If we can bitch and moan when things aren’t being done well — and God knows I have — then we must salute when something is. So while track & field (“athletics” to the rest of the world) may still be well behind the curve of other individual sports like golf and tennis in terms of having its own broadcast channel, under new CEO Max Siegel USATF is launching an array of media coverage for its upcoming National Championships in Des Moines, Iowa that should make even die-hard critics doff their caps in recognition of progress. The following presser was released today on the eve of the USATF Championships. Continue reading
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“HAPPY WEDNESDAY” AT DUFF’S
Duff’s Restaurant, St. Louis
This isn’t a running story other than I ran that day. In fact, I did a rare double. But running isn’t central to the memory, though perhaps a catalyst.
In August 1973 I moved from my hometown of St. Louis to begin a new life in Boston. It was there that I took up running before combining it with broadcasting to mount what has become a career.
But during my final full year in St. Louis I found myself hanging out at a new restaurant/pub in the Central West End called Duff’s, eponymously named by its original proprietors Karen and Dan Duffy. In the ensuing years, though I only visited home once, sometimes twice a year, every trip would include a visit to Duff’s. Not just because old friend, and one-time fellow Bostonian Charlie Moseley bartended there for 25 years or so, or that his partner Nancy Kirby was the hostess, or that Nancy’s brother Tim had joined Karen Duffy as co-owner — Tim, Charlie and I had attended St. Louis U. High together in the mid-1960s.
Barside at Duff’s
No, Duff’s offered an inventive, seasonally changing menu, a splendidly stocked bar, family-like staff, and such a warm bohemian atmosphere — including its famous Monday night poetry readings — that those high pressed-tin ceilings, wide wooden floors and exposed brick walls felt more like an extension of our house on Flora Place than a place of business. Over the years our family celebrated births, graduations, anniversaries, and even wakes there, and never felt anything other than at home.
A few days ago another old St. Louis friend emailed saying Duff’s would be closing at the end of the month after a run of 41 years. While it is the nature of restaurants to open and close, for tastes to change, and neighborhoods to transform, as I read the email I was flooded with memories and reminded of what a single establishment could mean to a city.
PROTEST, POLITY & THE SURVEILLANCE STATE
French Open Protest
It was eerie to watch in light of this new world we find ourselves living in. Several protesters disrupted the French Open tennis final today between eventual champion Rafael Nadal and fellow Spaniard David Ferrer as Nadal led 5-1 in the second set already up one set to love.
Though seemingly of European ancestry, the mask-wearing protester and a compatriot were unknown quantities when the one jumped onto the court with flare in hand. Though later it was learned they were upset by recent legislation in France allowing for same-sex marriages, it was difficult not to think about the Boston Marathon bombings as anything seems possible in this troubled world.
Rafa Nadal scampered away as security wrestled the man to the ground, and extinguished his flare. The other protester was ushered from the stands in a headlock. And so here was another world-focused sporting event being compromised by political stagecraft. Where once aggrieved men would raise black-gloved fists in protests, today protests have turned to attacks as grievances have accelerated and means to redress them proliferated. Continue reading
HERE’S TO THE YOUNG DREAMERS
McKenna Brown taking instruction from Dad, Chris
12 year-old McKenna Brown grasped the pole tentatively as her father, Chris, showed her how to stand at the approach. With that final advice in mind the seventh grader from Oak Crest Middle School in Carlsbad, California moved to the runway where she stared at the pit and standards standing some eight steps away, about to make her first ever attempt in a pole vault competition.
McKenna, along with her dad Chris, mom Angela, and 14 year-old brother Kyle were part of a larger than expected crowd of competitors and supporters who showed up at last Wednesday’s Summer Night’s Track & Field Meet at San Diego’s University City High School, the first of a four meet series put on by Paul Greer and the San Diego Track Club. As cities across the world vie for selection as host site for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games — including a joint bid being explored by San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico — it is at small all-comers meets like the Summer Nights series where youngsters like McKenna Brown begin to dream of perhaps making that team. Continue reading
LUKAS VERZBICAS BACK ON TRACK
Lukas Verzbicas (L) with Jim Ryun, two sub-four high school milers
How quickly the big wheel turns and with it the bright glare of celebrity and fame. Just this week Bronxville, New York teen sensation Mary Cain won her third USATF Athlete of the Week award of 2013 for her junior and high school 800 meter record at the Nike Pre Classic in Eugene, Oregon. But recall that in 2011 the teen everyone was talking about was Lukas Verbicas of Orland Park, Illinois, who won two USATF AOW awards in a period of six months, the last for his 3:59.71 victory at the adidas Grand Prix Dream Mile, when he became only the fifth high school runner in U.S. history to go sub-4:00 – and only the second in an all-high school event.
Two very consequential years later we found Lukas back on the track at University City High School in San Diego competing in the mile and 5000 meters at the Summer’s Night Track & Field Meet still on the road to recovery from a horrific cycling crash last summer that nearly killed the triathlete/runner, then left him partially paralyzed and learning how to walk again.
The big wheel may have turned, but slivers of light still seek him out. Continue reading
“PARK TO PARK” COURSE ROCKS `n` ROLLS IN SAN DIEGO
San Diego’s Petco Park
While the Boston Marathon mapped out course success right off the line in 1897 by mirroring the route that the inaugural Olympic Marathon used in 1896 to commemorate the mythological run of Greek messenger Pheidippides in 492 B.C. from Marathon to Athens, it hasn’t always been so easy for races to find their perfect routes.
