Tuesday News and Notes

Our weekly look at internet running minutia...with links!

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The funloving folks of the Kimbia Madison Olympic Development Track Project Club (I assume that's their offical name) have decided to put on their own little 1500m race in their own little town on their own little track tonight (7/15) at 9pm. Just a few small town boys (including Matt Tegenkamp, Chris Solinsky, John Riley, and Sean Quigley) trying to put on a show for the beer swilling, cheddar sweating, fireworks lighting locals. I like this a lot. A send off, of sorts, to Europe. Plus, the Madisonites will love it. There's nothing midwesterners love more than standing outside together and looking at something on a muggy summer night.

My money is on Solinsky. But, don't worry about his psyche if he loses, he has already seen bitter dissappointment and shame rear its ugly, helmeted head.
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The Olympic Track team was named! Not exactly Selection Sunday excitement over here, eh? Kind of anticlimactic, huh? Already watched a litttle thing called the trials, right? Wrong. It's time to get pumped. 8/8/08. Here we come China, and all that.

Of note on the list:
+The always-willing-to-say-the-'f'-word-on-camera-so-that-little-boys-and-girls-can-giggle-themselves-to-death-javelin-thrower Breaux Greer made the team despite an injury riddled end to his Trials experience.
+Only event that could not fill the three slots due to lack of three 'A' standards? Hammer Throw. It's a sad day for our nation's proud Blacksmithing tradition.
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You will be interested in this if you are either a 15 year old trying to make the top 7 or your looking forward to the point where the ghost of Steve Prefontaine BECOMES competitive distance running in America. Kind of like how "Coke" stands for all soda-pop and "Kleenex" stands for all tissues.

Sample sentence: "I was thinking about going out for a 30 minute Prefontaine, but then realized my ovaries hurt" or "Hey Grandma, can I borrow your Springsteen 'Born to Steve' album? I'm doing a class project."
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--www.Lets-Krong.com over and done with? Nah. I've seen this before.
--The Summer Olympics are great because, if for no other reason, they inspire stuff like this.
--Charles Barkley's golf game is like a...a...a...blog? Other things Chuck thinks are like blogs: Alan Webb's race schedule. Galen Rupp's nose strip. Larry Rawson.

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What They Didn't Tell You: Pre Classic

Pre Weekend, which also had action someplace in Europe, plus the Boston High Performance Meet and the Saturn Grand Championships or something like that. Shall we?

First off, what they didn't tell you is NOT that I cleaned up in the Pick-N-Win contest. In fact, I've been downright insufferable about that. I'm sorry. I will stop now. I promise.

What they didn't tell you this weekend during the Pre telecast is that, up in Eugene, there is this place called Pre's Rock... Wait, that was also a thing that they didn't not tell you.

Luke Puskedra -- a HS runner -- got to run the 2-mile at Pre in attempt to break Jeff Nelson's National Prep record... and ended up dead last and a half a minute back from the winners. He tried his best, and he failed miserably. The lesson is, Don't try.

There was a Saturn Meet this weekend, but what they didn't tell you was what the time adjustment for altitude is on Saturn. Thanks, I'll show myself out now.

Bislett was late last week, and what they may not have told you is that, frankly, it got housed by the Pre Meet in terms of quality. I mean, the so-called "Dream Mile" was won by a British guy. Ooooooh, wait! Now I get it! "Dream Mile"....

Finally, what they didn't tell you was that we've got something of an announcement coming later this week. Stay tuned.

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Sam Bair: Delaying Inevitable?

Once again, Sam Bair: agonizingly close to breaking 4:00 for the mile. Among his attempts are now a 4:00.16, 4:00.14, 4:00.99, and 4:00.87. But don't despair, Sammy. You're hardly the first person to come achingly close to something. Let's take a look at some other great near misses in history...

Paul Tergat - Sydney 10.000m, 2000. Missed gold by 9 one-hundredths of the second. Looking at it another way, that's .09. Honestly... he couldn't have run even just one stride a little faster?




Steve Prefontaine - Munich 5.000m, 1972. Missed medaling by just .64 seconds. To think... so close to running immortality. Instead, he will be swept aside by history as merely an also-ran.




Dave Moorcroft & Great Britain - Oslo 5.000m, 1953. Clocked 13:00.41, which would stand as his PB and National Record. Think about it: By coming up less than a half-second shy of breaking 13-minutes, Moorcroft disappointed not only himself, but an entire nation, which has, to date, failed to produce anyone capable of running under 13. By comparison, you only let down your Dad.

Boston Red Sox - World Series, 1986. Nice try, Red Sox.









Jonah Freudiger - Nicole Farnsworth's Party, 1991. In an impromptu game of Spin-the-Bottle, the bottle stops just 2 inches short -- 1.2 degrees, by Jonah's rough calculations -- of delivering Jonah's first kiss unto him. To date, Jonah has failed to, well... has failed to date.






So cheer up, Sam. Jonah may never have gotten that first kiss, but the Red Sox eventually won another World Series, Tergat got a world record, and Pre came back to the Olympics in 1976 to rectify the....

...shit.

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