October 4, 2003
C O N T E N T S
BayState Marathon - The Best Boston Qualifier |
BAYSTATE MARATHON - THE BEST BOSTON QUALIFIER
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Also Half Marathon & 10K - October 19, 2003 - 8:00 AM
What began as a small local marathon has earned a reputation as the world's best race to qualify for the Boston Marathon.
Before Sunday, September 28, Paul Tergat was relatively unknown in the world of distance running. Despite five World Cross Country titles, the lithe Kenyan had been mostly relegated to second-tier status among the world's elite, below the pedestal on which his Ethiopian rival Haile Gebreselhaisse has been raised. After all, he placed an agonizingly close second to Haile in two consecutive Olympic 10,000-meter finals. Furthermore, Tergat's move up to the marathon distance was not the success he had hoped for: four marathons, no victories. Moroccan/American Khalid Khannouchi thwarted his best efforts in Chicago and London. But in Berlin on Sunday, Tergat's time finally arrived, as he became the first man in history to break 2:05 in the marathon. And amazingly, the first Kenyan to ever hold the world marathon record. It has to be viewed as a deserving reward for a man who now must be considered one of the greatest distance runners in history.
> For a race story, click here:
> For Tergat's thoughts on the Record, click here:
Nearly 36 years ago, Derek Clayton made history by becoming the first runner to cover the marathon distance in less than two hours and 10 minutes. Now the 2:05 barrier has fallen. So what about a sub two-hour marathon? How many more years will pass before someone finishes a marathon with a "1" as the first digit on the clock?
Of course, you can't run a sub two-hour marathon until you can run a sub one-hour half marathon. That has been done, but it is not exactly a regular occurrence. In fact, major international championships are won in times of more than an hour, and the world best is slightly less than 59 minutes. Logic says that mark will have to come down to 56 or 57 minutes before a sub two-hour marathon can happen. Looked at another way, Tergat averaged just over 4:45 per mile in his record run on Sunday. To run a sub two-hour marathon, an average of 4:35 per mile is required.
Ten seconds per mile is a huge amount at the rate of speed these athletes are currently running. Without some sort of futuristic leap in technology, the sub two-hour marathon would seem to be a long way off. But anything is possible, especially given recent breakthroughs in genetics. The more likely question is whether when the sub two-hour marathon does happen, will it be considered within the realm of human achievement, or artificially enhanced by technology?
> For the men's marathon record progression, click here:
Despite Tergat's 2:04 marathon, all is not rosy in the Kenyan camp. Hand wringing over a poor showing in the World Track and Field Championships, performance enhancing drug allegations (since proved false) by one of its premier athletes, would have you think we were talking about the U.S.A., not the land of the world's greatest distance runners. In addition, Kenya faces the problem of several of its top athletes defecting to other countries. All of these developments point up the problems that plague the sport at its highest levels. Next summer in Athens, home of the original Olympic Games and its lofty ideals, the sport will present what is ostensibly its highest form and premier athletes to the rest of the world. But for many who will be watching, the question will be not be who will win or the winning time, but if the participants are even legitimate. Until that doubt is permanently erased, the sport and all of its elite performers will be tainted by the stain of those who have chosen to cheat in order to win.
> For more on Kenya Athletics, click here:
Those 2004 Olympic Games are still on the far horizon, but getting closer each day. Undoubtedly, the two track athletes who will be feeling the most pressure in those games are Hicahm El Guerrouj and Paula Radcliffe. Between them they have yet to garner a single Olympic gold medal, and this will perhaps be the last chance for either to do so.
El Guerrouj was the unfortunate victim of a trip and fall in the 1996 games, and then succumbed to Kenyan team tactics in 2000, when Noah Ngeny and Bernard Lagat sandwiched him at the finish line. Possessing the world record in the mile and no less than four world championship 1,500-meter titles, the Algerian is still missing the crown jewel in his career. Win in Athens and he will go down as perhaps the best miler/1,500-meter runner in history; finish second and he will be remembered for what he did not win, rather than what he did.
