USA National Cross Country Championships - Boulder, Colorado
An estimated 10,000 spectators showed up today at Flatirons Golf Course in Boulder, Colorado to watch the USA National Cross Country Championships, essentially the annual USA "Super Bowl" of distance running. Also at stake were spots on Team USA that will compete at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, to be held in Mombasa, Kenya in March.
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The weather was warm and sunny, which when mixed with a large amount of snow on the ground from a very snowy winter so far, turned a nice golf course into a muddy mess. In other words, great conditions for cross country running! The runners ran on a spectator-friendly, flat course consisting of 2K loops that included two creek jumps.
A sign of the times.
Olympic marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor took an early lead in the women's open 8K race and never looked back.
Dathan Ritzenhein takes the early lead in the men's open 12K race, near the 2K mark, with Adam Goucher in second. 
Eventual winner Alan Culpepper is sitting comfortably at third, also around 2K.
The stage for the top ten men's open finishers
The top three men's open National Champs for 2007. Left to right: #2 Adam Goucher, #1 Alan Culpepper, and #3 Dathan Ritzenhein.
Check the full results for details.
Posted at 06:25PM Feb 10, 2007 by Peter Schow in Sport |
Linux, Mac, and Solaris Users need not apply
How lame is this?
NBC Sports is offering an online video feed to tomorrow's New York Marathon for US $4.99. It's limited, however, to Windows users because (from their FAQ).
Regrettably at this time, you cannot watch MediaZone's live events or other entertainment using the Macintosh or Linux operating systems due to lack of Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) support for these operating systems.
Why should a subscriber operating system choice limit his/her ability to view some video content that they're actually willing to pay for? Turned around, why in the world would a provider use a video format that limits the number of desktops they can reach, and subsequently reduces the amount of cash they bring in?
Posted at 07:40PM Nov 04, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport | Comments[5]
Cyclocross Gran Prix event comes to town
It's Cyclo-cross season and today there was a US Gran Prix race in Longmont, Colorado over at the Xilinx campus. I was very surprised to see two USA ProTour cyclists being announced as riders in the elite race: Chris Horner and (Fast) Freddie Rodriguez, both members of Belgium's Davitamon-Lotto team. These guys are regulars in all the big races on the European road cycling circuit, including the Grand Tours (like the Tour De France) so what the heck are they doing in a race like this, riding on dirt, carrying their bikes over telephone poles, and jumping ramps on the course? Having some fun in their off-season, I guess!
A high-tech campus becomes a cloud of dust for an afternoon. The second rider is Fred Rodriguez.
Fred, (second rider again), crossing the logs in the course with another rider.
Chris Horner far far away from Porrentruy Switzerland where he won a stage victory earlier this year at the Tour De Romandie.
Ryan Trebon, the eventual winner is dominating the Grand Prix this year. Tall riders rejoice; Ryan is 6 foot five. Full results may show up here.
Posted at 07:10PM Nov 04, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport |
Twin Cities Marathon Weekend
Spent the weekend in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and on Sunday, ran the Twin Cities Marathon for the second time. The event has used individual timing "chips" for years, attached to runners shoelaces, but this year they added more tracking stations and had a neat tracking facility available on their web site (implemented nicely as a Java applet), to allow interested observers to track any of the 10,000 runners on the course in real time.
It started with a 5:30 AM bus ride to the starting line, at the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis. Runners are allowed into the concourse area of the dome to escape the chill of the early morning, where we could see the crews transforming the field from the previous night's college football game, Michigan vs. Minnesota, to a baseball field, to get ready for the Twins game later that afternoon. The Twins, by the way, won their game and completed an historic comeback from being 12.5 games out of first on May 27, to outright winning their division.
There were actually two races that day, the marathon and a ten-miler. You could tell the difference between the two camps hanging around in the Metrodome before the race - the ten milers are more jovial, having fun while the marathoners look serious, not many smiles.
The marathon starts at 8 AM in higher-than-usual temperatures. In honor of the CEC 2006 conference which also started on Sunday, I'm wearing my collector's edition STS-2001 hat, you know, the orange one. The scenic course (PDF) winds its way through downtown Minneapolis, through some prominent lake districts south of town, then along both the west and east sides of the Mississippi River, and finally along a seven mile almost straight shot into St. Paul, along historic Summit Avenue. Highlights for me on the run included seeing Minnesota Justice and former NFL great Alan Page playing his tuba on the course around mile 4, getting fanatic crowd support as we moved through the neighborhoods, taking in the great fall scenery, and finally getting a glimpse of the finish line in the distance, at around mile 25.8!
Next day picture of Lake Calhoun, around the six mile mark.
This is a gradual uphill around mile marker 22 in St. Paul, on Summit Avenue, looking east (also taken the day after the event). Summit Avenue is lined almost the entire way with Victorian houses (often quoted as "the best preserved Victorian boulevard in America"), mansions (including the governor's residence), and a few universities.
Finishing time was 4:18 on a seasonably hot day, with the temperatures in the upper-70s at finish time. Eight minutes better than last time - woo! To deal with the usual cooler weather, they always hand out these "space blankets" to all runners immediately after they cross the finish line. We got them again this year, although they weren't needed - the medical crews were kept busy with heat exhaustion problems instead.
No visit to the Twin Cities is complete until you visit the Minneapolis Sculpture Gardens, in the shadows of downtown, where you'll see the famous "cherry and a spoon" sculpture. The cherry itself weighs 1000 pounds and the entire sculpture had to be built at two shipyards (Maine and Rhode Island) because it is so large.
And another stop (not too far from the airport if you have some time to kill) is the historic Minnehaha Falls Park area.
