Runnerville

Hint: His last name rhymes with mine.

My friend told me he was in a bar the other night and saw a segment previewing the Usain Bolt-versus-Asafa Powell 100-meter race on ESPN’s pontificating talk show, “Pardon the Interruption” (PTI if you’re “with it”).  Can anyone remember a time when any non-Olympic running event was featured on such a show?  I certainly can’t.

This makes me wonder if Usain Bolt just might be the torch-courier for the sport of track and field in not only America, but the world.  Bolt’s record-setting Olympic trifecta has effectively announced his arrival on the scene, not only as one fast man, but a marketable personality and surprisingly good dancer. During the Olympics, people tuned in faithfully to every one of Bolt’s races, eager to see just how badly he’d beat the competition and how much he’d celebrate afterwards.  Michael Johnson was the last track and field athlete to elicit such a fever.

Now, this once-unknown youngster from a Carribbean island of under 3 million people is arguably the most exciting athlete in the world, having already ignited his track-happy nation and now exciting the world.

At long last Sammy Wanjiru, the Japanese-trained Kenyan, brought order to the marathon world by winning his nation’s first Olympic gold over the classic distance.  But at the same time the tiny Kikuyu tribesman from the Central Highlands city of Nakuru might just as well have been an alien presence landing in Beijing.  That’s how much a re-ordering his 2:06:32 victory in the Olympic Marathon in 85 degree heat and high humidity created.  His run has completely altered the concept of what is possible over 42.2 kilometers.  Now, for the first time, the idea of a sub two-hour marathon has come onto the horizon as a realistic possibility.

No  longer an endurance event, the marathon has become no more than an extended 10,000 meters run in the wake of Wanjiru’s performance.  His laughable series of splits and surges throughout the brutal day just add further disbelief to the historic performance.  In both substance and style Wanjiru flew unperturbed through the zephers of every precept of marathon running.  4:41 for the first mile?!  Are you nuts?  Maybe in London or Berlin or Chicago, the flat, fast big city courses where pacers and cool weather create ideal record attempt racing.  But in championship racing profligage spending of energy would come back to haunt the intrepid for sure in the final 5K. Except it didn’t in Wanjiru’s case. 

1:02:38 through the half!?  Only a handful of marathons had ever registered a faster opening half, and certainly none on an Olympic stage much less on a hot, humid day.  They added no more than a mild irritant to the 5′4″, 112 pound dynamo who now casts his sight on the marathon world record to add to his half-marathon and world junior record over 10,000 meters.

Of the top ten marathon times ever run, Haile Gebrselassie’s 2:05:56 from Berlin 2006 stands out even more than his world record 2:04:26 from Berlin 2007.  The temperature in Berlin `06 was 72 degrees, making it the sole top ten performance run in conditions greater than 60 degrees.  Now add 10-plus extra degrees, high humidity, an Olympic field, no designated, hand picked pace setters, and wild surging.  The mind reels. 

Wanjiru entered the Olympic stadium not on his knees, but in full flight.  He picked it up over the final lap!!!  He wasn’t diminished, just out of territory to run.  He had plenty of gas left in his unimagineable tank.  Yonas Kifle of Eritrea, one of the intrepid five who formed the break away pack through halfway, faded like a real human being would be expected to in the second half.  He completed his Olympic journey in 2:20:03, good for 36th place.  

And let us not forget Morocco’s Jaouad Gharib, the two-time world champion and close runner up in the Chicago heat bath from last October.  Gharib’s brave silver medal in 2:07:16 also shattered the long-standing Olympic record 2:09:21 set by Portugal’s Carlos Lopes in L.A. `84.  Gharib was dropped at least five times throughout the course of the day, yet each time he managed to claw his way back into contention, except after Wanjiru’s final move at 35K when Ethiopia’s Deriba Merga also let go the tow line.

Americans Dathan Ritzenhein and Ryan Hall both acknowledged the temerity of Wanjiru’s run. 

“To run 2:06:32 in this is incredible,” said Ritz, whose left hamstring and calf cramped badly just past 30 kilometers, but who held on to finish 9th in 2:11:59.

