Runnerville

University of Wisconsin Eau Claire geography professor (and writer for Track & Field News), Sean Hartnett, is one of the sport’s keenest observers.  Below is a copy of the e-mail he sent with his take on this year’s Virgin London Marathon, which he watched from his lead motorcycle position.

“Yes London was another pace surprise (63:10 at halfway) although not the shocker like last year (61:35 halfway). After reviewing my photos, race video, and discussions with the athletes the slow pace reflected that it was was rough day for running.

“Most of the guys talked about slipping on the slick pavement, some even said that there shoes were not well suited for the wet pavement. I didn’t talk to Sammy (Wanjiru) after the race, but I think he had the same shoes as Chicago, and you can imagine those hard slap - slap shoes on wet pavement. The athletes also mentioned having water splashed on their legs causing some cramping.

“Like you - watching the race develop - I wondered what was going on. I double and triple checked the Pace Display sign to see if it was working. I got a thumbs up when pointed to the sign after 5K, and I saw a pick-it-up reaction from Sammy and Gharib after they saw the slow pace at 15K. I think that despite displaying Marathon Pace along with every mile split, the athletes still only trust the Km splits.

“All told I just have to think it was a slow day - just the opposite of Boston. The sight of a few runners in the lead pack who obviously didn’t belong there seemed to reinforce the slow pace theory, but that slow pace destroyed them as they all jogged home or DNF’d. It was a shame after all London had to cope with to get the athletes in place, and that a week of sunny San Diego weather turned to rain an hour before the race - again the opposite of Boston.

“Attached is the pace data displayed to the athletes. Splits were dead on as Hugh Jones was with us and we got splits right on the survey marks on the road.”

Here is a link to a London SlideShow
http://www.uwec.edu/hartnesg/2010London/index.html

Thanks to Sean Hartnett for his unerring eye, and dedication to detail.

Kenya’s Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot and Teyba Erkesso of Ethiopia had already crossed the finish line as champions of the 114th Boston Marathon. But our WBZ-TV broadcast still had another forty minutes of airtime to fill.  This is when we turn our coverage toward the masses of runners who make up the bulk and base of the old town race.

Our reporter on Heartbreak Hill was busy corralling whomever he could for a quick interview as the field trudged up toward 21 miles.

“Hi, you’re on live TV,” he began with one woman.  “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” she replied. 

“What are you running for?”

Without a second’s irony, she replied, “3:30,” and continued on her purposeful way.

The reporter came to a stop, seemingly caught off guard by her response.  3,30?  Was that some charity he hadn’t hear of?  What did “3,30″ refer to? Flummoxed, he let the woman go, and sought out another runner. Well, of course, the woman was telling the poor soul the time she was shooting for in this, the most prestigious foot race in the world. 

Ever since the BAA instituted time qualifications in 1970 to retard the size of the fields, Boston’s qualifying times have become the holy grail of average marathon runners the world over. Qualifying for Boston is often referred to as the People’s Olympics, and if you’ve ever stood at the finish line of a marathon as the clock ticks toward the Boston cut-off time, the emotion on the faces of the runners who make it, testify to the glory attached to earning a Boston bib number over and above simply finishing a particular marathon.

Boston isn’t like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry marathon where $70 to God knows how much will garner you a bib number. No, at Boston you have to be a real runner. Or, at least, that’s how the policy’s unintended consequences have turned out. 

Nowadays, however, the sport has so given itself over to charity fundraising that the very concept of running a race for a fast time no longer computes.  In fact, there were some runners who qualified for Boston who weren’t able to run this year, because the race had “sold out” by November 2009, many through charity entry.  

Please don’t get me wrong. I am among those who believe that the charity connection to running has become a wonderful, and richly rewarding addition to the sport.  But what was once a side dish threatens to become the main course.  What do you think?  Has the charity component gone too far in running? Does any reporter ever ask Kobe Bryant, “what are you shooting for?”  Let us know how you see it.

Reading through a variety of articles this morning, I came across two fascinating pieces that tell a lot about our sport. The first is a piece on Kenenisa Bekele, the world’s greatest distance runner, breaking down how much he made this year from competition. Bekele, who races fairly often during the track season, earned just over $1.1 million this year. The second article is a good insiders view to life as a good, but not superstar, American distance runner in Brett Gotcher, who won $8,000 for winning the U.S. 20k Road Championships this past weekend.

