Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Polished Knob

Ultra runners are pretty funny people.  I mean, look at some of the names of the Checkpoints at the Grindstone 100 Mile Race that Dave Ploskonka ran this weekend.  They're just crass.  But it's our brand of humor. Dave's experience sounds hectic.  He had just flown in from Israel (and boy were his arms tired!), had to connect to BWI through Philly, then had to drive to the start of this race.  Sounds pretty miserable. 

Here are some interesting thoughts about elite runners being self-coached.  Also interesting is that Ryan Hall believes he has never run a bad marathon.  "There aren't many other Americans running 2:08," he said.  Cool, glad that he's content with mediocrity.  Also, Beijing 2008? 

Did you see a woman went into labor immediately following her 6.5 hour marathon at Chicago on Sunday?  She was 39 weeks pregnant, and her doctor said it was okay for her to run half.  So she jogged half and walked the other half.  Tom Cruise apparently heard, as he was seen sniffing around the finish line to get a hold of the placenta. 

I'm here all week, folks.

Anyway I was able to get most of the big results up from the weekend, and from the email we all know that Ed Aramayo was our Purple Drink Athlete of the Week.  But I missed Tim Parker's 18th place/56:52 at the Delaware Distance Classic 15k, and the first ever triathlon for Thomas Stewart.  Tom went down to the Waterman's Sprint Tri (same venue as my half on Sunday) and finished 71st, with a monster bike split.  Dr. Rod also competed, swimming and running his way to an 83rd place finish.  Cynthia Evans ran a 1:20:34 at Army Ten.  At the PG Crime Victim's Fund Run "5k" in College Park, Greg Jubb won in 16:52 and Louis Foudos was 3rd in 18:02.  The pair found out that post-collegiate races aren't always the distance they say they are!

Now it's onto the BIGGEST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR in Baltimore: the Baltimore Running Festival!  Here is the schedule of events:

Thursday: WBAL11, 5:30am.  Ed and Amy will be on TV Thursday morning from the Falls Road Running Store talking about how to prepare for the weekend.  Set your DVRs!  We will make fun of them if they fail. 

Thursday/Friday: Marathon Expo, 10am-9pm.  As I was informed on Monday, the Expo is at the Convention Center, NOT at Ravens Stadium, this year.

Saturday: Marathon, 8am.  I'm real excited to watch this one, as we have a number of people running and looking to do well.  Berdan, Pat, Conrad, Beef, Denise - it is going to be a great day out there!

Saturday: 5k, 8:30am.  Looks like we've got Tristram, NBP, and Christa competing in this one.

Saturday: Half Marathon, 9:45am.  Brennan, Barf, Tim Parker, Patrick O'Rourke, to name a few.  Colin Brooks will be tweeting live from on course about hockey, television shows, and other things, while he attempts to run.

If you're not racing, get your spectating game face on and get your ass up and out the door to cheer on our teammates!  Everyone will be in and done well before noon and the post-race party can begin.  I will be on course on my bike and will be tweeting updates all day, trying to get pics and also looking to get some quotes so think of something good to say!

5 comments:

alyssa said...

Look Dave P hugging Pole. http://www.flickr.com/photos/8977494@N08/6225037218/

THE KRIS said...

ok, i put that baby/marathon thing in the comments of a past post, AND i'm beating you to this one as well:

http://espn.go.com/olympics/trackandfield/story/_/id/7091815/rob-sloan-disqualified-taking-bus-kielder-marathon

i feel like i've heard of people doing this before.

RM said...

Kris - I will have to check the timestamps. I actually began this post the other day but didn't complete it until just yesterday, but then I DID see your comment in the other post about the baby.

So I'm not discrediting you I'm just saying that we probably all heard the same story at the same time. How did you hear about yours, Pony Express? Telegram? Morse Code?

HOW ABOUT THIS:

Allegedly on the internet website Slowtwitch.com, a person admitted to cheating at IRONMAN HAWAII. He said he couldn't live with himself and had to come clean. At one part of the run, athletes go into the "Natural Energy Lab" and it's a harrowing 6 miles of running. He wanted to drop out and was about to when he saw his parents, and couldn't do it. So he put his chip back on, pretended like he had just run the whole thing, and kept going to finish. How other people didn't see this go on is beyond me, but whatever.

alyssa said...

page 5 of this thread has his admittance...
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Should_this_be_a_DQ_or_DNF_at_Kona_P3578365-5

Dart said...

Don't pull a Rosie Ruiz