“They went out really fast,” said Hall, tenth in 2:12:33, hoping for better after his 2:06:16 at the London Marathon earlier this year. “I thought it was way too hard, at least for me. I would have died if I went out that fast.”

Then, both Hall and Americ’a third Olympic marathoner, Brian Sell (22nd in 2:16:07) tempered the brutality of the conditions.

“It was definitely warm out there, but not as bad as I was expecting.” - Ryan Hall.

“It was not as bad as I had thought. It wasn’t stifling, but it wasn’t easy.” - Brian Sell.

So, was it the brutal 85 degrees we kept hearing on NBC or not?  Either way, 21 year-old Wanjiru is the undisputed new king of the marathon world, if, that is, he’s even from this world.

END 

I want to point out CNN.com’s page dedicated to the 2008 Olympic Games. (check it out here)  The coverage is not exhaustive and the content limited, but a highlight for me is featured blogger and personal friend Gilbert Tuhabonye.  Gilbert is one of several athletes and CNN correspondents writing posts leading up to and even during the Games, and he couldn’t be a better choice.

Link directly to Gilbert’s posts by clicking here.

As you’ll read, Gilbert’s story is nothing short of miraculous.  He should be dead right now, not winning 10Ks, running 2:20 marathons, or coaching Austin-area runners.  See, Gilbert is from Burundi, where a violent civil war broke out in the early ’90s pitting two ethnic groups — the Hutus and the Tutsis — against each other.  A violent Hutu mob approached Gilbert’s school on October 21, 1993, surrounded it, and allowed the Hutus inside — many of them Gilbert’s close friends — to come outside.

With only Tutsis remaining inside the school, the mob chained the doors and set the school on fire.  The fire burned for hours before Gilbert, badly burned himself but alive, escaped through a window and ran away from the Hutu mob with his back on fire.  The 18-year-old doused the fire in a small pool of water before dragging himself to safety.

The subsequent story is quite long, but Gilbert would go on to attend Abilene Christian University in Texas (my alma mater) on a track and field scholarship, where he was a six-time all-American and a member of seven Division II team track titles.  Post-college, Gilbert moved to Austin, where, working for Paul Corroza’s successful RunTex store, he began winning local races and motivating thousands.  He even began coaching a group of area wannabe adult and child runners — called “Gilbert’s Gazelles” — motivating them with his knowledge of the sport and inspirational story.  He also trains and dreams of representing his home country, Burundi, in a future Olympiad.

(you can read Gilbert’s harrowing story in its entirety here)

Why does this matter?  Because stories like Gilbert’s are what may connect our sport to the masses.  It is inspirational.  It touches all who hear it.  It gives hope.  It represents humanity at its best — and worst.

I think of Lopez Lomong, the former Sudanese “Lost Boy”-turned-Olympian who will represent the U.S. in the 1,500-meter run.  There are probably others who have overcome great odds to make the Olympic team.  I would assert that stories like Lopez’s (and hopefully Gilbert’s in a future Games) may be just as important in the marketing run-up to the Olympics as the promise of blistering times from Jeremy Wariner.

What do you think?

What a weekend!  A few reflections from the greatest marathon in the world from a hometown boy:

