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Lead Stories: Friday, August 29, 2008

Jon Rankin:
A Letter to the Goddess of Victory: Falling In-Love
(Elite Athlete Blog - Entry #3)

Posted January 2nd, 2008 at 4:00 PM by Jon Rankin

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Elite Athlete Blogs, Jon Rankin

Welcome to the official blog of rising U.S. track & field star
Jon Rankin; the inaugural member of TheFinalSprint.com’s
Elite Athlete Blog Series. Make sure to check back every other Wednesday for Jon’s latest entry.

I assume you heard it at least one hundred times already, so bear with me as I say it to you one more time:
‘Happy New Year!’ to all of you.

In this entry I will be sharing a letter from my newly minted journal. It’s a letter that describes how I feel about the sport that I play (I want to achieve all that I’m capable of achieving) and also, a girl that has helped re-ignite my passion for life—a passion that I thought only existed in dreams before she won my heart.

I write this letter and will write any subsequent letters to a Goddess known as Victory. In these letters I personify the word victory because in sports victory and the idea of victory is talked about so much that it sounds like it’s something tangible, something that can be touched; and sometimes, even someone that is real. Victory is unique because the concept behind victory and what it really is goes beyond finishing first. I’ve gained a greater sense for the broadness of the definition and meaning of the word from a mentor of mine, Mebrahtom (”Meb”) Keflezighi who tells all that he meets: “RUN TO WIN.”

The interesting thing about his mantra is that it sounds like he is saying run to get first place, and that’s all. But what he is really saying is that you must run in such a way that you’re always giving your best. If you can do this then you’re truly “running to win.”
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Happy New Year from TFS!

Posted January 1st, 2008 at 5:00 PM by Adam Jacobs

Section: Announcements

On behalf of the entire TheFinalSprint.com and the TFS Media Network family, have a happy and healthy New Year!

We can’t thank you enough for all of your loyal support and wish you and yours all the best in 2008!

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Douma-Hussar, Slattery to Celebrate the Countdown to 2008 at the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in Central Park

Posted December 30th, 2007 at 2:00 PM by Hariz Siddiqui

Section: News & Results, Road Racing

Canadian Olympian Carmen Douma-Hussar, Americans Steve and Sara Slattery and defending champions Thomas Morgan and Aziza Aliyu lead a competitive professional field that will ring in the New Year at the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run on Monday, December 31 in Central Park, it was announced by New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg.

As a special companion to this year’s event, more than 200 service members stationed in Al Asad, Iraq, will run their own version of the Midnight Run at the stroke of midnight - an eight-hour time difference from New York. This is the first time NYRR has staged this race outside New York. The idea came from Staff Sergeant Jacqueline Caputi of San Diego, who ran in the Midnight Run in 2000 when she lived in Brooklyn and saw it as one of the best ways to start the New Year “with new shoes and fresh soles” underneath her.
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