Don't Mess With Pole Vaulters

Hat tip to Pole Vault Power.

Fearless Predictions for 2011

Rather than look back this week, I will look forward to the coming year of track and field and road running. Few realize I combine the powers of Nostradomus and Ed Glosser,Trivial Psychic. So on with the fearless predictions for 2011...

A previously undistinguished athlete will win a medal at an international championship, and then be surrounded by quite credible accusations of doping and/or questionable gender identity. S/he may or may not be found to be in violation of the rules. You can bank on this.

The London 2012 Organizing Committee will release a glaringly obvious promotional toy: the Paula Radcliffe bobblehead doll. Shockingly, it will be an even bigger bomb than the Brussels Sprouts Whopper.

Superfan Rankings Update: Women's Hurdles

Going over to the hurdles, let's see how the women stack up.

100m Hurdles
Rank Athlete NAT Pts
1 LoLo Jones USA 249
2 Priscilla Lopes-Schliep CAN 192
3 Perdita Felicien CAN 153
4 Damu Cherry USA 150
5 Queen Harrison USA 143
6 Carolin Nytra GER 128
7 Ginnie Crawford USA 119
7 Delloreen Ennis-London JAM 119
9 Kellie Wells USA 105
11 Danielle Carruthers USA 74
10 Vonette Dixon JAM 75
12 Tatyana Dektyarova RUS 60
12 Nevin Yanit TUR 60
15 Anay Tejeda CUB 52
14 Christina Vukicevic NOR 58
16 Ti'erra Brown USA 48
17 Tiffany Ofili USA 47
18 Kristi Castlin USA 40
19 Yvette Lewis USA 25
20 Eline Berings BEL 24
Jones does lose now and then, but not in the biggest races.

400m Hurdles

No Punchline Needed

They keep writing them like this and Jay Leno will be out of a job.

Track on Old Sitcoms

Tomorrow is the Bislett Games from Oslo, the third stop on the IAAF's Diamond League tour.  Tape-delay coverage begins at 8:00 PM on Universal Sports, should you be fortunate enough to have that channel available to you.

Right before the show begins, though, you'll have an opportunity to see more track. At 7:30, TV Land will show the episode of Sanford and Son in which Fred signs up for the decathlon in the Senior Olympics.

I've always liked Sanford and Son. While All in the Family was probably the greatest American sitcom ever made, it loses something in the translation. It's still funny, but it was very related to the time in which it was made. Sanford and Son, on the other hand, is a double anachronism: not only is it more than thirty-five years old, it was out of step with its time even back then. Fred, Grady, Bubba and especially Aunt Esther all didn't belong in the 70s, so it's a great show to watch in reruns.

This particular episode isn't the height of Redd Foxx's comedic abilities, but the scene where Grady bosses Fred around as his coach is some great physical humor. It's worth your thirty minutes.


Of course, the best treatment of track and field on old sitcoms comes to us in two parts from The Cosby Show.  In "Back to the Track, Jack" (1985), Cliff agrees to run in a masters' track meet to settle a decades-old dispute from a college mile relay race.  Trying to get back into shape leads to top-notch Bill Cosby old-man physical humor.  Another rematch is set in "Off to the Races" (1986), this time in the Penn Relays, in which both character Cliff Huxtable and actor Bill Cosby are caught by surprise when the opposing team is anchored by a ringer.  Both episodes feature Olympic medalist Josh Culbreath as Cliff's college rival, and and Larry "The Mighty Burner" James as a relay runner.

April Fool's Day

A roundup of the best April Fool's Day track articles...
S.C. runner ticketed for running too fast
President Obama Rips Ultra Successful Nike Oregon Project
Texas runner trains with cheetah
Athletics World Worried As Bolt Leaves Club Early
Oregon runners sprint to Idaho
Russian Officials Question Effectiveness Of Drug Doping
Indiana runner going to the dogs
UK Athletics And USATF Vow Never Again To Send Male Teams To IAAF World Cross-Country Championships
BAA Lowers Boston Marathon Qualifying Times

As usual, the Let's Run stuff is a bit more biting humor.

Climate Change Affects Olympics

No, really. Read on.

Race Walking Movie

Yes, I'm serious...sort of.