• First off, great job by Matt & the PUMA gang on the PUMA / LetsRun.com Boston Marathon pre-race party Saturday night. The store was jam-packed, the Harpoon suds were flowing, a dance move or two were busted, and many a conversation were had. I walked by the NikeTown store on Newbury St. after leaving the PUMA party and it was eerily dark and quiet — in other words, closed. If Nike’s smart, they’ll throw a pre-marathon blowout next year in their store. These things are good for the sport, if you know what I mean.
• Ryan Hall was signing posters at the race expo on Saturday.  Nice of him to come down from the mountains and enjoy the most beautiful Boston weekend thus far in 2008.  Adoring fans formed a line around the Expo to meet Ryan, say a word or two, take a picture with him, and get an autograph.  Nice to see a nice guy and great runner getting the attention he deserves from fans of the sport.
• I picked up the re-designed Running Times Magazine at their expo booth on Sunday.  It was my first time seeing it in a few months, and I have to say this: quite simply, RT is the best publication available for fans of the sport.  I subscribed several years ago, way back when RT was like a souped-down version of RW with less impressive design and basically one page dedicated to races and athletes.  I’ve always liked RT better than RW, but today, the magazine is the perfect blend of training tips, race reports, and athlete bios to feed my need for running sustenance.  And with the exception of microscopic typefaces on a few articles, the whole package flat out looks great.  Kudos to Editor Jonathan Beverly and his staff for the new — and much improved — Running Times. (and big ups to our own Matt Taylor for a quality cover feature on Tegenkamp in the most recent issue)
• As I stood among the “commoners” on the race course Monday (just before Kenmore Sq, if anyone’s curious), I was struck again with the question that many have posed on this blog and podcast: “How are is the sport of running neglecting all these people?” Sure, people come out to experience the pomp and pageantry of the world’s greatest marathon, and to watch their friends and family members sweat it out. But do they know about the elite runners? My conversations Monday say they don’t. It seems the task ahead for the powers that be remains making fans out of the nominally interested participants and observers found along race routes and in races all over this country.
• Was Monday’s women’s finish the best in history?  Conservatively, it was definitely high on the list.  It was the type of back-and-forth, digging deep kind of competition that really energizes crowds and creates fans of the sport.  Two virtual unknowns separate convincingly from a pretty good field of runners, and then break into a sprint with a mile to go … amazing.  The Tune-Biktimirova finish is one for the record books.
• Monday’s race was the first time I’ve watched Boston in person, and thus it was the first time to witness the throngs of wasted college students along Commonwealth and Beacon Streets enjoying their day off.  Marathons and drinking: a curious combination, methinks.  One is the payoff for months of tireless and thankless hard work, and the glory lasts a lifetime.  The other is an act of instant gratification that is quite short-lived and has one or two quite negative side-effects.
• Folks went nuts when Lance and his entourage ran by on Monday.  If Lance Armstrong trained — like really trained — he’d be a 2:35 marathoner, easy.  As it is, he’s beating 95% of the field and hovering around 2:50 on what I’d call minimal marathon training.  (he said he ran about 5-6 miles a day with a few long runs thrown in while training for Boston)  He likely won’t ever train hard for a marathon, partly because he’s so dang busy pounding cancer and mostly because he simply doesn’t love marathoning enough to do so.  That’s fine.  Lance is what he is — an amazing cyclist-turned-amateur marathoner who is a mighty fine ambassador for the sport.

The 2008 Carlsbad 5000 story was always going to be Alan Webb’s to make, no matter who won or what time they ran. That’s what comes with superstar status. After snatching Steve Scott’s quarter-century old American mile record last summer in Europe, then backing it with the fastest 1500 meters and second best 800 in the world for 2007, the expectations for 2008 ramped up even higher. Now, he would begin his Olympic push at the Southern California road race Steve Scott helped design 23 years ago and then won in its first three years.

But when 24 year-old Ethiopian Terefe Maregu outkicked England’s Mo Farah for the 2008 Carlsbad 5000 title on a glorious SoCal spring day by just a single tick of the clock, and then Kenya’s Haron Lagat, Australia’s Collis Birmingham, and 2006 Arkansas NCAA 10,000m champion Josephat Lagat of Kenya crossed in a blanket finish one second behind Mo, no one turned to his neighbor and exclaimed, “what a finish that was!” No, all anyone wanted to know was what happened to Alan Webb?

Necks craned up Carlsbad Village Drive looking for the American superstar as one by one the professional field paraded across the line. But Webb would never emerge around the corner for the final 300-meter sprint to the tape in front of the big crowd, many of whom had run the same course through the series of morning races. He had pulled off the course around 2.6 miles left to wonder, along with his many fans, what was happening in these important early season outings in this Olympic year.

“The plan wasn’t to come here and do this,” said a disconsolate Webb to the press following his second straight flameout of 2008. “I’m definitely disappointed. I came here to win the race, but I felt like I was pushing the whole way, and was just trying to hang in there and find a rhythm. But I just couldn’t get into it. I was surging just to stay up where I was, and we weren’t even going out that super fast.”