Posted at 09:24PM Oct 02, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport |
Hiking the Appalachian Trail barefoot
As part of an awareness campaign, former Marine Ron Zaleski (age 55) is hiking the length of the Appalachian Trail barefoot! From the map, it looks like he is somewhere in Virginia now.
That's Maine to Georgia, 2174 miles total, averaging about 16 miles a day. My feet hurt just thinking about this.
Posted at 08:55PM Sep 19, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport |
50 Marathons/50 States/50 Days
Tomorrow (Sunday) in St. Charles, Missouri, superman endurance freak Dean Karnazes kicks off his campaign to run 50 marathons in 50 USA states, in 50 successive days. He ends the tour at the New York Marathon on November 5 and will have completed 1310 miles in the process. If you live in the States, check out the official event site (aside: looks like some web designers just learned about Flash - someone take their authoring tools away from them - they've abused the privilege) to see when he is visiting your area. Inside the continental 48 states, he'll be travelling with his parents, wife and kids in a fleet that includes an RV and a travel bus. The most grueling travel segment looks to be the four days of the Alaska-San Francisco-Maui-Phoenix legs! He's blogging throughout the tour if you want to follow his thoughts.
Before I go on about Dean, you should probably know that another guy, Sam Thompson already quietly finished his own 50/50/50 marathon campagin this summer, to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims. It's apparently not a competitive situation, as both runners acknowledge that the pie is big enough for both of them to share, and they actually have the same sponsor (North Face). Also, both of them admit that this feat could have been previously done by others; nobody knows.
Rock and rollers will remember that George Thorogood and The Destroyers did their own 50/50/50 concert tour in 1981, travelling the 48 continental states in a Checker car! I don't believe this feat has been duplicated by any touring band since.
So how does Dean's campaign work? First on Sundays during the 50-day span, he is entered in real marathon events, including US flagship races like Chicago, New York, and the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC (Sun's own MaryMary is also an entrant here). On the other six days of the week, he runs sanctioned marathon courses with whomever wants to run with him, complete with police escort. You'll have to pay for that privilege, and at US $100, it ain't cheap!
Dean Karnazes is not fast by today's elite running standards but he is the real deal when it comes to endurance. Just this summer, he completed some brutal ultramarathon races, including the Leadville (Colorado) 100mi, Badwater (Death Valley) 146mi, Western States 100 (Squaw Valley, CA) events, and he outright won the Vermont 100. Most seasoned runners would be glad to finish just one of these in a lifetime. Given the miles he has already put in, I have no doubt that he can do 26.2 miles a day in his prescribed 4.5 to 5 hour allotment. He has hired Lance Armstrong's trainer, Chris Carmichael for diet recommendations to help his daily recovery, so he should be all set.
Karnazes has said that he's doing this to promote fitness, health, and outdoor activity given the oft-mentioned USA struggles with obesity. No problem with that, and the sport of long distance running needs all the publicity it can get. I'd like to see, however, the USA's elite distance runners get more attention but they don't have Dean's marketing machine that has landed him on Letterman, 60 Minutes, in GQ and Esquire magazines, etc. How many Americans have heard of Meb Keflezighi, Alan Culpepper, or Deena Kastor? It's different in other countries, like in the UK where Paula Radcliffe is a national star, of perhaps LeBron James fame proportions here in the US.
Finally, it's a free world but you have to wonder if Dean Karnaze's obsessive-compulsive tendencies will take him past his limits. He's talking about pedalling a Hydro Bronc across the Pacific Ocean, from California to Hawaii, and also paddling 40 miles around the white shark-infested waters of the Farallon Islands (off California) on a surfboard. And much riskier - he wants to climb Mt. Everest with no oxygen or transport assistance. It's a question the Crocodile Hunter had to answer all the time, but what's the balancing point between the next risky endeavor and maintaining the existing family life that he's built? For a guy like Karnazes who has admitted that "he can't sit still", let's see if he'll know when to stop.
Posted at 04:11PM Sep 16, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport |
Longmont Criterium cycling race
Once a year, on a summer Sunday, my hometown Longmont, Colorado, USA shuts down a few streets downtown and hosts the Longmont Criterium cycling race. The racing goes on all day, in various categories and age groups, and the weather was mostly ideal, with a touch of Fall in the air. It's not the Vuelta a Espana of course, but it's a good opportunity to watch some talented riders from well-known USA continental teams like TIAA-CREF, HealthNet, and Vitamin Cottage take on the 0.7 mile (1.2 km) loop course for over an hour, at speeds of 35 miles per hour (56 km/hour).
What's the big difference in watching a cycling race in person vs. on TV? Easily, it's hearing the sound of the peleton whizzing by you, along with the mechanical noises of chains and gear switching, and also hearing the riders talking among teammates, sometimes shouting instructions to each other. All of this is missed when watching a cycling broadcast.
Some pictures from today:
Lead group of the men's category 1 and 2 pro race. That's Scott Moninger on the left in the lead for now, fresh off his win at the Tour of Utah. The eventual winner was actually from Longmont and I think I know his name, but don't want to post any misinformation. Maybe I'll update this when the official race results are out.
The men's pro peleton, strung out at this point, rounds a tricky corner. There was a crash at this very point in an earlier stage (see next picture).
All eyes are on a crash scene, twenty seconds or so before this picture was taken, in the men's category 4 race. This was near the end of the race with only a few more laps to go. The emergency medical technicians (EMTs) from the Longmont Fire Department were on hand almost immediately, arriving on bikes, of course.
Professional categegory 1 and 2 women at the starting line.
Leaders of the pro women's race along Thompson Park, a few laps into their event.
Posted at 06:42PM Aug 27, 2006 by Peter Schow in Sport | Comments[1]