Month: December 2016

TOP 10 POSTS OF 2016

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The Blogger in an analog state

As the interesting, arresting year of 2016 comes to a close I thought I’d go back through this year’s blog offerings and see which ones captured the reader’s imagination or piqued your interest most.

Here then the Top 10 most read posts on this site from the now fading year.  Topics range from Olympic performances, to State of the Sport issues, to presidential politics,  and beyond.  Many thanks to all who stopped by for a read and maybe even a reply. Happy 2017 to all!

 

  1.  RUPP IS IN!!! – Galen announces his debut marathon will be the U.S. Oly Trials in Los Angeles. Kinda thought he might do well. Now, it’s on to Boston 2017!
  2. THEORY OF PERVERSE INCENTIVES IN RUNNING – Foot-racing, which used to be the focus of running events, is now just a supporting element.
  3. IN THE WAKE OF THE WOMEN’S 800 – A crash, tears and histrionics in the women’s 800m final at the Olympic Trials.
  4. DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? – Almaz Ayana smashes the women’s world record in the 10,000 meters by 14 seconds without as much as a furrowed brow.
  5. CHICAGO 2016 – For the second year in a row the Bank of America Chicago Marathon staged a no-pacesetters competition with a slow winning time.
  6. COE ATTEMPTS TO WALK IAAF OFF THE LEDGE – New IAAF prez tries to draw his sport back from the cliff of doom.
  7. SUB2 PACK FORMS UP – Like the murmur of far off hooves, the Sub – Two Hour marathon quest became a lot more audible in December.
  8. IN TRUMP WE TRUST – And we thought the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series was historic!
  9. THE HEAT WILL BE ON IN L.A. – Conditions for the Oly Trials Marathon in L.A. were forecast from the low-70sF (21C) to 80F (27C) at noon.  Not ideal, by any measure.
  10. BACK TO PACING AS USUAL – Pure racing for high stakes is what grabs the attention of the common man.

That’s the Top 10 from 2016.  Safe New Year’s celebrating, and we will get together again in 2017!

TR

END

 

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JERRY SCHUMACHER NAMED FLOTRACK COACH OF THE YEAR

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jerry-schumacher-flotrack-2016-coach-of-yearYear-end polls, rankings, and lists are the gooey, butter-based holiday confections sports fans love to comfort themselves with in the off-season.  Such stuff is what drives sports talk radio and TV, too, and what keeps newspaper columnists on life-support as their industry continues to dissolve.

In the sport of athletics Track & Field News is the king of the list-builders as its annual event and Athlete of the Year magazine issues actual determine shoe contracts and appearance fees.  Today, Flotrack, the subscription-based on-line media company out of Austin, Texas, named the Bowerman Track Club’s Jerry Schumacher as its first FloTrack American Distance Coach of the Year, while awarding the former University of Wisconsin coach the $10,000 prize that attends the T-Mobile sponsored award.

“For the last decade, we’ve seen up close what a struggle it can be to compete at the highest level of track,” FloSports co-founder and COO Mark Floreani said in a company issued press release. “Many professional track coaches don’t have the sponsorships or deals in place where they can devote 100 percent of their time to their athletes. Our goal with this award is to help deserving coaches continue to pursue their passion and work with the top distance runners in the U.S.”

“I’m very appreciative, but it’s not just me,” Schumacher said in response. “The face of the coach of the year award is really the Bowerman Track Club organization and all of the coaches, staff, athletes, and personnel that make the whole thing go round. That’s really who wins this whole thing.”

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BOSTON ASSEMBLES STRONG AMERICAN FORCE FOR 2017

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President-elect Donald Trump won this year’s divisive U.S. presidential campaign in part by touting an “America First” agenda.  Seems he isn’t the only one thinking about the home team.

Lest we forget, the Boston Marathon is contested on Patriots Day, an April holiday in Maine and Massachusetts commemorating the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.  Accordingly, Boston’s marathon in its early years was known as “The American Marathon”.

For the last generation, however, The American Marathon, like all marathons around the world, has become the exclusive province of athletes from East Africa.  So overwhelming has the transfer of power become that the sight of American Meb Keflezighi pulling out a victory in 2014 was so unusual, such a welcome surprise, that even runner-up Wilson Chebet of Kenya joked, “I would have been the most hated man in Boston if I had caught Meb.”  Keflezighi’s 11-second victory became the marathon equivalent of the Boston Red Sox World Series baseball win a decade earlier, as each snapped losing streaks of historic proportions.

Though Meb’s win in Boston was the first by an American in 31 years, even before Patriot’s Day 2014 there had been a resurgence in American running, in no small measure due to Keflezighi’s silver medal in the Athens Olympic Marathon 2004 and his New York City Marathon victory in 2009.  Still, even with the occasional peak performance by Meb or Ryan Hall, there was no lessening of the East African domination, either. But the spirit of Meb’s win in 2014, and game challenges by Hall, local-born Shalane Flanagan and fellow Olympian Desi Linden (2nd, 2011) in the women’s races had whetted the locals appetite for more.

