Posts Tagged ‘boston marathon’

Boston Police Investigate Crime of the Century

At about Mile 22 of the Boston Marathon, Boston College student Brendan Quinn, who was watching the race, apparently vaulted over the barricade and ran into a crowd of runners, knocking one woman to the ground. Quinn kept running, evidently intent on reaching a friend who was in the race. His victim was helped to her feet, after which she seems to have carried on and completed the marathon. Quinn was apprehended by police and charged with disorderly conduct and disrupting an assembly. Police said while Quinn “was not trying to hurt anyone, his motive is not the issue.”

Amazingly, this incident led to stories in both the Boston Globe and Boston Herald and not one, not two, not three, but four lengthy video reports on the local TV news. Then Competitor picked it up. The police want to talk to the woman runner to see if she wants to file additional charges, but they can’t find her. She’s described as a “white female in her mid- to late thirties, with a slim build, dark colored hair and a dark colored outfit.”

That narrows it down to about 2,000 runners.

Not to diminish what happened to the woman, but really. How many people get knocked down by other runners during the Boston Marathon? Runners are always vulnerable to crazed spectators, but let’s face it, by Mile 22 spectators are vulnerable to crazed runners suffering from hypoglycemic rage.

Anyway, it seems media time and space would be better devoted to less trivial issues, such as, what is up with the Red Sox?

UPDATE: She’s OK! Read about it here. And here. And here.

Is It Hopeless for American Marathoners?

Ryan Hall ran a sub-2:05 marathon today and didn’t even end up on the podium.

You Will Be Assimilated

I don’t why everyone is up in arms about the new Boston Marathon qualifying times. After all, it won’t be long before there will be a completely different set of qualifying times just for human beings.

Don’t scoff. I’ve seen runners with worse form.

Wall Street Journal Looks to Cheese Off More Runners

I guess the hate mail from “America’s runners have never been slower, fatter or more out of shape” was starting to peter out, so yesterday’s Wall Street Journal decided to up the ante with “It’s Time for Women to Run Faster.”

The Wall Street Journal is a pay site, so I excerpt the relevant portion here:

The record demand for Boston slots has much to do with the exploding popularity of marathons in the U.S.: The 10% growth in participation last year was the largest spurt in 25 years. The number of runners who qualify for Boston now far exceeds the available places (excluding about 5,000 spots reserved for charity runners).

But there’s another possible reason for the surging demand—one that has the potential to kick up a fair amount of controversy. It’s the notion that the qualifying standards for women are too soft.

By all accounts, the running boom is being fueled by women more than men. Women made up 42% of finishers in the 2010 Boston race—a proportion that is higher than the percentage of all U.S. marathoners who are women. But according to gender rules instituted in 1977, the marathon times women need to post to qualify for Boston are 30 minutes slower than the times the men in the same age group have to run. The problem: There’s no evidence that women really need that much extra time.

The typical gap in major 2009 marathons between the world’s elite male and female runners was closer to 20 minutes than 30—and has been shrinking over time. For less-than-elite runners, these gaps have created some questionable benchmarks. To qualify for Boston, for instance, a man aged 50 to 54 has to have posted a time of 3:35 or better. But that time is five minutes faster than the time required for women 34 and younger. In a nutshell, to make Boston, a 54-year old man has to run faster than the nation’s youngest and fastest women.

Before you get too worked up, the Boston Marathon organizers have no plans to change the standards for anyone.

Comedy Police on Patrol

I’m swamped today, so I’ll have to postpone the Carnival of Running until tomorrow. My apologies.

In the meantime, I always hesitate to criticize funny running stories because I live in a glass house. If it’s no good, I just ignore it. But when noted chick-lit author Sophie Pollitt-Cohen writes a satiric column as Rosie Ruiz and it’s published by The Huffington Post, you’re forced to pay attention.

It could have been comedy gold, at least for runners, but it’s more of a cheat than Ruiz was. Here’s a paragraph:

“When I was asked to describe what I saw along the way, I said ‘beautiful countryside and lots of houses and churches.’ I’m not sure what the problem is. Clearly, I saw stuff. Is Boston not beautiful? Does it not have houses? Does it not have churches? If I had to list all of the things I saw along the way, you would be very tired indeed — almost as tired as if you had run the entire Boston Marathon like I did.”

Well, they can’t all be gems, Sophie. Better luck next time.

Boston Marathon TV Coverage: What You Missed

If you didn’t fork over $4.99 of your hard-earned wages to Universal Sports to view their exclusive (outside of Boston) coverage of the Boston Marathon, here’s what you missed:

* Larry Rawson’s annual monologue on the cost of living in Ethiopia.

* The revelation that the Ashland High School sports teams are called “The Clockers.”

* Al Trautwig announcing “Ryan Hall has been dropped!” 51 minutes into the race.

* Al Trautwig announcing “Ryan Hall has retaken the lead!” 56 minutes into the race.

* Rawson informing us that elite marathoners have resting heart rates of 40 to 48 beats per hour.

* Trautwig repeating several times that eventual female winner Teyba Erkesso made her break from the pack at mile 15, when she actually did it at mile 12.

* Trautwig repeating several times that Erkesso had a 2:01 lead over second-place runner Tatyana Pushkareva – the last time just as Pushkareva appeared in the same camera shot as Erkesso.

* A graphic that showed Pushkareva had made up 1:26 on Erkesso in the space of one mile – which clearly did not happen.

* Rawson saying that Pushkareva’s leg turnover was faster than Erkesso’s, to which Trautwig replied, “Erkesso’s is bump-bump-bump, while Pushkareva’s is bump-bump-bump-bump-bump.”

If you did fork over $4.99 of your hard-earned wages to Universal Sports to view their exclusive (outside of Boston) coverage of the Boston Marathon, here’s what you missed:

* The names of most of the contenders.

* Mile splits of anyone other than the male and female leader.

* Accurate and timely mile splits of the male and female leader.

* Any information prior to the last half-mile that Cheruiyot was running a course record pace – by a lot.

* What mile the runners were on.

* Virtually every surge and breakout – particularly in the men’s race.

* The sense that Trautwig, Rawson, the producers, the director and Universal Sports cared enough about the broadcast to at least cover the fundamentals properly – who’s ahead, by how much, how far in, and who’s gaining.

I realize this is a pretty harsh assessment, but others share it (see Pre’s Mustache or the Let’s Run message thread). But after last year’s putrid coverage, it appears the only change Universal Sports made was to start charging a fee for it.

Video is so ubiquitous now you need only place a few dozen people with cell phones along the route, couple it with some insightful expert commentary, put it on the web and charge $3.00 for it, and your worst effort would still be an improvement over what we have now. Where are my capitalists?

Valerie Bertinelli Finishes Boston Marathon in 5:14:37 (Swimsuit Photo Added)

She went out a little too fast, but her 5k splits ended up pretty steady at around 38-39 minutes each.

5k – 0:34:06

10k – 1:10:33

15k – 1:49:17

20k – 2:27:13

Half – 2:35:18

25k – (missing)

30k – 3:44:20

35k – 4:22:57

40k – (missing)

Finish – 5:14:37

And now, as promised (this one’s for you, Eastern Europe!), here is Ms. Bertinelli in a swimsuit:

Hubba hubba!