Bekele’s article didn’t surprise me, except for the fact that over half of his $1.1 million came from appearance fees, which to me is simply ridiculous. It will forever boggle my mind that athletes get paid simply to show up at a meet that they should be competing in anyways. The fact that Bekele gets somewhere around four to five times more just for showing up rather than his winning performance makes me sick, and shows EXACTLY why our sport will never, ever be as big as it could be. Read more…

Carey Pinkowski’s run in Chicago is enough to make even the Daley family jealous.  He began the celebration of his 20th year directing the Bank of America Chicago Marathon by announcing American star Deena Kastor as his first signing for the 2009 race. 

“We are lucky to have her, ” he told me,”just hope her foot holds up in training.”

It has been a remarkable 20 years for the event and the sport, not the least because of Pinkowski’s efforts.  When he took over Chicago in 1990 it was a sunken ship, having lost its sponsors, its pro runners, and much of the goodwill of the Chicago running community.  But by adhering to the path all runners must take to reach their full potential, starting slowly then proceeding to build up year by year, Carey has raised the great ship, and steered it back to the front ranks of the grand flotilla of world marathons. Read more…

Toni Reavis, perhaps it’s better that you not read any further.

Those of you who have read my embarrassment of a bio know that I am a native of the great state of Cincinnati. As such, it was with a keen ear that I followed the recent coverage of Cincinnati’s Flying Pig Marathon, called one of America’s “10 Most Enjoyable Marathons” by Runner’s World back in 2005.

You should know we’re in trouble right there.

Pardon my ignorance, but when did the marathon become “enjoyable”? I am among the uninitiated, so maybe when I finally get out there, I will discover the marathon is like a three hour episode of How I Met Your Mother: soft edges, plenty of chuckles and warm feelings all around. Such is the tack taken with Cincinnati’s marathon, and, I suppose, at least they are up front about it. The name says it all: novelty marathon. Read more…

In last week’s Runnerville Weekly podcast, Matt Taylor discussed his conversation with Chris Lukezic about the lack of interest sponsors seem to have about getting their athletes out in the public eye.  Chris told Matt that if asked to do a public promotion he would gladly do it.  The conversation carried on to conclude that if Chris went out and met 100-200 new people, that the interaction with those people would create 100-200 new fans of Chris, as they would have a personal connection with him since they interacted with him.

While this sounds great, there is one piece missing from this puzzle.  Once Chris has 100-200 new fans, where does he send them to follow his racing?  Luckily for Chris he has a blog that he can send people to, where he provides commentary on his training and racing.  However, for the majority of professional athletes, blogging is not an interest they have or their sponsors have.  So where do fans get their news?

For the majority of die-hard fans out there, including me, we know where to look to find our running news.  We check LetsRun, FloTrack, EliteRunning, etc. on an obsessive basis to see if there just might be a piece of news we missed after rolling out of bed and turning on the computer in the morning.  However, do new fans know where to go to find professional running news? Read more…

If you haven’t checked out the feature story on Nike at Forbes.com, do so. Nike provides an interesting case study in choosing leaders who will allow companies and organizations to sell themselves to a broad and diverse audience. That’s exactly what the USATF must do in the wake of CEO Craig Masback’s departure for — who else? — Nike.

Nike decided they needed a “sports guy” (as opposed to a business guy) to take the helm and market to specific sports, not just paste the swoosh everywhere. I believe the USATF needs a “business guy” (or gal) who is not solely concerned about what’s best for the athletes, but wants to market the sport of running to the loads of potential fans out there. One person even suggested hiring the highest-ranking non-future-commissioner of the PGA Tour to come over to the USATF and reproduce its structure (amateur/pro tours) and national exposure. That’s so crazy, it might just work!

A note to the USATF: Please, for the sake of our sport, choose a leader who will think as much about the fans as he/she does about the athletes. Ideally, this would be primarily a business person. If they happen to lace up a pair of running shoes every once in a while, bonus.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to spreading the gospel of our sport will be the un-ghettoization of the running community. Basically, we’ve created little running ghettos that support a conversation meant only for insiders. If we want people “out there” to realize the beauty of our sport and tune in, we’ve got stop being so proud of the exclusivity of our sport and begin to speak to them about it in a language they can understand.

It’s true, if you think about it. Runners and fans of running tend to be so enthralled with their identification in an elite and secretive sub-culture, that they relegate their conversations to insider Web-based communities and running / track clubs only accessible to, well, insiders. Not to knock these communities at all … they serve a great purpose and are a source of inspiration to many. My point here is not to bash the existence of a running sub-culture or the ensuing conversation, but to encourage a broadening of that conversation in order to increase visibility.  (this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to the running community, of course. every specialized group struggles with this)

Questions: How does the conversation broaden? How does change realistically occur within the machine that is running, and what role does Runnerville play in that? How does Runnerville avoid the pitfall of being another insular venue for the running community to talk to itself?

Well?