At the recent USATF Annual Convention the race organization was awarded championships in 6 different events, including a first ever 1 mile championship.
USA Road Mile Championships (Men & Women): 2009 - 2012
USA Women’s Marathon Championship: 2009
USA Men’s 10 Mile Championship: 2009
USA Men’s Marathon Championship: 2010
USA Women’s 10 Mile Championship: 2010
USA Masters Marathon Championships (Men & Women): 09-15
This is great news both for the organization but also for the Twin Cities in general and our strong running communtiy. This will continue to bring in high quality competitors, sponsorship dollars, and a lot of added fun to the events.
You can read the official press release from Twin Cities Marathon here (pdf)
The Rocky’s Run 5k & 8k brought back a lot of college memories for me. I’ve done a lot of trail races since college, but this is the first “cross country” race. So many things about it were similar to a cross country meet.
Location - a golf course, we ran on a few golf courses throughout my career, most notably the Notre Dame Invitational.
Format - this event was a 5k and 8k. The women’s USATF race was the 5k and the men’s was the 8k - just like in college. NCAA men run a 10k championship race, my alma mater was NAIA so we stayed at the 8k all year.
Weather - this was like an early season race, warm and sunny! My first collegiate 8k was at Purdue on an extremely hot morning.
Team - This was part of the USATF Team XC series. We cheered for our female teammates (and Kirk who ran the double so he could score in the Grand Prix) and they cheered for us. All of the other factors heightened the team feeling.
Ok, but what about the race? This was my hardest workout since Twin Cities so I pretty much had no expectations going into it. When you have no expectations you can come out happy! I ran a 34:40 which is just at 7 minute pace and we actually cut off a little piece of the course. How does a golf cart mislead the race leaders?? I finished 44/87, just missing the top 50%. But I was a 1:20 faster than the average!
The course was fairly hilly, nothing major but lots of little ups and downs that wear on you over 5 miles. The course had a lot of turns and made numerous loops (see picture). Since this was my first year here I had no idea where in the world we would be going next, except for seeing the string of people ahead of me, occasionally.
I think I may have been a little dehyrdated. The sunny conditions took some out of me. The nicest thing though was how short the race felt compared to the marathon. And the rest of the day I wasn’t sore or tired. What a nice feeling. It did help that I had an hour to lounge around after the race talking with Nathan and Mike, while we waited for AAA to retrieve Nathan’s car keys for him!
When I became CEO of USA Track & Field on July 17, I had several concrete plans for my first several weeks on the job. One is that I would be a sponge, listening to anybody and everybody in the sport in order to learn as much as I can about it. Another was to start a blog.
Writing a blog is relatively easy, but naming it is more difficult. About one week into the job, it hit me: Shin Splints. They are a slight irritant. They don’t kill you, but they make you sit down and think about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Both are things to which all blogs should aspire. So aspire I shall.
I haven’t read all of his posts yet, but this is a great step forward in transparency for the organization. This is just one of many improvements that appear to be on the horizon. My biggest complaint is that there is no RSS feed for the blog. This means that you have to actually go to the website to see if he’s updated at all - which is more than a slight irritant.
Hopefully, this new addition will be good for the sport. If nothing else it will be an insight into the CEO of running.
So far there has been a lot of great competition in the 29th Olympiad. For me this is the first Olympics where I have seen any controversy or even thought about boycotting the Olympics. Ultimately, after reading comments from both current and former Olympians about the decision I think the world has made the right choice to not boycott.
Yes, China has a lot of policies that are really messed up and harmful to many people around the world. Every country has some policies that someone would vehemently disagree with, but the Olympics are about overcoming. Overcoming adversity to triumph. Overcoming fear and getting personal goals. Overcoming politics and creating peace and unity. The theme for this year’s Olympics is One World, One Dream.
Yao Ming & Lin Hao
I’ll step off my soap box and highlight some great stories about the Olympics and Olympians.
1) Opening Ceremony was pretty sweet - lots of colors, emotions, and powerful stories about the flag bearers. Including the story about Lin Hao, one of the students in May’s deadly earthquake in China. According to the reports, this little guy pulled 2 classmates out of the school building.
2) Lopez Lomong has an amazing story. He was selected by the US Olympic Team Captains to carrying the red, white, and blue into the Olympic stadium. You probably have heard this but he was a “Lost Boy” from Sudan. He literally ran for his life to flee the terrible violence that has killed millions. He arrived here and has built a great running reputation.
3) Sudanese Athletes are competing and trying to overcome the violence in Darfur. Training with logs, boulders, and paint cans several athletes are in contention for medals, including Abubaker Kaki Khamis in the 800m. From the Washington Post:
“We see this as an opportunity to bring us together and lift up the country,” said [Abdullah] Nyala [Sudanese 1500 meter runner], whose parents are farmers in Darfur. “We have all tribes on the team, and there is no problem.”
