Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, the willowy Kenyan who overcame a childhood of destitution to become a three-time Boston Marathon champion and the inaugural World Marathon Majors points leader, is poised to win yet another Boston title on Monday. Can anyone stop him?
“Many people are here to win,” said the smiling Cheruiyot as he chatted with reporters yesterday in a fancy ballroom at the Copley Plaza Hotel. “But I don’t know what place I will be.”
Cheruiyot, who won here in 2003, 2006 and 2007 and set the course record of 2:07:14 with his second victory, is a solid favorite to collect his fourth Boston title on Monday.
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Some four years ago on a warmish day in St. Louis, Blake Russell was competing in the biggest race of her life, the 2004 USA Olympic Team Trials - Women’s Marathon. Right from the gun, she stepped on the gas, motoring through the first 10 km in a snappy 33:33. She quickly built a one minute lead on the field, including pre-race favorite Deena Kastor and eventual winner Colleen De Reuck.
“It was one of those things when I felt I was ready to really run fast,” Russell recalled today ahead of Sunday’s Marathon Trials where she is amongst the favorites for a podium finish and a spot on the U.S. Olympic marathon team in Beijing.
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Profile of Hansons-Brooks Distance Project
All five members of the Michigan-based Hansons-Brooks Distance Project women’s team have qualified for Sunday’s Olympic Marathon Trials in Boston. Dot McMahon, Melissa White, Yolanda Flamino, Desiree Davila and Lori Stich are profiled in an article on the Detroit Free Press website.
Read more at: [Detroit Free Press]
Polish Immigrant Will Run for 9/11 Victims at Trials
Magdalena Lewy, a Polish immigrant who became a naturalized US citizen on 9/11/01, the same day thousands of her compatriots were killed in a senseless act of terrorism, will run in honor of those Americans this Sunday as she tried to make the US Olympic Marathon Team. The assistant coach at Cal was profiled in an article on the San Francisco Chronicle website.
Read more at: [San Francisco Chronicle]
Emily LeVan Will Run Trials In Celebration Of Her Daughter
Three-year-old Madeline Johnson has Leukemia. Her mother, Emily LeVan, will be running the US Olympic Marathon Trials on Sunday in celebration of her special daughter.
Read more at: [Boston Herald]
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Of the last 17 editions of the Boston Marathon Kenyan men have won all but two, and defending champion and course record holder Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot has nabbed three of those titles. According to an announcement by John Hancock Financial yesterday, Cheruiyot could be headed for a fourth Boston crown, keeping Kenyan dominance alive at America’s oldest, still-contested marathon, founded in 1897.
Cheruiyot, the 2006/2007 World Marathon Majors champion who rebounded from extreme poverty and homelessness to become one of the world’s finest athletes, first won in Boston in 2003. He had since come back to win twice more in 2006 –when he broke Cosmas Ndeti’s 1994 course record– and again last year when he had to contend with sheets of blowing rain as a Nor’easter pounded Boston.
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Eleven years since an addiction to narcotic pain killers could have ended his life, Dick Beardsley is now a motivational speaker, coach and – once again – a competitive runner.
Beardsley, 51, grew up in Minnesota, but recently moved to Austin, Texas, where he and his wife, Jill, started the Dick Beardsley Foundation. The Foundation raises money for people with chemical dependencies and educates children and young adults about their health. Beardsley travels to schools to speak about his experiences with a drug addiction.
“I was really close to going to sleep one night and not waking up,” he said. Beardsley was regularly taking 80-90 pills every day by the time he was caught forging his prescription. “You do things you would never think about doing. All that mattered to me at the time was to get the drugs.”
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In its 23rd year as the principal sponsor of the
The blend of athletes with experience on the course and those new to the challenges of the hilly Hopkinton to Boston route should lead to a highly competitive race. Collectively the group has won 18 international marathons in the past three years and the top nine contenders have less than a three-minute differential in their personal best times. In addition, the athletes will be vying for a top Boston showing to secure a position on their country’s Olympic teams.
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Training for the Boston Marathon certainly provides runners with the experience of a lifetime and countless health benefits. Some even run fast enough to help improve the health of others.
The Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge (DFMC) team is looking for qualified runners who want to add a new dimension to their training by running for others as well as themselves. Runners who have run a qualifying time at a certified marathon after Sept. 23, 2006, can join the DFMC team and run to raise money that supports researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. These researchers have taken on another type of challenge: Curing Cancer.
Each Challenge runner agrees to raise at least $3000 by May 21, 2008, a sum that is easier to raise than most think. The average amount raised per runner in 2007 was more than $7000 and 100 percent of the money goes to the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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The executive director of the Boston Athletic Association, Guy Morse, announced to his staff today that he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. The B.A.A. is the not-for-profit organization which owns and manages the Boston Marathon and other athletics events.
“Clearly, we are fortunate to work and reside in the Boston area,” Mores wrote to his staff in an annual goodwill message. “On another, more personal level, this is even more evident to me as I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, as some of you are aware. After that surprise and several weeks of research and second opinions, I have now begun my own marathon of sorts, an aggressive six month treatment protocol under the direction of The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.”
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The Boston College men’s and women’s cross country teams will play host to the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships held at Franklin Park in Boston, Mass., on Sat. Nov. 10.
The men, who are ranked 13th in the Northeast bracket, will start competition at 2:30 p.m. They will race amongst other top-ranked squads including Iona (1), Providence (2), Syracuse (3), Cornell (4) and Columbia (5).
The Eagles turned in a 10th place finish at last year’s regional championship. Senior captain Patrick Mellea ran the course in 31:36.8, qualifying him for the NCAA Championship.
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A four-year working partnership between the Boston Athletic Association and the producers of the public television series NOVA will culminate with the premier of “Marathon Challenge” on Tuesday, October 30, at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT.
“Marathon Challenge,” produced by WGBH, Boston’s PBS affiliate, explores the transformation of 13 individuals as they train for the 2007 Boston Marathon. The one hour program, which explores the physiological changes that each runner undergoes during their training, culminates with the NOVA team’s participation in the 111th Boston Marathon on April 16, 2007.
The Boston Athletic Association granted NOVA access to the Boston Marathon and waived the qualifying standards for the NOVA cast, each of whom was making his or her marathon debut. Also, camera crews were permitted on certain parts of the Boston Marathon course during the race to document the progress of selected team members as they ran from Hopkinton to Boston.
Presented by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund and showcasing Boston and Brookline’s Emerald Necklace park system, the seventh annual B.A.A. Half Marathon will be held on October 7th.
Online registration for the event begins … RIGHT NOW (July 18th at 9:00am EST) … so hurry up and reserve your spot by visiting: bostonmarathon.org/HalfMarathon/Registration.asp
The […]
American women who have achieved the “B” standard of two hours and 47 minutes for next spring’s U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Women’s Marathon in Boston are being offered a special chance to advance to the “A” standard of 2:39:00 through a program announced here today by the New York Road Runners (NYRR).
The NYRR will […]
Warwick Ford is a guest contributor to The Final Sprint and author of “Fun on Foot in America’s Cities” and “Fun on Foot in New England,” the books that describe and map the best on-foot routes in U.S. cities. Check out FunOnFoot.com for more information and to purchase the book or maps.
Boston is a […]
Every week The Final Sprint’s team of music gurus posts a new, downloadable iMix on the site and in iTunes to help you stay motivated throughout all of your weekly runs and workouts.
However, in celebration of Monday’s Boston Marathon, Rick Jacobs has created “Journey to Boston…a Marathon” to keep you pumped up as […]
Every week The Final Sprint’s team of music gurus post a new, downloadable iMix on the site and in iTunes to help you stay motivated throughout all of your weekly runs and workouts.
FINISH STRONG iMix #2, created by Adam Jacobs, features the greatest collection of pump-up classic rock tunes ever assembled. Below […]
Jim Fortner is a weekly, guest contributor to TFS. Make sure to also check out his own personal running and advice site: “Jim2’s Running Page”.
In order to qualify for Boston, it is necessary to be able to do two things…..run long and run fast…..and both in the same race. The qualifying time for females under […]
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