Hello and welcome to Going Pro!
What is Going Pro you may
ask? Well, that's an excellent question. First off: NO, I am not considering
becoming a professional runner, as I think I have greater odds of landing a
teaching position in St. John's! The main purpose behind this
(hopefully) bi-weekly post is to introduce, interest, and engage runners
of all backgrounds to the professional running scene - especially in North
America. Whether you don't run, want to run, or are a complete beginner,
recreational, competitive runner or even a marathon veteran (as we have many of
those here hailing from NL!) there is something in this for you to learn.
I wish to attempt to bridge the gap
from amateur to professional running. For example, in Canada, hockey is the
paramount sport. Every single kid who laces up his/her skates initially has one
goal - to play in the NHL. We are inundated with professional (AHL/NHL) games,
news, highlights, biographies, NHL greats reaching celebrity status coming to
town to sign autographs, etc, etc. For a sport such as hockey the professional
game is almost as part of one's life as the current game the kids are playing.
Conversely, in Soccer, why is that Canada, a country of 30+ million people, is
ranked 72nd in the world whereas countries such as Netherlands with only 16
million people is ranked 2nd in the world!? One of the major reasons for this
is that Netherlands has a well established professional league (analogous to
our NHL) that all youth strive to be apart of when they pick up the sport!
When it comes to running it's bit of
a different story. There is no dissemination of the news, sights, sounds,
personalities, or highlights of the professional running 'scene' to the masses.
People are aware of the local 'elites', 'age group aces', and what good
local standards are (i.e. 'Hey buddy, what's your Tely 10 time?') but I feel
there is much to learn and enjoy from getting immersed in the professional
environment of the sport you put so much blood, sweat, and tears into 365 days
a year (366 this year don't forget)!
Anyways, enough of that ranting. I'm
going to do my best to tell you the who's who, the what's what, and put all the
jargon into layman's terms. I am by no means some sort of running guru that has
the stats of every runner as there are many other websites for that (I would
suggest www.letsrun.com, www.flotrack.com, www.trackie.ca).
However, I am a huge fan of the professional aspect of our sport and wish to
disseminate some of the bigger and more interesting news in an easy to read
way!
I figure the best way to get this
ball rolling to mention some of the bigger names in the sport currently
which were all apart of the most recent, and 2nd largest event this year next
to the Olympics. Just this weekend past, on Jan 14 in Houston, Texas USA
held their Olympic Marathon Trials - the next day was the Chevron Houston Marathon
and Half Marathon where our very own Peter and Kate Bazeley had some remarkable
perfomances.
To qualify for the mens race
you needed to have one of the following credentials to your name on a certified
course:
Marathon: 2:19:00 (5:18/mile or 3:18/km)
Half-Marathon: 1:05:00 (4:57.5/mile or 3:04/km)
10,000m: 28:30.00 (4:35/mile or 2:51/km)
The women were looking at qualifying
standards of:
Marathon: 2:46:00 (6:20/mile or 3:56/km)
Half-Marathon: 1:15:00 (5:43/mile or 3:33/km)
10,000m: 33:00.00 (5:18/mile or 3:18/km)
*Note: incase you didn't know all of
the above paces are FAST!
So, Saturday at 7:00am & 7:15am
CST, the gun went off for the Men's & Women's Olympic trials, respectively.
161 men and 226 women toed their respective lines with a similar, simple goal in
mind: be on the podium (top 3) and you'll get a trip to the London 2012
Olympics representing the USA for the Marathon. In reality there was only a
handful of legitimate contenders, some pretenders who thought they could run
with the true elites and then fizzled and DNF'd, and the realists who were
happy to be a part of history.
On the men's side, the real battle
was between the following gazelles:
1.
Ryan Hall - Age 29, from California is America's poster boy for
the Marathon. He is USA's half marathon (59:43) record holder and
unofficial marathon record holder (2:04:58*) - *this was run in the 2011
heavily wind-aided Boston Marathon. Although he has never won a major
marathon he is always in the mix and loves to set an early quick pace to
make sure people earn their position. In 2011, Hall decided to become
self-coached deciding to train VERY differently from the normal elite
training mentality. Instead of double/triple days he only runs once per day
and takes one day off each week!
|
| 2.
Meb Kelfezighi - Age 36, Born in Eritrea, emigrated to USA in 1988.
USA's most successful current marathoner as he was a silver
medalist at the 2004 Olympic Marathon in Athens, Greece as well as the
winner of the 2009 NYC Marathon (the first American to win the race in 27
years)! Only 69 days prior to the Olympic trials Meb ran the 2011 NYC
marathon in a personal best time of 2:09:13 for 6th place. During that race
he had such bad chafing/blisters on his foot that he was unable to run for
3 weeks afterward due to infection!
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3. Dathan
Ritzenheim - or RITZ, is a 29 year old phenom from Michigan. Ritz burst
on the scene a sensational high school runner winning the cross country
national championships in consecutive years as well as running 13:44 for
5k! He was the second US athlete to break 13 minutes in 5k with 12:56
(2:35/km) and was 9th place overall in the 2008 Beijing Olympic
Marathon in 2:11:59 with a convenient personal best of
2:10:00!