Alan Webb came into the Carlsbad 5000 after finishing 16th two weeks ago at the USATF 8K road championship in New York’s Central Park. But a case of food poisoning was behind that performance. In Carlsbad the inability to fire on all cylinders was more problematic, because it had its antecedents in his training, and training isn’t science, it’s art.

“We have changed things a little bit,” Webb admitted in his characteristically forthright manner. “I’m not satisfied just doing what I’ve done before, so we’ve upped both the quality and quantity of my training. And sometimes you do too much. I hope that’s the answer, because that would be a positive outcome. I’ll have to sit down with my coach and discuss what changes we will have to make, either training or racing, but it’s a fine line, and you want to be dancing right there. And it’s easy to go over the edge.”

There was big buzz when Elite Racing announced the signing of Webb for Carlsbad. No American has won this race since Utah’s Doug Padilla in 1990, and certainly no American with Olympic medal chances in the 1500 meters has ever run on this seaside course. Steve Scott, the co-designer of the route with New Zealand’s 1976 Olympic 1500-meter champion John Walker, had already passed his Olympic peak when he won the first of three straight titles in 1986 in a then world best 13:32.

After the New York City disappointment, Carlsbad was to be Webb’s mulligan, another chance to confirm the efficacy of his base training as he made the transfer over to mile preparation in the outdoor season.

“You want to be in the best shape of your life but without the speed sharpening that comes with mile and 1500 meter preparation,” explained Steve Scott, who helped broadcast the race for Fox Sports Net (the show will air on FSN on Monday April 21st at 3:30 p.m. pacific time). “I expected Alan to dominate this field, and run sub 13:10, because he’s capable of doing that.”

A time of that quality would require a committed start. But from the sound of the horn, the character of the race took on a hesitant quality, as none of the 13 professionals from eight countries wanted to be the pack leader. If one man goes in a closely matched field like this, they all go. But if that one man doesn’t emerge and push, the pack forms up and the looking and waiting begins.

The entire 13-man field held tight through a glacial 4:25 opening mile. In Carlsbad, that’s the equivalent of narcolepsy. In his two 13:00 flat world record years of 2000-2001, Kenya’s Sammy Kipketer flew through the mile in 3:59 and 3:58. Even last year’s relatively modest split was 4:15. The pack remained steady through two miles in 8:47 (4:22) with Mo Farah the nominal leader. Even so Webb was adrift at the back looking like he was struggling for every inch. At 10:25 it was over; he was a broken man as the jockeying began for the endgame by the remaining contenders.

“I was going to just jog it in,” said Webb, “but I couldn’t even jog. Once they broke away it was end of story.”

“There is nothing specifically wrong,” shrugged Webb’s coach Scott Razko attempting to put the best spin he could on the day. “This is the only sport where you are pushing yourself to the ultimate limit every time. So there’s more weight placed on each performance. Alan has been a little tired lately, but he’s been able to train, and get in solid workouts. Maybe over the course of the last month we’ve pushed a little too much past the point where he’s been before. You never know when it will equal a bonk.”

America is hungry for a running hero on the world stage. That’s why people get so excited when Webb, Dathan Ritzenhein, Ryan Hall, or Matt Tegenkamp delivers a world beating performance. And why the fans are correspondingly so disappointed when their expectations aren’t met. If Alan Webb goes on to Beijing and returns home with anything less than a gold medal – see Jim Ryun 1968 – the hard-core fans will be merciless. But never doubt that Alan isn’t right there with them.

The French have a wonderful old proverb, Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien, the best is the enemy of the good. And perhaps that is the conceit of men like Webb. He told Steve Scott the day before the race that as a young man he went looking to see what the high school national record was in the mile, and the American and world records as well, the inference being these have always been his goals. No one is harder on Alan Webb than Alan Webb. And you can tell by the way he’s willing to lose in such grand, public fashion as he continues to dance so tantalizingly – at times frustratingly - along that fine line that defines an expectation for the ages, his and ours alike.

