Marathon News, Thursday Circuits

I worked out today but before I write about that, I want to discuss several marathon races that happened recently.

First, congratulations to Ken, Randy, Keith, and Greg for their finishes in the Towpath Marathon and Half Marathon last weekend. Ken finished in the top 3 in his age group for the half-marathon. Randy, Keith, and Greg all finished in the top 10 in their respective age groups, Randy in the half and Keith and Greg in the full marathon. It was a wickedly hot day, congratulations on the effort even if the time wasn't what you were hoping for. The Towpath marathon had 380 finishers this year.

Meanwhile, about 350 miles to the west, similarly oppressive heat plagued one of the world's largest marathons, the Chicago Marathon. I expect most of you have heard about it already. The temperature there was in the high 80's. One runner died, several more were hospitalized, and the race was actually called off around 3 hours.

Any runners still on the course were advised to stop and walk. I don't know all the details about how they collected the runners, but this must have been a difficult decision for the race organizers. This story quotes several runners who claim that there wasn't enough water on the course. The heat, and how it affected the non-elite runners, is an even bigger story than the fact that the first 2 runners in the race finished just 0.05 seconds apart.

Finally, on a lighter note, this story I found on CNN describes how Roberto Madrazo, a Mexican politician, won his age group in the 2007 Berlin Marathon. Madrazo, age 55, crossed the line in an amazing time of 2:41. Race photographers also noticed that he was dressed differently than the other runners near him, wearing a jacket, hat, and long running pants.

Race organizers then reviewed his computer-chip times to see when he passed various checkpoints and discovered that he covered 9 miles in just 21 minutes. They promptly disqualified him for cheating!

Now for today's workout. I went to Circuits Class, led by Matt. Today was strange in that there were just 8 of us in the class, all men. It was a good class and I think now that it is fall, I will start going to Circuits on a more regular basis.

Weight = 187 lbs.