It took the Los Angeles Marathon a quarter-century to design their “Stadium to Sea”course that perfectly matched the city’s postcard image of sun, surf and Hollywood. And the New York City Marathon ran four laps around Central Park for its first six years before expanding to its iconic five-borough route in 1976.
While there may be many roads to Rome, generally there is only one route in each city that will capture both its civic booster pride while bowing to the put upon non-runner citizens who must adjust to the road closures and traffic tie-ups on race day.
Yesterday, the original Rock `n` Roll Marathon in San Diego may have found its perfect layout in its 16th running, call it the “Park to Park” course, from its traditional start in Balboa Park to the new finish line outside the San Diego Padres home, Petco Park downtown. Continue reading
RECORD RUN HIGHLIGHTS ROCK `N` ROLL SAN DIEGO
RnR 2013 Running Elvi
San Diego, Ca. — Road racing is a people-moving retail business. To keep your current customers happy while attracting new ones event organizers around the world search for that ephemeral quality referred to as “the runner’s experience”. Yet the need for enough space to corral all the starters then re-gather all the finishers ultimately determines the parameters of the miles between. Understandably, when race fields begin to exceed 20,000, the choices become quite small, and compromise between the runners’ experience and city inconvenience often redounds on the side of the non-running population. Accordingly, locking in an ideal layout that meets the needs of both constituencies is a tricky business which may take years to engineer, if ever.
Today, in its 16th running, the founding Rock `n` Roll Marathon (& Half Marathon) in Competitor Group, Inc.’s hometown of San Diego, California may well have settled onto the courses which will define their future success. Continue reading
BLOWING IN THE WIND
Visual Aids
Watching last night’s Distance Night at the Pre Classic on RunnerSpace we, like everyone else, including commentators Tim Hutchings and Paul Swangard, were a little baffled by how far off the pacers were from their pre-race projections – other than in the women’s 800m, which hit the split, but was way too fast for the quality of the field. Now this morning reading LetsRun we see that a headwind on the backstretch of Hayward Field was at least partially responsible for the slowish times. So my question is, and this applies to both track and road races, why, in the name of God don’t event organizers place small flags at different intervals to let the crowd and TV audience see for themselves what the conditions are?
If Tim and Paul never mentioned the wind, and instead began supposing why the half-way split in the 10,000 meters was 13:33 instead of the requested 13:18, something as simple as a series of small flags lining the inside of the track would give everyone the instant information needed. Same should apply at road races.
How many times have I sat aboard a lead camera motorcycle and been asked, ‘How are the conditions out there?’, and not been able to tell which way the wind was blowing because I, too, was moving, thereby creating our own breeze. So unless there was a flagpole atop a nearby building, I wouldn’t be able to tell shit from Shinola – not that I generally can anyway.
Haile in Phoenix 2006
Yet in 2006 when Haile Gebrselassie came to Phoenix trying to break the half-marathon world record – he did, 58:55 – our TV producer Rich Jayne had erected six-foot high sticks beside each kilometer clock with crepe paper in Ethiopian colors streaming in whichever direction the wind was blowing. So not only could Haile tell whether the wind was helping or hurting, but Ed Eyestone and I in the lead vehicle calling the race live could tell our viewers who could also see for themselves.
Come on, organizers, try helping fans (and commentators). This wouldn’t cost anything in the larger scheme of things, and yet would instantly elevate the experience. How many tracks must a man run around…
Rant over.
END
BOSTON EFFECT ON RACE PARTICIPATION
Bolder Boulder 10K
It’s been six weeks since the bombing at the Boston Marathon, time enough for the first rush of emotions to have run their course, and for cooler, more reasoned calculation to resume. Just yesterday, Marc Fucarile, a 34 year-old roofer from Stoneham, Massachusetts was released from Mass General, the last victim of the marathon bombing to be released from hospital into whatever semblance of normal now awaits after the loss of his right leg.
And so as we settle into this brave new post-Boston 2013 world, the question arises like the morning sun, what is the new normal? In that light I was intrigued to read the Boulder Daily Camera article following Memorial Day’s Bolder Boulder 10K. In its story the Daily Camera quoted race director Cliff Bosley saying he thought the tragedy at Boston contributed to fewer people participating in Boulder this year, as entrants were down 5.7% from 51,681 in 2012 to 48,741 on Monday.
“I think some people made the decision not to come,” Bosley told the Daily Camera. “Just, ‘Let’s take a year off and see how it plays out’.”
Immediately, I wondered A) was it true that Boston was the cause for the drop off? B) if so, is Boulder an anomaly? C) Did Bosley overlook other potential factors? Or, D) is there evidence of similar declines in race registration or finishers which might be attributed to The Boston Effect? I made some calls to the other major races that followed Boston on the calendar. Here is some of what I learned. Continue reading
MARATHON GEM ALONG THE CALIFORNIA COAST
Ventura, Ca. — The growth and popularity of big city marathons has led to record sell-outs around the world, opening the calendar to charming boutique events not looking to cram every last runner onto their narrow over-taxed roads – not that there is anything wrong with that. We found just such a gem this weekend glistening in the coastal California sun out the Ventura Highway north of Los Angeles, south of Santa Barbara.
The 3rd Clif Bar Mountains 2 Beach Marathon & Half-Marathon gave its 3000 entrants — 1500 in each distance – a lovely journey from rural Ojai to seaside Ventura that had everyone raving about the course, the organization and thrilled with their new PRs. Continue reading
