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Lead Stories: Friday, July 18, 2008

Mercedes-Benz Classic Mile Offers Car for Sub-4:00 Winner

Posted April 27th, 2008 at 9:30 AM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

The fifth annual Mercedes-Benz Classic Mile will be held once again at Cambridge’s Galt Collegiate Institute in Ontario, Canada, on Saturday June 14, and a brand new Mercedes B200 sedan awaits the winner of the men’s invitational heat should he break the four-minute barrier.

That’s not as easy as it sounds because the track at Galt is made of crushed brick and is not nearly as fast as today’s synthetic surfaces. In 2005 Kenya’s Laban Rotich recorded 3:58.9 to win a car.
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Registration for the U.S. Olympic Women’s Marathon Trials to Open Friday

Posted October 4th, 2007 at 7:30 PM by Jeanie Rebb

Section: News & Results, Marathons, Olympics

USA Track & Field and the Boston Athletic Association have announced that registration for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials-Women’s Marathon will open tomorrow, Friday, October 5. The event will be held on April 20, 2008 on a unique multi-loop course through downtown Boston and Cambridge.

To enter the Olympic Trials, women must first qualify. The event’s “A” standard is 2:39:00, while the “B” standards are 2:47:00 in the marathon or 33:00.00 in the 10,000 meters. The qualifying standards must be met from January 1, 2006 through March 23, 2008 or at the 2005 USA Marathon Championships (October 2, 2005).

Currently 127 women have qualified for the Olympic Trials, with 16 having met the “A” standard. Among the qualifiers are Joan Samuelson (1984 Olympic Trials champion and 1984 Olympic marathon gold medalist), Colleen De Reuck (defending U.S. Olympic Trials champion), and Deena Kastor (2004 Olympic bronze medalist).
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True joins sub-4:00 club

Posted June 18th, 2007 at 12:40 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field

Ben True became the latest American to break the four-minute barrier for the mile, clocking 3:59.99 at the USATF New England Outdoor Championships held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. over the weekend.

True, who attended Greeley High School in Maine before embarking on his collegiate career at Dartmouth College in 2004, finished 28/100ths of a second ahead of Georgetown University’s Matt Debole. True’s previous best was 4:02.61 set last April.
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Top running routes in Boston

Posted June 13th, 2007 at 4:15 PM by Warwick Ford

Section: Running & Training, Columns, Fun on Foot

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 city of the young (the region is host to way more than its fair share of the nation’s top colleges) and the young at heart. This makes it a dream city for running, jogging, or walking. There is a massive foot-mobile population, so if you feel like a jog almost anywhere here you will rarely feel out of place.

However, wise choice of route always makes a run or jog more enjoyable and easier to embark upon and finish. For a training or recreational route to be motivating and enjoyable, the Fun on Foot model says it needs to have four attributes: Comfort from both the safety and underfoot perspective; Attractions to make it interesting; Convenience to city center and public transit; and a worthy Destination to help motivate you to finish the route.

In “Fun on Foot in New England” we applied this model to Greater Boston and came up with 13 excellent routes. Narrowing this down, here are the very best routes that are just too good for any outdoor exerciser to miss:
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Sub-4:00 mile worth new Mercedes in Cambridge

Posted May 16th, 2007 at 1:20 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results

The winning miler who breaks four minutes on the crushed brick track of Galt Collegiate Institute in Cambridge, Ontario, next month will drive away with a new Mercedes sedan, organizers announced yesterday.

The 2007 Mercedes-Benz Classic Mile, scheduled for Saturday, June 16, is offering a Mercedes B200 sedan should the winner crack the four minute barrier, a feat accomplished two years ago by Kenyan Laban Rotich who established the meet record of 3:58.9.
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