*Also note: if you Youtube the video “Why do you run?” there is a scene
where a cross country guy wins a race and almost dies when he crosses the
line…. That’s RITZ! |
| 4. Abdi
Abdirahman - or Abdi, age 35 from Somalia. He emigrated to USA
during his high school years but oddly enough he didn't start running
until Colleg (thus breaking the myth that all Africans are fast because
they run to/from school/everywhere as children). Abdi has been to 3
consecutive olympics before this race for the 10,000m and has every
intention of being in London. |
On the women's front it was only
really a 3 horse race from the gun:
1.
Shalane Flanagan - 31 years old from Boulder, Colorado.
Unquestionably USA's current top female distance runner. She would make the
olympics from the 5k to the marathon if she wanted. She holds the current
US 10k record with a 30:22 (3:02/km) and a pedestrian 5k time of 14:44
(2:57/km)... oh and in her marathon debut in NYC in 2010 she ran 2:28:40
for 2nd place (the best finish for an US female in 20 years)! She is the
class of every US field and she is in a league of her own!
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2.
Desi Davila - age 29 from San Diego, CA literally came out of
nowhere 3 years ago. In fact I remember reading a Running Times
mini-biography of her talking about how she could be the next big thing and
here I am about to tell you that his 5'3", 98lb woman went from a
2:37 in 2008 to 2:22:38 in 2011 at Boston (*wind-aided)! This girl is an
absolute machine and WILL BE the next big thing.
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3.
Kara Goucher - America's running sweetheart. At age 33 she has quite
the running resume. She's been 3rd at the NYC marathon (2008), 3rd at
Boston (2009), 3rd place in the 10,000m 2009 World Championships and oh
ya... ran a 2:24 marathon 7 months after having a child! Or perhaps
you could be impressed by her taking 5 minutes off her half marathon time
in 9 weeks (74 mins down to 69 mins). If you were a betting person, you'd
want to put a few dollars on Kara to place top 3 in most races!
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4.
The one... the only... Deena Kastor - You've all probably seen the
epic documentary 'Spirit of the Marathon' which cronicles the lead
up to the 2008 Chicago Marathon of both professionals, Boston Marathon
hopefuls, as well as those who want to test the limits of their bodies at
whatever pace they can for 42.2km. In the movie, we all fell in love with
the petit lady who not only won that Chicago Marathon but also won the 2004
Olympic Marathon Bronze medal in Athens. Although she is currently 38,
after having her first child last March, she still ran 72 mins for a half
marathon leading up to these trials. She is the current US half-marathon
(1:07:34) and marathon (2:19:36) record holder. No matter what race she is
competing, women are always looking over their shoulder for Deena. However,
if she doesn't place top 3, it could be her last seriously competitive
marathon.
|
Within a few hours the 26.2 miles
was covered and the Olympic Trial record books were re-written. Both the men's
and women's records were broken and the quality of the times was never better.
In the men's race, as expected Ryan Hall separated the contenders from the
pretenders almost immediately ensuring that if someone was going to take his
Olympic berth they were going to have run be ready to run a 2:09 marathon. The
lead pack of 5 (including the 4 names mentioned above) went through 13.1 mile
mark in a blistering time of 63:25 (or 2:06:50 marathon pace)... However, as
expected that pace began to slow and the winds began to pick up. When all was
said and done it was MEB who pulled off an absolute phenomenal upset for the
win just 150m over Ryan Hall in ANOTHER personal best time of 2:09:08... just
69 days after his last marathon PB!
1st - MEB - 2:09:08
2nd - Ryan Hall - 2:09:30
3rd - ABDI - 2:09:47
(4th 7 seconds back.... RITZ - 2:09:55)
*This was the first time more than one runner broke the 2:10 mark in the
Olympic Trials!
The women's race went out much more conservative and there weren't any real
battles! Things shook down as expected but the times were far faster than
anyone had expected. A lead pack consisting of Shalane Flanagan, DESI, and Kara
lead the entire way with hopeful Amy Hastings holding for as long as she could.
However, Shalane Flanagan was the class of the field and pulled away from the
other true contenders with about 2k to go, leading to her smashing the Olympic
Trials record by 3 minutes!
1st -Shalane Flanagan - 2:25:38
2nd - DESI - 2:25:55
3rd - Kara Goucher - 2:26:06
(6th - Deena! - 2:30:40... A disappointing result for her in her own mind but
hopefully not the end of her career!)
Finally, I’d like to touch on Peter and
Kate. Peter recently ran the Chicago Marathon in 2011 and it didn’t turn out
quite as well as he hoped. He ran a very impressive 2:49:38 but it was well off
of his intended goal. So Houston became a ‘revenge/redemption run’ for him. Not
only did he run like a metronome and hold a 5:55/mile pace for 22 miles before
slowing only slightly, he took 13 minutes off of his old mark in only 3 months
with a time of 2:36:33 (which translates to 5:58/mile or 3:42/km)! Peter was 33rd
overall out of ~3800 runners and 14th in his age category. His
better half, Kate Bazeley (Vaughan) is Newfoundland & Labrador’s running queen
(no longer a princess I guess). She toed the line for the Half Marathon and
placed 9th overall for females, 3rd for her age category,
and was the 2nd non-professional runner (only 5 seconds back) in a
time of 1:18:44 (6:00/mile or 3:43/km)! Congratulations to both of them for
being superhuman!
So that's it for this installment. Next time I'll recap the Canadian Marathon
Olympic contenders and any other news/names/results of note! Hope you enjoyed
it!
Mark
