I hope the summer is going well for you! For those running fall races, training is most certainly in high gear. Depending on where you are, that might mean some pretty hard running in the heat.
Here are some running stories that I found interesting for the weekend.
Man Offered $100,000 To Run A 3:11 Marathon
This story goes back to the Boston Marathon. A runner that participated attracted a lot of attention when he wrote a letter to his kids’ principal in response to the school not giving his kids a pass from school to go to see their dad run the Boston Marathon.
After that went viral, people began to zero in on his times in the marathon and his qualifying time for Boston – 3:11. They began to check out his past races, his training runs as catalogued on his blog and came to the conclusion that he must have cheated to get his qualifying time. That caused more uproar but the qualifying marathon did not erase his results without having more evidence.
But, LetsRun.com, which has a forum that did a lot of the talking about this situation, ran some numbers and came the conclusion that the man running a 3:11 marathon was not possible and they are betting $100,000 that they are right. They have challenged him to run that time in the next 12 months. If he can, they will give him $100,000. If he can run a marathon under 3:25, a 10 miler in 70 minutes, or a 5K in 20 minutes, they will give him $10,000 (if he does it before the end of 2015).
HT: Runner’s World
A Man Runs His 1,500th Marathon
An attorney from Texas who has only been running marathons since he was 54 just completed his 1,500th marathon! He ran 255 marathons in 2013 so he has a habit of racking them up in a big way! That is very impressive for sure.
Check out more of the story in this post on Runner’s World.
Scott Jurek Sets Applachian Trail Record
With just hours to spare, the last event of ultra legend Scott Jurek’s career was setting a speed, support Applachian Trail record.
It is really incredible to read his account of what he went through to get this done. He had some serious physical issues he dealt with and he still pulled it out and set this record. The new record is 46 days, 8 hours, and 7 minutes. Check out the story here.
Badwater 135 Next Week, But With Night Start
After last year’s rule changes for parks like Death Valley and the competitive events that are run in them, the brutal Badwater 135 mile ultra marathon had to be shifted. The race will still start from Badwater, below sea level, and go through Death Valley, but the race starts at night.
It will still have 3 waves – 8PM, 9:30PM, and 11PM, but they will need to be above 2,000 feet above sea level by 10AM. Follow along the race as these great runners head off starting Tuesday night, July 28th. Here is the website. You can also read my account about crewing for this awesome event and other posts here.
Summary
If you are racing or training this weekend, stay safe and have fun!
