlier and is also an excellent event that is well-established. The IM is a little hillier but also provides more natural scenery, while the new IMM is flatter and showcases some of the history of the city.
If you are undecided about a fall marathon I would recommend either!
Technorati Tags: Marathon, Indianapolis, Monuments
Posted on May 19, 2008 under Information, races |
You can run a marathon but can you finish the Tough Guy 7 mile race?
That is the question everyone wants to know at the beginning of what sounds like a very brutal race. You thought the last few miles of a marathon were agony – try battling hypothermia, climbing to the top of a tower, plunging into an icy lake and swimming 30 meters to cross the finish line.
Martin Dugard, an acclaimed author and sports junkie I’ve written about before, just wrote a review of the Tough Guy that will make you itch for more than an urban run down the Greenway.
This is my life after Tough Guy, a seven-mile odyssey of pain, suffering, and freezing-water immersion. The title is tongue-in-cheek, but the cruel severity of the competition is not. Since its inception in 1986, Tough Guy has become an increasingly worldwide phenomenon, beckoning otherwise sane men and women to the British West Midlands in the dead of winter to sprint through pastures, scramble through thorns, jitterbug through electric cattle prods dangling like Portuguese man-of-wars from ropes strung above knee-deep mud, climb and descend acres of cargo netting, and swim underwater through an icy pond.
If you can imagine an endurance race that combines the absurd best of Monty Python with the punishing numbness of Navy SEAL training, then you can comprehend Tough Guy. To go one step further: If you are the sort of person who doesn’t just imagine such a race but also hears an irrational voice in the back of your brain as you read this copy of American Way (which you plucked out of the seat pocket randomly but now wonder if it’s part of some act of fate) asking if you are indeed Tough Enough , then I am almost positive that one January very soon, no matter the status of your marriage or career or credit card balances, you will not consider your life complete until a Tough Guy finisher medal hangs around your neck. You know who you are.
So I leap. The free fall is short, and the seconds underwater are far too long. I sputter to the surface, swim to shore, and then fling myself down into the mud to low-crawl beneath barbed wire as part of an obstacle named for the Battle of the Somme. There is much more hardship to come (yes, more icy water), but finally crossing that finish line and sipping my cup of hot tea with shaking, hypothermic hands is a most amazing moment of happiness.
Excerpts taken from the American Way Magazine published for American Airlines. Did I mention Dugard got paid to compete in the race and write the story?
Technorati Tags: Tough Guy, American, Martin Dugard
Posted on May 16, 2008 under Olympics |
Oscar Pistorius will be allowed to compete in this fall’s Olympic Games if he qualifies for the South African team. The Star-Tribune (really the Associated Press) reports that:
The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 21-year-old South African is eligible to race against able-bodied athletes, overturning a ban imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Pistorius holds the 400-meter Paralympic world record of 46.56 seconds, but that time is outside the Olympic qualifying standard of 45.55. His training has been disrupted by the appeal process.
Even if Pistorius fails to get the qualifying time, South African selectors could add the University of Pretoria student to the Olympic 1,600-meter relay squad.
Pistorius would not require a qualifying time and could be taken to Beijing as an alternate. Six runners can be picked for the relay squad. Pistorius also expects to compete in Beijing at the Sept. 6-17 Paralympic Games.
Technorati Tags: Olympics, Pistorius, Paralympics
Posted on May 15, 2008 under Charity, Health, Information, Legends |
Ever wonder what Deena Kastor cooks at home? Did you see her cooking during the Spirit of the Marathon and want to know how to make the dish? Well, now is your chance as Alison Wade recently published a cookbook, the proceeds of which go to two Foundations dear to many a runner’s heart.
From the book’s website:
The Runner’s Cookbook features 100 recipes from 90+ contributors, including Joan Benoit Samuelson, Sebastian Coe, Shalane Flanagan, Adam and Kara Goucher, Ryan and Sara Hall, Deena Kastor, Craig Mottram, Dathan Ritzenhein, Khadevis Robinson, Alan Webb, and many others. All of the proceeds from the sales of this book will be donated to the Ryan Shay Memorial Fund and the Jenny Crain “Make It Happen” Fund.
Details about the two memorial funds is also available but here is a synopsis:
Jenny Crain, a popular member of the professional running community, suffered serious head and neck injuries after being hit by a car while training in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 21, 2007. Half of the proceeds from this cookbook will go to the Jenny Crain “Make It Happen” Fund, to help Crain and her family with her continued care, treatment, and recovery.
On November 3, 2007, five-and-a-half miles into the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials — Men’s Marathon in New York City, Shay collapsed and died suddenly, due to a heart condition. It was an event that shocked and deeply saddened the entire running community.
Half of the proceeds from this cookbook will go to the Ryan Shay Memorial Fund, to help Shay’s family undertake special projects in his memory.
The Runner’s Cookbook: Winning Recipes from Some of the World’s Best Athletes was compiled and edited by Alison Wade. Wade is the current editor of EliteRunning.com and the former editor of the now-defunct web sites, fast-women.com and mensracing.com.
Technorati Tags: Cookbook, Shay, Crain, Elite Running
HT: Runnerville
Posted on May 14, 2008 under Numbers |
Do you have a cool number? Send it to me.
Posted on May 13, 2008 under Olympics |
Do you think it is more important for the US to bring home lots of hardware (medals) from the 2008 Olympics or should we focus on having athletes with character who compete at their physical limits – legally? Vote in the poll at the right or leave a thought in the comments section.
We know that all athletes face the temptation to stretch the limits of the law to improve their performance. It has been in our face for most of the last year and even before. It seems almost every sport is taking some effort to curb the use of “performance enhancing substances.” It is a tough spot for athletes, they are expected to compete at a high level consistently. Sometimes those are almost super-human expectations. We have had some super-human stars who have broken barriers, while competing clean.
Things may have hit a tipping point when Marion Jones was stripped of her Olympic medals and subsequently her entire relay team was stripped (she is currently in federal prison for lying to investigators). That is a pretty sad day for sports. The US Olympic Committee has taken this into consideration as they prepare for the 2008 Games. In prior Olympics the USOC has made public goals about the number of medals they hope to bring home – focusing on winning, instead of the spirit of friendly competition. This focus on winning can be taken to the extreme and athletes will do anything to win or at least medal.
The Washington Post reported on this change in focus:
Besides abandoning the medal target, U.S. Olympic officials have instituted mandatory two-day seminars for U.S. athletes that address conduct, manners and ethics. They also have paid particular attention to the uniforms that more than 500 U.S. Olympians and team officials will wear at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Beijing to ensure they do not come across as too casually attired. U.S. anti-doping officials, meantime, recruited a dozen top athletes to sign on to a voluntary program in which they are subjected to extensive blood and urine testing to demonstrate that the U.S. Olympic team is committed to competing drug-free in Beijing.
The changes flowed in part from recognition that any controversy, cultural misstep or jingoistic display will be magnified during the first Olympics in China, considered a landmark Games that will be viewed by an estimated 4 billion people, which would be a record global television audience.
But they also reflect the USOC’s determination to distinguish the 2008 U.S. Olympic team from previous U.S. squads that came to be defined by cheating athletes, surly behavior and arrogance. Making such a distinction will be no small task, officials realize, given the continuing repercussions from the drug scandals of this decade.
I would say that cheaters never win and winners never cheat! That may be a little naive or cliche but I think it is more important to have integrity and character as you cross the finish line and to know that you gave 100%. If you give 100% of your natural ability and come up short, you go back look at what happened and try to fix it through training and hard work.
What do you think??
Technorati Tags: Olympics, Doping
