Posted on 22 April 2014.
Below you will find an interesting 8 minute interview 2014 Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi did with Runner’s World just a couple hours after winning his first Boston Marathon.
He says in the interview that it’s by far the top accomplishment in his well decorated running career.
Well done, Meb!
Posted in Boston Marathon, Marathon, RunningComments (0)
Posted on 12 April 2014.
The 2014 London Marathon takes place tomorrow, April 13, 2014, in London, England.
Below you’ll find several links to stories about the race and information related to the race that hopefully you will find helpful.
London Marathon on Twitter @LondonMarathon
The official hashtag for the race is #LondonMarathon
London Marathon Favorites – The Men:
London Marathon Favorites – The Women:
All eyes will be on London’s Mo Farah making his marathon debut. Runner’s World asked several experts to predict his finishing time. The experts had him from 2:04 (winning the race) to 2:07. See all the predictions HERE.
Tracking and Results of the 2014 London Marathon
What time does the race start?
More details on start times HERE.
Weather forecast for the London Marathon
Interactive Map of the 2014 London Marathon Course
Tweets from the London Marathon’s Twitter Account
Tweets by @LondonMarathon
Posted in Marathon, RunningComments (0)
Posted on 15 August 2013.
Author Malcolm Gladwell has written several best sellers including Blink, Outliers, and The Tipping Point. He was a good 1500m runner in middle/high school beating future Canadian Olympian Dave Reid three times (photo above/video below). He recently got serious about running again after several years of light running and pursuing other sports.
He recently sat down with Jerry Sticker of Runner’s World for a very interesting and detailed interview about his love affair with running.
Here are some excerpts from the interview with Malcolm:
How Other Countries Celebrate Running: There’s another interesting element that I’ve observed in Jamaica. (My mom is Jamaican, so we go there all the time.) I remember a couple of years ago going for a run on these little side roads and all these people shouting out to me, tons of them, just cheering me on, encouraging me. They have no idea who I am or what I’m doing there. The idea of someone out there running is so central right now in Jamaican culture that they’re like, “Good for you!” Cars would slow down and people would wave and honk their horns. And it’s not that I was the only person running, it’s just that running was something you celebrated. It was kind of fantastic, actually.
On the Flaws of Age-Class Racing: Age-class running, as you know, is completely unreliable. It’s based on this artificial thing, which is that people who are the same age have the same level of physical maturity. Which just isn’t true. And I always suspected, when I was an age-class runner, that I was just maturing faster than my peers. At 13 I would go to the line at a race and I would be the tallest guy in the race. Now, I’m not a tall person. I realized I was just maturing faster. And if you’re improving in those years, you’re improving your 1500 time by seven or eight seconds a year. If you have six months of maturity on someone, that’s four seconds! These races, these results, mean nothing at that age. All they tell you is that someone has a reasonable degree of promise. But I knew that I was just maturing faster than Dave Reid and that he would catch up with me and surpass me [laughs]. And that I should really quit while I was ahead.
Why Running is the Smart Choice as a Sport for Life: No, none of that is to say America can’t do a better job of finding running talent. It’s just a matter of the sport making a better competitive case for itself. Saying to kids who are doing something else that running is more rational. I mean, I’m biased, but I think of all the physical activities you can do as a kid. What you want to do is something that establishes a pattern of physical activity that is sustainable over a big chunk of your adult life. To me, that’s the main reason why you should do something. That’s why I think tennis is a really rational choice as a sport. Running is a rational choice. Football’s not. Totally irrational choice. Not a sustainable activity over the course of your life. It’s something that will actually get in the way of you being physically active later in life. In that sense I think we can do a better job in making the case for our sport at an earlier age.
Should PEDS and Drugs be Allowed: That’s the part of doping that I find the hardest to think through, injury recovery. When [retired NFL player] Ray Lewis comes back from torn triceps in six weeks—when for most people it’s a season-ending injury—there was a suspicion that he used some of this stuff. If you’re a professional athlete, I find it really hard to get mad at you if you use available medical technologies to recover quicker. I can understand, sure, it’s a bad thing if you’re competing and one person is taking a lot of drugs to perform better. But for injury recovery—that’s what drugs are for.
I remember when [New York Yankees pitcher] Andy Pettitte was injured, there was some allegation he was taking something during his period of recovery. How can you blame the guy? He’s a professional athlete. If I got carpal tunnel and couldn’t type, would I take a drug so I could get better sooner? Totally. My living is typing. If your living is throwing a baseball—that’s why this problem is so complicated. You can’t say that athletes can’t benefit from medical technology. But I also don’t like the idea that some guy’s winning the Olympics because he’s found a way to take a lot of EPO.
The entire interview is full of great statistical and social analysis of running. It’s a great read.
You can read the interview in it’s entirety HERE at Runner’s World.
Posted in Celebrities, RunningComments (0)
Posted on 30 January 2013.
Claire Squires died during the last miles of last year’s London Marathon to the shock of many. She was just 30 years old. Now we know that she had a banned stimulant in her water bottle that might have contributed to her death.
