Michigan Runner

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Running Shorts with Scott Hubbard By Scott Hubbard Trivia: What’s the record for a marathon run on an indoor track? SUM SUMMER. The summer of 2004 didn’t contain more than the usual number of highlights, but Scott Hubbard the usual are worth sharing. An overabundance of spring rain didn’t affect how much running and cycling I got in, but man, trails were a mess, and when they dried out the wellfed foliage made passage unpleasant. Flooding forced me from some places, and on many slopes sand and dirt flowed to the bottom, creating washouts, exposing roots and stones, making mountain biking a chore. Floods recede, sand remains. With all the liquid sunshine we received, I feared the worst about bugs in the woods. I prepared by buying a sure-fire bug repellent. I sprayed some on after my first run shooing bugs, sniffed the stuff and thought, “Geez, if Mark told me the first-timers would look up to me. They saw through me in a hurry, but continued to think highly of Pat Fizell, Eric Jones and Mark. “Think about volunteering to be a Crim trainer. It’s a very rewarding experience. This year 780 people went through the program. There could’ve been more but for a lack of trainers. Guaranteed, you’ll enjoy it.” Michigan lost a good man this summer and reclaimed another. In the September/ October Michigan Runner, Tom Henderson said a lot of nice and deserved things about Jim Ramsey, who died in July. I’m lucky my path crossed Jim’s regularly in the 1980s and early ’90s. He was humble to a fault, not shy about offering opinions, and his enthusiasm for running and life were contagious. At the end of my job as Detroit Free Press Marathon announcer in ’98, I drove out on the course to find Jim, who was reported still on the move at age 90. I found him at mile 23, walking with a female entrant. Knowing they were drawing strength from each other, I drove on confident they would finish. Jim was a determined, compassionate man. May he rest in peace. And so on. I know this is a running magazine but, friends, let’s give it up for Lance Armstrong. With his sixth-straight TDF win, he is without peer: an extraordinary, focused man whose quest was covered expertly on the Outdoor Life Network. The signature event of the Olympic Games, the marathon, has been held too often the past 20 years in the worst weather possible. “Credit” the big money television desires. The heat for both men’s and women’s marathons in Athens was unsafe for competition, according to medical professionals. Weather had too much to do with how the events played out, and we are likely to see replays in the future. There’s something very wrong with that picture. Moving on to the good news, Americans Deena Kastor won Olympic bronze and Meb Keflezighi silver in the marathon. Each had won their respective U.S. Olympic Trials 10,000-meter track races, yet chose to focus on the longer race they had qualified for. The results are evidence of their preparation and race plans executed perfectly. Each hurried slowly, showing serious patience. Kastor drifted furthest from the leaders, but both ran steadily and finished with negative splits, doing their “Becoming a Crim trainer was one of the best things to happen to me. When our training group started, many couldn’t run a mile without stopping. Now they ran the Crim.” -- Bill Kehoe the smell doesn’t get ’em, it will me.” Think it worked OK. Forgot it next time and didn’t realize until finished how bug-free the run was. Fine by me. Must admit I didn’t run the trails in July. Still, the bugs didn't seem as bad as in past years. I can't explain the relative lack of insect hell, but wonder if the mild weather was a factor. The unusually-mild weather did little for the beach crowd but was welcomed by outdoor endurance athletes. Hot days were rare and humidity tolerable for the most part, with Crim race morning an exception. The half-hour delay in Flint due to hazardous weather was an easy and wise decision. An unsolicited-but-welcome e-mail from Bill Kehoe, forwarded to me, deserves a look here. “In spring, Mark Bauman asked me to be a Crim trainer. I declined, because Crim training is done at 6 p.m. Tuesdays and I run in the morn. Later, I decided that was a selfish excuse for not helping people who want to do what I truly enjoy — run. I told Mark I’d volunteer. “Becoming a Crim trainer was one of the best things to happen to me. When our training group started, many couldn’t run a mile without stopping. Now they ran the Crim. Michigan State University did the right thing hiring Walt Drenth as head men’s cross country and assistant men’s track coach in August. Walt, one of an overactive Charlevoix running family, developed his mentoring and coaching skills in Michigan, including a stint at Central Michigan University, before going to William & Mary and, recently, Arizona State University. Positive results have followed, and the Spartans are in capable hands. The worn phrase, “Good things happen to good people,” applies to my old friend. It’s great to have Walt and family back in Michigan. Itotaled up my summer cycling miles and thought, “Dang, it took me three months to cover as many miles as Tour de France riders did in three weeks!” Those guys are aerobic anomalies capable of unnatural things. I kid, of course, except so few can handle the discomforting training load. I finished the Black Bear 100-mile cycling race between Grayling and Oscoda on the Tour de France’s last day in 4:45, a decent time, and assure you I couldn’t have gone near as fast or far the next day, or the day after that. second halves four minutes faster their firsts. When I watched them move into medal contention, I got excited. As Kastor eased into third in the final mile, I willed her onto the track. Somehow, improbably, yet too cool for fiction, Deena didn’t know she was third until she reached the stadium. Imagine her emotions. Yes, I shed a tear with her in the last straight. Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima was leading the men’s race by 25 seconds at 22 miles when he was accosted by a nutcase, knocking him to the roadside for anxious seconds. deLima recovered to finish a happy third, but his rhythm was hampered; we’ll never know if he could have held off hard-charging Stefano Baldini of Italy, the eventual gold-medal winner, and Meb. The latter two would have medaled anyway, but who knows in what order they would have finished. Although Meb’s and Deena’s efforts don’t necessarily herald a resurgence in U.S. distance running, we can be darn proud of their accomplishments! Answer: Johnny Nylon ran a 2:28:09 in Goteborg, Sweden, Jan. 27, 1979. I’m not aware of the women’s record. MR 10 N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 4
The Price of Knowing Too Much By Greg Janicki Last Christmas I got a GPS running watch. It could do it all: measure heart rate, pace, average speed, cumulative distance ... quite impressive. So impressive it sat in the box three months before I had the nerve to read the instructions. No, it wasn’t because the user manual was thicker than a Brides magazine in June (but close). And no, it wasn’t because I possess the technological dexterity of a paper clip (although I do). It collected dust for 41 runs because I was scared. Scared of what I might learn from it: that I’m not as fast as I used to be. Since high school, I had guesstimated my running distances using pace as a guide. This method proved fairly accurate as measured by my car odometer — for runs that paralleled roads. Unfortunately, the baseline I used was set 25 years ago. What my mind (but not body) had forgotten is that while a certain pace feels the same as it did two decades ago, it may not actually be the same. Moreover, I was miles removed from the mapped courses of my youth, and now ran on bucolic (but not easily-measured) bike paths. Was I really running as far and as fast as I thought? Eventually the guilt of having an unused high-tech gadget got to me, especially since it was a gift. I also grew tired of friends and family asking about the watch, only to hear me invent different reasons why it still sat in the box — “Oh, I don’t monitor my training during the winter” ... “The satellites are down till the summer solstice” ... “I’ve given up running.” Each excuse was lamer than the one before. It got to a point I was risking receiving any future running-related gifts from relatives. I had to act. So I pulled the watch and GPS unit out of the box and read the manual, read the manual, then then read the manual again. The more I read, the more excited I got. Split times, tempo training, max heart-rate monitoring were now all within my grasp. My fear of learning something about my training gave way to the potential of learning something about my training. Giddily I strapped on the device for its maiden voyage, and waited as the watch and petite-sized GPS unit snugly strapped to an elastic belt around my waist synced with the satellite orbiting somewhere above my West Bloomfield, Mich. home. With the blinking green light from the unit signaling all was a- go, I strode off, eagerly eyeing the watch’s face, nearly tripping as I drifted off the sidewalk onto the lawn. The watch’s face counted up and down and around a variety of numbers — I felt like NASA ground control. For the next 35 minutes the nearly-instantaneous pace calculation settled on a range of numbers, sometimes excitingly-familiar numbers; sometimes sadly strange ones. In the end I learned one thing, the thing I feared: I am slower than I used to be. The good news is now I can easily call on this cool new toy to provide precise pace, speed and distance — all the things a serious runner needs to know. And for that reason, sometimes I leave it home. MR 11
Page 2: M1050 Men’s high-mileage trainer.
Page 5: ©2004 REEBOK INTERNATIONAL LTD. AL
Page 8 and 9: Running for Office Photo by Carter
Page 10 and 11: ‘Hard Sell’ Shines at Rain Dela
Page 14 and 15: Photo by Don Kern One man, 10,000 m
Page 16 and 17: Olympic Games 2004 Profiles of Mich
Page 18 and 19: Veteran Sullivan’s Games End Earl
Page 20 and 21: Photo courtesy of Scotiabank Toront
Page 22 and 23: Spenco 1/3 - Michigan 8/5/04 4:50 P
Page 24 and 25: Hidden Forest Trail Run Celebrating
Page 26 and 27: November 2004 - January 2005 Event
Page 28 and 29: Running with Tom Henderson Photo by
Page 30: 28 N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E

Michigan Runner

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