This week Boston’s major sponsor John Hancock Financial Services announced their American field for Patriots Day 2017, and it is as strong a home contingent as the old town has seen since the U.S. Women’s Olympic Trials were contested in Boston in 2008.  While the international field has yet to be announced beyond defending champion Lemi Berhanu Hayle of Ethiopia, and 2012 champion Wesley Korir of Kenya, the American lineup will prove formidable. Five of the six 2016 U.S. Rio Olympic marathoners were announced, led by Boston debutant and Olympic bronze medalist Galen Rupp (a man coached by 1982 Boston champion and local product Alberto Salazar), 2014 champ Keflezighi, Utah’s Jared Ward, Marblehead, Mass. favorite Shalane Flanagan, and the aforementioned Desi Linden. (see linked JH announcement for full U.S. field) (more…)

SUB2 PACK FORMS UP

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Like the murmur of far off hooves that rises from a distance on a tailing breeze the Sub Two Hour marathon quest became a lot more audible this past week.

First, Nike’s Project Breaking2 was publicly announced on Monday 12 December with a goal of breaking the 120 minute mark this coming spring. Two years in the making (though secretly) and featuring three of the world’s top distance runners, Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, Ethiopian Lelisa Desisa, and Eritrean Zersenay Tadese, the project still remains somewhat hazy in its particulars as if the announcement came in haste to pip the Adidas announcement, which showed up later in the week via the Wall Street Journal.  Nike’s joint announcement through Runners World and Wired. com arrived as the second entry in the sub2 quest, coming on the heels of University of Brighton sports science professor Yannis Pitsiladis‘ 2014 Sub2Hr Project, which is affiliated with top running agent Jos Hermens.  That project carries a stated five year time frame, but is still searching for full funding.

So, now there are three going for a sub2 over 42km, and you know, we may finally have something here after all.  Perhaps something ironic, in that none of the three projects are using actual runner competition as the mechanism to 1:59:59 or below. Instead, like in the days of  Wes Santee, John Landy, and Roger Bannister, who independently pursued the sub-4 minute mile in the late 1940s, early `50s, it will be through the three-way project chase itself that the Everest marathon mark may be reached.  But that shouldn’t come as a surprise.  This blog has written on the topic of competition vs. record setting before. And again here. (more…)

SUB 2-HOUR MARATHON?

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OK, how can I not weigh-in on the sub-2 hour marathon experiment by Nike? First, as to the potential. Alright, yes, based on every metric available, it is possible, barely, though not probable. As much of life is a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy, it is only when we think something is possible that it enters into the realm of the doable. After the belief it is a matter of execution.

There is no doubt Nike has the resources to make such an attempt valid, and the marketing savvy to maximize the public interest. The big question for me is the unintended consequences of the attempt. (more…)

KALAKAUA MERRIE MILE 2016

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img_3885Honolulu, HI. –  Oh,  you could see this one coming a mile away. 18-year-old Kenyan Edwin Kiptoo was obviously the wildcard in today’s inaugural Kalakaua Merrie Mile. Looking up stats on all the athletes, it soon dawned on me that this kid had never competed outside Kenya in his life. Yet he’d been second at the 2016 Kenyan Junior World Trials, and had a 1500-meter PR of 3:38.3 that was run in Eldoret at 7000′ altitude on a track where 2012 Olympic 1500m champion Asbel Kiprop holds the record at 3:37.0.

“Shoot!” I said to anyone willing to listen, “this is the guy. He’s gonna tip this whole thing  over.”

This “whole thing” was a Wahine vs Kane street mile (Women vs Men) held the day before the 44th Honolulu Marathon. The new event was the brainchild of long-time Marathon President Jim Barahal, with the idea being to get a sprint to the tape with both genders gunning for the win. (more…)

MAKING IT PERSONAL ONCE AGAIN

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My friend Elizabeth from Atlanta Track Club and I were talking about our pets as she drove me to Hartsfield International airport this morning for my flight to Honolulu for this weekend’s marathon. I’d been in town emceeing last evening’s Atlanta Track Club’s All Metro Cross Country Awards Banquet, where Lovett High School senior Selena Tripoli and Milton High School junior Sam Bowers were named Ray Buckley and Jeff Benton Award winners as Outstanding Athletes of the season.

Elizabeth has a 10 year-old greyhound with a bad back, and she told me how her vet actually made a house call when her dog was too hurt to travel. My wife Toya and I have two cats, and we, too, sing the praises of our vet out in San Diego.

Elizabeth and I then remarked how vets today are actually much like how human doctors used to be back in the day when every patient was also an individual client, rather than simply an insurance policy holder.

The distinction, we decided, was important in the effect it has on society at large. (more…)