Her boyfriend, Simon Van Herrewege, said that Squires started the race carrying a water bottle with a powder called Jack3d. The powder is one of many commercially available powders that contain methylhexanamine, which is commonly known as DMAA. DMAA was initially used as an ingredient in nasal decongestants, but is most often marketed as an energy-boosting stimulant.
Read more HERE at Runner’s World.
Posted in Marathon, RunningComments (0)
Posted on 31 August 2012.
Runner’s World earlier today delved into the claim that Republican Vice President nominee Paul Ryan had run a sub-3 hour marathon.
Ryan made the claim to Hugh Hewitt in a radio interview that:
“Yeah, I hurt a disc in my back, so I don’t run marathons anymore. I just run ten miles or less.” When Hewitt asked Ryan what his personal best is, Ryan replied, “Under three, high twos. I had a two hour and fifty-something.”
WOW! Sub 3-hour marathon is really fast. Could we have a true Run It Fast VP? Well Runner’s World dug into the records of the Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota where Ryan ran his only marathon.
The only results they could find where for a Paul D. Ryan, 20-years of old, from 1990. The time that ‘Paul D. Ryan’ ran that day? 4:01:25!
That’s not even sub-4 hour. Maybe Ryan was claiming 4:01:25 was his Eastern time zone finish and that since the race was in Minnesota it should be converted to 3:01:25 which is close to a sub-3 hour.
So what did Rep. Paul Ryan say when asked about the huge discrepancy?
“The race was more than 20 years ago, but my brother Tobin—who ran Boston last year—reminds me that he is the owner of the fastest marathon in the family and has never himself ran a sub-three. If I were to do any rounding, it would certainly be to four hours, not three. He gave me a good ribbing over this at dinner tonight.”
If I had run just one marathon and if it had been twenty years ago I’m not sure I would get my time right either, but I do believe I’d at least be in the right zip code.
Although it might be easy to ridicule Ryan over the flub, he should be praised for continuing to lead a healthy lifestyle. Reports have it that Ryan leads several other House members in P90X workouts most mornings before clocking in for work.
So how does Ryan’s marathon time stack up with other politicians over the years?
Maybe one day we’ll have a highly elected official that has truly run a sub-3 hour marathon.
[source: Runner’s World and Wikipedia]
Posted in Celebrities, Marathon, RunningComments (0)
Posted on 28 June 2011.
Inspirational runner Amy Dodson is on the cover of the July 2011 issue of Runner’s World magazine. The July issue features four different covers, each honoring a different cancer survivor, that not only survived but is thriving as an endurance athlete.
Amy lost her left leg to cancer at 19-years old. Two years later she lost her left lung to lung cancer. However, that was not the end but just the beginning of how her story would unfold.
From the Runner’s World Editor:
Amy Dodson, 48, lost her left leg below the knee to sarcoma when she was just 19. Two years later, her cancerous left lung was removed. I’ve never met Amy, but I have run with her. We both were among the 75 marathoners in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to run with Dean Karnazes as part of his 50-50-50 quest in 2006. I had met amputee athletes before, but this was the first time I’d gotten outrun by someone with a carbon-fiber leg. And I loved it.
Amy has run Boston twice (she was the first female leg amputee to run that race) and has a marathon PR of 3:35. She’s a four-time national half-marathon champion, with a PR of 1:51:04. She’s also done more than 30 triathlons, including two Ironmans, and is a two-time USA Paratriathlon champion and a two-time ITU World Paratriathlon champ.
As you read this, she’s preparing for her first Western States 100, one of the toughest races on Earth. “One of the great ironies of my life is that because of my childhood cancer, I couldn’t run with two legs,” she says. “But freed from the pain, with one leg and one lung, I can run forever. Cancer may have ravaged my body, but running saved my soul.”
Run It Fast contributor Dallas Smith, author of multiple running books, is a very close friend of Amy. He dedicated his first book, Falling Forward, to Amy.
Dallas had the following to say about Amy’s strength, “Amy went through white-hot fire and come out the other side tempered like steel. If you watch her compete you learn the potential of the human spirit. She continues to be a wonderful friend.”
Congrats to Amy on all of her amazing accomplishments and for making the cover of Runner’s World. She is an inspiration of what the body can do when the mind takes control over it.
Posted in Celebrities, Marathon, RunningComments (0)
Posted on 04 April 2011.
Comedian/Actor Drew Carey, currently the host of The Price is Right and Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza, will run the Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon according to Runner’s World CRO Bart Yasso Facebook update.
UPDATE: SEE HOW FAST DREW RAN HIS FIRST HALF MARATHON
The Marine Corps Historic Half Marathon takes place on May 15th in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
It is likely not so random that Carey has chosen to run the Marine Corps race. Drew was in the U.S. Marine Reserves for six years starting in 1980.
After a health scare Carey become serious about his diet and exercise. He has since lost nearly 100 pounds. He will look to inspire others to do the same when he runs his first half marathon in May.
Drew tweted via his Twitter (@DrewFromTV) back on March 14th that he was planning to run the Marine Corps Half Marathon.
Random Drew Carey Fact: He was born with six toes on his right foot.
Posted in Celebrities, Half Marathon, RunningComments (2)
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