Graves’ Disease eats your muscles, those of the shoulders, upper arms, and thighs. You need thigh muscles to run.
But this story is not about Graves’ Disease. And it never will be. Damn Graves’ Disease. This story is about the 2014 Boston Marathon, the 118th running of the historic race, the race just one year after the murderous bombing. Damn Graves’ Disease.
I’m incredibly lucky. I’ve had complimentary entry at Boston for the last three years, having finished on the podium three years in a row, finishing last year just twenty minutes before the blast. I’m lucky.
In January of this year, when I began to crank up my training for the race, I realized something was terribly wrong. My speed had vanished and I was losing strength in the weight room, too. That brought blood tests in February. Then in March an endocrinologist told me I had Graves’ Disease.
Read the full story by Dallas Smith by clicking HERE
If you travel to the Cummins Falls Marathon, you’ll be well advised to set aside a couple of extra days to see local sights and sample local restaurants. A famished runner can find a truck load of cool eating joints in Cookeville, Tennessee. But you need to know where to look. I am here to help.
One hundred and thirty-two, that’s the number Google gives me for the aggregation of restaurants in Cookeville. That’s maybe more than you’d expect for a “small town” of 31,010 souls. But the town’s activity is much larger than its population suggests: it’s a university town, with the influx that brings; it sits at the crossroads of TN-111 and I-40; and it serves as a hub city for the whole Upper Cumberland region. People come to shop, eat out, see ballgames and watch movies. I once read the dubious claim that Cookeville triples on the weekend. I don’t believe that number, but it does grow.
So, yes, 132 restaurants. That number includes the usual expected chain restaurants such as O’Charley’s, Outback, Ruby Tuesday, and so on. Most of those restaurants are strung along Interstate Drive, parallel to and one block north of I-40, visible and handy to the Interstate traveler. Ah, but I rarely go there. Jo Ann and I chose the home grown restaurants in the old part of town, in the Westside and Eastside.
Without making any claims of good taste in food or anything else, I will tell you the places where this runner actually goes to eat. For what it’s worth, here they are:
Here is a quick and simple elevation chart graphic for the Boston Marathon course.
The course has an overall negative gain. It starts at 490 feet in Hopkinton an finishes at 10 feet above sea level at Copley Square.
The biggest rise during the race comes between mile 20 and 21 which is commonly referred to as Heartbreak Hill. The 88 ft climb is not much to the experienced marathoner, but most marathoners running Boston have spent too much energy earlier on in the race and fall face first into the Heartbreak Hill (Wall).
A simple video of a kid flipping through flashcards, written in Sharpie, with several very important and helpful tips for running your first marathon or half marathon.
100-year old Fauja Singh became the oldest person in human history to complete a full (26.2 mile) marathon over the weekend according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Singh completed the Toronto Waterfront Marathon on Sunday with a time of 8 hours, 25 minutes, and 16 seconds.
I’m not sure if he was complimenting the institution of marriage or comparing how difficult finishing a marathon at 100 was too marriage in his quote below after the race:
“Beating his original prediction, he’s overjoyed,” his coach and translator Harmander Singh said. “Earlier, just before we came around the (final) corner, he said, ‘Achieving this will be like getting married again.’
“He’s absolutely overjoyed, he’s achieved his lifelong wish.”
Sunday’s run was Singh’s eighth marathon – he ran his first at age 89 – and wasn’t the first time he set a record.
The judge placed Henderson on a year of probation, ordered him to spend 80 hours doing community service, to never run in the Flying Pig marathon again and to pay the marathon the $110 entry fee he never paid.
YouTube Video of Henderson Streaking at the Pig:
I can’t argue with the sentencing, but would the judge have been as severe with his ruling if the runner had been a woman?
“Being propelled 20 feet in the air and landed on the grass, I have to consider the facts – I’m extremely lucky to be here,” she said. “You can be as careful and safe as you like, and it just takes one.”
Buohler and her friend, Mary Rine, were supposed to be traveling to Spain today to compete in the Duathlon World Championships. Buohler was going to be competing for the first time as a United States citizen, something she was very excited about.
Buohler has been a Facebook friend for several years. Our thoughts and prayers are with Lisa as she recovers and heals from the accident.
I hope everyone will use this as a wake-up to be even more careful while running and cycling on the roads. Many behind the wheel are impaired or simply not paying attention.