Radcliffe is facing a similar scenario. Like El Guerrouj, Radcliffe ran valiantly as a frontrunner in Sydney, but ultimately came up short. Paula turned the distance running world upside down with a marathon world record in London in April, but everyone knows the Olympic 26-miler will be a different story. Heat, hills, and the pressure of representing her beloved Britain in the Olympics will increase the degree of difficulty greatly. A gold medal will stamp Radcliffe as the finest women's marathoner of all time, but anything less will be viewed as a disappointment, especially in her home country, which has all but deified her in recent years.
> For more on the 2004 Olympic Games, click here:
Have you heard? The New York Marathon no longer exists. Oh, there will be a 26.2-mile race through the five boroughs of the city this fall, and some 30,000 will participate, including Puff Daddy, or P. Diddy, or whatever his name is. But the race will now be known as the ING New York Marathon, the international banking firm signing on as the title sponsor of the race.
Branding and naming rights have permeated the world of sports, so why should marathon running be any different? Big events offering big exposure mean big money nowadays; there is no getting around that truth. Not coincidentally, the "ING" New York Marathon also announced a first place prize purse of $100,000, the first six-figure winner's share in marathon running. With 30,000 individual entry fees rolling in and hundreds of thousands in title sponsorship dollars, it is little mystery as to who is footing the bill to pay for this prize money largesse. Winning a big time marathon no longer goes unrewarded. Somewhere, Marshall Medoff is smiling.
Contrasting the New York (oops, the ING New York) Marathon is news that the Pittsburgh Marathon will not be run in 2004, due to lack of sponsorship and budget concerns. This is not just any old marathon suspending its race (although any race that does so is cause for lament), this is a race with a long history, including having held the U.S. Marathon trials on more than one occasion. Again, this mirrors a continuing trend in sports (and in other aspects of life) in which the rich get richer and the rest fall by the wayside. Is distance running better off with a more lucrative marathon in New York and none at all in Pittsburgh? Surely there are marathoners, especially from the Iron City, who don't think so.
> For more on the ING New York Marathon, click here:
> For news on the suspension of the Pittsburgh Marathon, click here:
Despite the negative tone of some of the above opinions, there is heartening news in the world of running. Some of that news emanates from Michigan, home of the Hanson's running team. How is it that two guys from the Midwest have been able to accomplish what national organizations and major shoes companies can't seem to, despite their concerted efforts? One reason is that no one told them they couldn't. No one told the Hansons they couldn't invest their own money into training programs for aspiring U.S. marathoners. No one told them that with those limited funds they couldn't establish a grass roots program to compete on even terms with those funded by USATF and Nike.
Their story reads a lot like the kind of tale that you used to regularly hear about in running, about a guy or gal who was overlooked before a race, but never stopped believing in themselves. That kind of underdog success fueled the growth of this sport in the early years of the running boom. Somewhere along the way however, corporations and governing bodies stepped in and mucked up the works, haggling over money and red tape.
Now the Hanson brothers have added a women's team, garnered financial backing, and issued a no tolerance policy on performance enhancing drug use. In a time when the ideals of running have been lost in a sea of lawsuits, money, and power struggles, this beacon of hope from the Midwest could not have come along at a better time. Rooting for Hanson's team is rooting for best aspects of the sport.
> For more on the Hansons Running Team, click here:
Say it ain't so! Bill Rodgers is on the shelf with a broken tibia, his first major running injury in more than a quarter-century of running. For those of us whose early inspiration in distance running came from this happy-go-lucky New Englander, this news can be seen only as further proof (as if we needed it!) that age is an opponent that will ultimately win over the long haul. True to his optimistic nature however, the four-time Boston and New York Marathon winner has vowed to rehab and return to competition in 2004, still providing inspiration to those of us who have also endured in the sport through the decades.
But wait—heartening news from the world of age-group running turned up from the Toronto Marathon, where 72-year-old Ed Whitlock ran a sub three-hour marathon, 2:59:09, and 92-year-old Fauja Singh of Britain cruised into the finish line of the same marathon in 5:40:33 Just wait until he turns 95 and has a chance for more age-group records! Seriously, these performances are nothing less than startling. We all age at different rates, as does our enthusiasm for the sport, but what were once thought of as barriers of age are being pushed back farther and farther all the time. That can only be good news for runners of all ages.
> For more on the Toronto Waterfront Marathon, click here:
PARTING WORDS
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