“I’ve got nothing to do with the government,” Nyala said. “I’m running for Sudan, I’m running for the whole country, and I’m also doing it for myself.”
4) Ryan Hall has an amazing story and I am a big fan. I’m sure you have heard about him! Runner’s World recently did a great spread about him. As did The New Yorker. He is a solid athlete and a medal contender in the marathon.
Lots of information is available at NBC’s website. Track events start Friday, Aug 17. The USATF has a lot of information at their site as well, including a complete roster with bios about most of the athletes. The Final Sprint has and will have more information and stories about athletes and “live coverage”. Finally, Down the Backstretch, a Minnesota focused blog has a list of some great links to follow Olympic coverage (the links focus on more than just Minnesotans!)
Sunday was an excellent, pretty much perfect day for a race. I woke up a little tired from seeing the in-laws off last night and slowly worked out some of the kinks on the warm-up. The temps were right around 60 - which almost felt cold! It was great.
The MDRA 15K is the state masters and open 15K championship as well as being part of the USATF-MN Team Circuit. So needless to say there was some competition at the front! It otherwise would be a fairly small race which included a 5K. The 15K saw 9 new records this year! According to the final results the winning time was 48:00 a little bit off my official time of 63:24 which is a 15K PR. This is also my first road 15K, the rest were all part of the DINO Series in Indiana. I finished 4th on our team this week.
It was a good race - we started about 400m in front of the 5K start, so each loop was a little over 5K. I’m very pleased with my race, I finished approximately on the same pace as last week’s 10K. The race started towards the top of one of the major hills along the course and finished behind the start at the bottom of the hill, ensuring an overall elevation loss. The course while on the road was fairly scenic winding through Braemar Park, a residential area, and along I-494 and US 169. The first mile was mostly downhill winding past the indoor driving range and parts of the golf course. The road actually went through the golf course where mile 1 was located. I decided today to hit the split button on my Garmin so I could actually read my mile splits and not have to do the math in my head! This produced a little discrepency since the mile markers were a little off according to Garmin. I’ll list the split times I clicked. 6:24 for mile 1. I felt pretty good with that split but thought it would be best to slow down a little so that I wasn’t totally wiped out at the end of the race. It was a little hard to let a pack go, but I new it was the smart thing to do. I continued cruising along as we went through the residential section hit a couple small hills and grabbed some water along the way. I remained comfortable and ran mostly by myself coming through mile 2 in 6:38. We have left the scenic portion and ran the next mile mostly on frontage roads alongside the interstate so not too exciting. We also hit the first major hill of the course along this stretch. The hill wasn’t steep enough to make you winded but it was a fairly long steady uphill. The downhill felt good as we came back by the parking area, crowds, and water stops. I came through mile 3 in 6:54. The first 5K was 20:29.
Up the hill we go passing the starting line. I got a couple people on this long steady hill, even though I was trying to keep the pace under wraps. We wound back down the hill and two guys came by at a decent pace. I decided to go with them for awhile thinking they would help pull me up to the next big pack. We never caught the pack and I stayed with them for a mile or so. Mile 4 was 6:50. They didn’t really help my overall pace too much as I’d let them go a little bit and then surge to catch back up. This got a little tiring and finally they just pulled away as we went back into the residential area and hit the small hills. I grabbed some water again and went through mile 5 in 6:49. Back up the long frontage road hill, still feeling pretty solid along the way. I caught a few people on the hill even though I remained at a steady pace. i came through mile 6 in 6:56. And through the 10K in 41:36 (that 5K was 21:07). That split was actually faster than last week’s 10K and only 8 seconds off my 10K PR. Wow!!
Somewhere in here a woman came into the picture - I can’t remember if she passed me or if I caught up to her. But going back up the hill I was able to put some distance on her even though I remained at a steady pace. She caught back up to me heading back down the hill though and we continued battling the rest of the race. It was nice to have a little motivation to keep pushing hard. I came through mile 7 in 6:58. I remained in front but she was right there and I could here her breathing and footsteps as we hit some of the small hills in the neighborhood. I figured if I could keep her behind me I would be fine, but didn’t want to get into a kicking match too far out. I was finally starting to feel the pain of the miles and some pain in my right buttocks. I came through mile 8 in 7:01. I skipped the final water stop and focused on pushing through - there was a pack a few hundred yards ahead of me. I started trying to focus on them but also kept an ear out for the woman behind me. She did pass me coming out onto the frontage road and I stayed right with her. As we started climbing the hill I started picking up the pace a little bit and was able to go by her pretty easily. Along the way I caught a Slab City runner and kept picking up the pace or at least the intensity. I came through mile 9 in 6:53. 3/10ths of a mile is a pretty long way to kick and I had no idea what she might try to do so as soon as I saw the 9 mile marker I started picking up the pace and steadily increasing it. I came through the last 0.3 miles in 1:55 (5:57 pace). The final time was 1:03:23 (1:03:24 officially) with the last 5K at 21:46. Not even splits but not too much of a spread either, in my opinion.
