Massage with the Tiger this am then out with a decent sized group of LC, Big Sam, Jonathan W, Laura, King James, Todd, Russell and a few others for the usual double Centennial Wednesday route. Sunny and warm today. Sweated buckets out there but a very easy pace so not too tough on the fragile body.
All up 18.35km in 1:26:13 (4:42's).
But, big news of the day and one which all loyal readers will be very excited about is the announcement of a new blog! It promises to be more interesting than Kanser's, more frequent than Enda's, less French than Jamie's and have fewer spelling mistakes than Timmy's. It is Fats' Blog. Better still, he's agreed to run under the HuRT Squad team for Six Foot, so we have a chance of beating Gramps' Army this year.
Finally, here is quote from an article announcing the probables for the Kenyan Olympic marathon squad:
“Arriving at the names was not easy since 150 men and 50 women made the A-Standard qualifications," AK chief and IAAF Council Member Isaiah Kiplagat told a packed press conference. "Selectors looked at consistency, the ability to win without pace making, discipline and commitment to represent the country when deciding the names.”
150!!
7 comments:
How about Martin Keino's suggestion of a US style Kenyan Olympic Marathon Trial. That'd probably make the Olympic Marathon fairly redundant, like a tennis or soccer Gold Medal vs a Grand Slam title or World Cup. Unbelievable depth, I'd love to see that race!
How many Australians made the standard ?
Amazing to think that Geoffrey Mutai cant make the A team. He ran the fastest marathon ever in Boston. Also Wilson Kipsang has a PB 4 seconds off the world record and he is also a reserve.
Jamie, 3 men have made the IAAF standard (2:15) - those in the link below and I think Shawn Forrest ran 2:14 in Houston at the weekend. Problem is that Athletics Australia sets a tougher standard of 2:12, with only Shelley having achieved it (twice) in the qualifying period.
http://www.insideathletics.com.au/rankings/olympic_m_26dec11.pdf
2 women have, Lisa Weightman and Benita Willis have both recently run 2:28.
James - from the science of sport:
"Perhaps the most remarkable statistic was this one - 70 Kenyans ran faster over the marathon than the fastest European athlete. That was Oleksandr Sitkovskyy, a Ukranian who ran 2:09:26. Ryan Hall's officially recognized performance from Chicago (2:08:04) is the second-fastest of the year by a non-African (dos Santos being first)".
I'm not sure that's correct Charlie, I believe it's a provisional squad to be decided after London and Rotterdam.
Kirui WC 2009 and 2011 should be first selected, proven Championships racer who represented Kenya at World Champs rather than chase the $$$.
An so what is the conclusion? Is it genetic or just the quality (and quantity) of the training?
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