Blog

NYC Marathon and Olympic Trials

It’s marathon week here in New York City. And this year, New York has a special treat – the Men’s Olympic Trials are taking place in the City on Saturday morning. So, Saturday morning, 130 of the top U.S. men’s marathon runners will be racing in Central Park and then Sunday morning, 35,000+ marathon hopefuls will be racing throughout the five boroughs. I’m planning to head out and watch and cheer at both.

Running in the Marathon Kick Off last Sunday, seeing the posters in Subway and seeing messages on the various internet message boards has gotten me pretty excited for the weekend. I’ve been thinking back a little on my race last year and still can’t get over how much fun it was (at least how much fun the first 20 miles were!). It’s been a pretty exciting 12 months for me athletically – if I’m counting correctly, I raced 1 marathon, 1 Ironman, 1 half-ironman, 3 half marathons, 2 Olympic distance triathlons, 1 duathlon, 2 10-mile races and a few shorter races. I set PR after PR and have had a ton of fun doing it. And as you know, my 2007 race season isn’t over just yet!

This morning I met up with Ron and we ran laps around Washington Square Park. It’s a half mile around the Park and normally a pretty boring run, but Ron and I had a lot to catch up on, so the laps flew by. We did the same run almost exactly a year ago (I think last year it was on the Wednesday before the marathon) as we were both finishing our marathon tapers. Neither of us are running this year, but it was still great to run with him.

This afternoon, I walked up to the Javits Center to check out the marathon expo. They normally have some pretty good deals on running clothes and gear and the shoe companies show off their 2008 models. I was a bit underwhelmed. I think I got my expectations up a little too high – there were plenty of booths and all of the major shoe companies were there; I just wasn’t that impressed with the selection of what was being sold. I did stop by the Mizuno booth to talk to them about the new Rider 11’s. I don’t know if I’ve gone into it much here, but I love the Mizuno Rider 9. I’ve been wearing it for nearly two years now. When they came out with the Rider 10 last year, I gave it a try, but hated it – they’d made some changes to the shape and it wasn’t as comfortable and actually caused me some knee pain. So, I spent considerable effort finding as many pairs of size 11 Rider 9s as I could. I found a bunch, but I think the supply is now exhausted. I have two more unworn pairs, which should carry me through into early 2008. But then I’m going to have to find a new shoe. I talked to a really nice guy at the Mizuno booth and tried on the Rider 11’s, which officially come out in January. They felt pretty good, but I’m not going to get my hopes up until they’re out and I can I try them on a treadmill. I talked with the Mizuno rep for a little bit – he was a sick runner in the 70’s. Ran at Oregon with Pre, ran in the Olympic Trials in 1972 (or 1976) with Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers and was a consistent top 10-20 finisher at marathons. Pretty cool stuff for a running nerd.

Watching the marathon this weekend should be a blast – I’m looking forward to giving back a little bit of that energy that I got from the crowds last year. I actually don’t know that many people running this year. I think we’ll station ourselves in Brooklyn. The marathon will be great, but I’m really looking forward to watching the trials – I’ve actually never seen pro marathoners racing in person, and this should be some of the best of the best. They start at Rockefeller Center, make their way through Times Square to the Park and then run five laps around the Park (they skip Harlem Hill each time and the first time around they cut through at 72nd street, making it one 4-mile loop and four 5-mile loops – more info and a link to a map is here. It should be very exciting to watch. I’ll have to decide who to root for – Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi come to mind right now, but they’re easy favorites, I need to find a dark-horse. One guy I know I’ll be following is Adam Goucher. He was one of the “stars” of Running with the Buffaloes, a fantastic book written by a guy who spent a season following the University of Colorado Buffaloes cross country team. At the time, Goucher was a student and already a stud. He’s not one of the highlighted names or favorites in the trials (his best distances are 10K and shorter), but he is trained by Alberto Salazar in Oregon and has a strong resume. Ron works down the hall from Karl Dusen, so I’ll be on the lookout for him as well.

Run – November 1
Distance: 3.6 miles
Time: 31 minutes
Average heart rate: 129
Course: Washington Square Park
Conditions: Partly cloudy and comfortable (mid-50s)