I felt good and felt like I recovered pretty quickly. The woman I was racing, Laurie Hanscom finished 9 seconds behind me, so I waited and thanked her for a good race and told her she did a good job. I joined some of the other guys on the team to cheer our female teammates on to the finish. I finished 58th overall and Laurie finished 4th overall for the women. I can’t complain too much about the day.
I finished it off with a chiropractic treatment. At first I thought it was a massage which would have felt great on my tight lower back. I decided to go ahead and give it a try since it was free! It was my first time and was a different feeling. I think I will stick to massages for now!
It seems like a lot of time has passed since the Olympic Track Trials ended a few weeks ago and we now find ourselves about halfway between their ending and the beginning of the actual Olympic games. For the athletes there is still a lot of training to accomplish for the races ahead.
I’d like to highlight a view videos that I’ve found since the trials that I think are pretty good or relevant.
This is one with Ryan Hall after the marathon trials in November. Unfortunately, it wasn’t embeddable into the post, so follow the link and watch.
This is a somewhat funny video by Joe Cebulski. You probably have never heard of Joe but he graduated a year or two before I went to Taylor so we almost ran together! He competed in the Decathlon and placed 18th. (NBC doesn’t like to embed their videos, sorry).
I’ll end this tribute with a video of the 800. As a former 800m runner I know the joy and pains of the race. I never would have thought about diving to the finish - but I also was never a few hundredths of a second away from going to the Olympics! So enjoy!
This Sunday race is part of the USATF-MN Team Circuit and was also part of a bigger USATF-MN Championship track meet. This would be the first time I’ve raced on a track since I graduated from college in 2003. It brought back a flood of memories from the tons of track meets that I competed in during junior high, high school, and college. It was in the low 60’s but with pretty high humidity the weather wasn’t exactly perfect for a race. The race was held at Hamline University’sKlas Field. The 9-lane mondo track was well used the weekend as the MSHSL Championships (Minnesota State High School League) were held there over the weekend.
We did a warm-up and then sat around and waited. The officials weren’t really in too much of a hurry and the meet was behind schedule pretty much from the beginning. It opened with a 5K race walk with 2 competitors before the women’s 5K and then the Men’s Master’s 5k. The Men’s Open 5K was next followed by a 3 person heat of the 100m hurdles and then the 1500.
One highlight of the meet was that Carrie Tollefson competed in the 1500 trying to get her Olympic “A” standard. She need a 4:10 but ran a 4:19 - still an impressive showing. She had a rabbit pull her through 800 meters and then was left to finish by herself. There was a slight headwind on the homestretch. It was fun to watch her run and then to see her wait around to congratulate the rest of the runners! A couple of her Team USA - Minnesota teammates were there to cheer her on.
Back to my race! I went in with no expectations having done no speed work in a long time and having done a 10-miler the day before. I knew I was going to get lapped several times since my PR is 18 and change. But my team needed me to compete so that we could score - so I took one for the team!
I did some math and decided that I would try and run 90 second quarters which is a 6:02 pace and would translate to a 18:44 5K. So I thought I would try that and hopefully break 19 minutes. Sadly that didn’t happen. I was proud of myself for showing great restraint and not pushing the first quarter too hard. I was pretty much on pace through the first half of the race so that was good. A runner from the Slab City racing team came by and asked what I was hoping to run and said that is what he was planning. He offered to trade laps which sounded good with the slight headwind. It was 2 laps in when he went by so I sat behind him for 2 laps and then went around him, but he came back by after another lap and pulled away. I had started to drop the pace slightly by that point but only a second or two a lap!
Here are my 400 splits:
1:23
1:31
1:31
1:32 - 5:58 mile
1:32
1:34
1:39
1:42 - 12:27 through 2 miles (6:29 mile)
1:39
1:42
1:42
1:35 - 19:08 through 3 miles (6:38 mile)
0:43 - last 200
If you aren’t familiar with a 5K on the track you start at the 200 meter mark and then run 12.5 laps. Each person/team or coach does the counting differently. Some people take the 200 off the beginning so that each mile is calculated at the finish line, while others do it the way I did and count it at the end. It was a little easier that way since they were calling out the time at the 200 mark.
Not a lot to report since it was round and round ya go! They didn’t have any water available which didn’t surprise me too much. It was an $8 entry and all I have to show for it is a plain bib! Some of the other guys got awards and some of the women’s team did too.
It was a good day all in all. Don’t think I would do it again unless I had done more specific training.
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It seems like a lot of time has passed since the Olympic Track Trials ended a few weeks ago and we now find ourselves about halfway between their ending and the beginning of the actual Olympic games. For the athletes there is still a lot of training to accomplish for the races ahead.