CARLSBAD 2008 RESULTS
Men:
1. Terefe Maregu, 24 ETH - 13:34
2. Mo Farah, 25 GBR - 13:35
3. Haron Lagat, 24 KEN - 13:36
4. Collis Birmingham, 22 AUS - 13:36
5. Josephat Boit, 25 KEN - 13:36
6. Shadrack Kosgei, 24 KEN - 13:50
7. Boniface Songok, 27 KEN - 14:01
8. Michael Aish, 30 NZL - 14:06
9. Julio Cesar Perez Mora MEX - 14:13
10. Dmitry Safronov, 26 RUS - 14:27
11. Steve Slattery, 27 USA - 14:30
12. Nick Bromley, 25 AUS - 14:47
Alan Webb, 25 USA - DNF

Women:
1. Vivian Cheruiyot, 25 KEN - 15:14
2. Rose Kosgei, 26 KEN - 15:21
3. Genoveva Kigen, 20 KEN - 15:41
4. Sara Slattery, 26 USA - 15:59
5. Korene Hinds, 31 JAM - 16:04
6. Everlyne Lagat, 27 KEN - 16:08
7. Kathy Butler, 33 GBR - 16:13
8. Lisa Blomme, 29 SWE - 16:23
9. Ida Nilsson, 26 SWE - 16:36
10. Jane Kibii, 22 KEN - 16:41
11. Mandi Zemba, 25 USA - 16:49
12. Mardrea Hyman, 34 JAM - 17:07

Chris Lukezic is a good friend. He’s someone I admire and respect, not for his 3:33 PR and 2006 US Championship, but for his ability to 1) see running through a broader lens and 2) define himself as more than a runner. When I was an assistant coach at Georgetown (while Chris was a student) Chris and I spent many hours discussing the sport, most often at his favorite coffee joint - Murky Coffee, situated across the river in Arlington, VA. The most frequently discussed, and lamented, topic of conversation was the failure of our sport to market itself and its athletes in a already-crowded marketplace. Well, in June 2007 Chris started a blog. And last week he wrote one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking posts I’ve ever read from an athlete. I strongly urge you to read his words below. Chris, welcome to the conversation… Read more…

Fiyori Meb Russom was born on Monday at 5:45 pm. She came in (or out) at 7 lbs. 10 ounces, and was 19 inches tall. Meb’s brother and agent, Merhawi, reports that “Everyone is doing well.”

Congratulations Meb and Yordanos.

Many have written on the struggles — financial and otherwise — of breaking into professional track and field, but I find it especially eye-opening to hear of struggles (”barely getting by”) from the runner’s own mouth (or blog). Such is the case with Brianna Glenn in her most recent post on her blog, which she calls “My so-called FABULOUS Life.” Brianna tells the story of how she became an elite runner, including the financial struggles, the “forgetting how to run and jump,” and her strategy to get back into shape. Now, she’s seeking a spot on the U.S. Olympic team in either the LJ or 200m. (she has PBs of 21-11 and 22.91, respectively). Here’s hoping she fulfills her dream.

Brianna’s story is important for a number of reasons. One, because it dispels the myth that all elite track and field athletes immediately strike gold when they get a sponsor or begin competing professionally. Brianna was competing every weekend under an Adidas sponsorship and claims she “barely got by.” This is the former PAC-10 Athlete of the Year we’re talking about here!

Two, her story underscores the uniqueness of our sport. If you play basketball well, you’ll have scores of people helping you along the way, offering wise counsel on big decisions, giving tips for improvement. For many elite runners, the only ones watching out for them are themselves and a coach, maybe. Oh, and their mom and dad. This has been said before (on this blog, I think), but track is one of the only sports that doesn’t reward athletes financially based on the potential for success. In track, your paycheck is determinant on your placing well — preferably first — at big meets. And any sponsorships are determinant on, well … the same thing.

Being an elite runner might be the most difficult profession in sports. No knock against LeBron James, but he doesn’t have to schedule his own games, book his own travel, or convince Nike that he is definitely going to score 30 in order to keep his contract or get a paycheck. His celebrity was set in stone before he even graduated high school.