Race Walkers is a mockumentary about the elite American race walking brothers, Jeb and Joel Callahan. Coached by wheelchair ridden race walking great Chuck Kuel (who's sole claim to fame was qualifying for the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics), living in a trailer park with their mother in small town Golden, Colorado, and haunted by the legend of their Olympic qualifying deceased father, the boys must find a way to qualify for the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon or forever suffer the reality of small town failure and the perpetual scrutiny of the athletic world. Read more...

World premiere Sunday night at the Festivus Film Festival in Denver. Available on DVD from the creators.

Bad Running Movies

I'm a fan of so-bad-they're-good movies, such as Can't Stop The Music. If you do too, you may want to check out this discussion thread.

It sounds as though the one most up my alley is Courage, a sort of Deliverance with ultrarunners in the southwestern desert.

The Hilarity, The Hilarity

This is too precious. Sarah Palin did a Turkey Trot 5k yesterday in Kennewick WA. The Tri-City Herald reports:

Palin had announced on Twitter that she would be running the 5k race organized by the Benton-Franklin Chapter of the Red Cross. She didn't finish the race, opting to leave the course early to avoid more crowds at the end.

(emphasis added)

Wow. Somebody has a complete lack of self-awareness.

Guess I'm A Sports Dufus

ESPN's Page 2 has a column listing the 20 things that make you look like a sports dufus.

Sooner or later, every last one of us ends up looking like a sports doofus -- casting sound social judgment overboard, setting sail with the tempestuous winds of passionate fandom, dropping anchor in the murky waters of athletic-related behavior that comes across as utterly ridiculous.

And I'm guilty of one of them.

11. Running in a rainstorm

Dubious behavior: Lacing up your $100-plus ergonomic distance shoes, throwing on a sweat-wicking top and going for a long run in the pouring rain.

Doofus factor: Moderate. On one hand, it's hard to fault the dedication of someone willing to exercise in inclement weather, particularly when physical fitness helps ease the burden on our overtaxed health care system; on the other hand, there was only one Steve Prefontaine, and you're not exactly reducing health costs when you're subsequently hospitalized with severe bronchitis.

Suggested solution: One word: treadmill. Two more: indoor track.

Mitigating circumstances: Your local television weatherman meteorologist got it wrong. Which basically excuses everyone.

Related behaviors: Golfing in a rainstorm, the way Tiger Woods did in that commercial.

And I know why I do this. Because, as explained in #10 Wearing baseball pants to play slo-pitch softball, I am "someone whose uncontrollable, indiscriminate competitive fire would be better suited on a driving and/or firing range."

Senator & Beer Mile

I've always like Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) better than most if not all Republicans in the Senate. He's no William Proxmire, but then again no one is.

Lugar is generally not a Dick. No surprise, then, that he'd play along...
Senator Lugar an Accidental Grand Marshal of 'Chug-and-Run'
...The rules are simple: Chug one beer before each of the four laps, and eat a hot dog between laps two and three. "The idea is to do something relatively short, relatively painless, and increase the likelihood that somebody would throw up"...

Green Man?

Who the heck is the Green Man?
And why is he running the Chicago Marathon?

ESPN explains.

Letterman On Track

David Letterman weighs in on the Caster Semenya debate.

This isn't a first for Dave. He pays a good bit of attention to elite distance running.

Separated At Birth

USA discus thrower Casey Malone:


Actor Chris Elliot:

In The Bleachers

FloJo Re-Emerges

On the funny pages.

Oh, If It Were Only That Easy

Well, maybe if you work for AIG.

Separated at Birth

Shot put star Reese Hoffa:and astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium and rumored nominee to head NASA:

New Running Movie Out

The film I saw yesterday barely qualifies for Mark Hale-Browns site, runningmovies.com, but I guess technicalities count. A couple of scenes in the new Jim Carrey flick, Yes Man, show his love interest leading a running/photography group (they put in about five miles every morning while shooting pics on the run).

As for the film itself, it's far better than I expected and not the usual Jim Carrey shtick (although they don't go light on the physical humor). One way to judge a film is how well it accomplishes its goals. This one sets out to get laughs, entertain, make you feel good, and even think a tiny little bit, and does all of them well. It's based on a highly acclaimed book by Danny Wallace that reportedly is deeper in its 340 pages than the film is in its 104 minutes (go figure).

I am a Type B personality in most things, but when it comes to running I am a competitive cuss who finds it very difficult to make an easy day easy enough. That's not too bad when you're 20, but I definitely am not 20 anymore. I may try this running/photography thing once a week in order to slow down and take in the scenery.