Flat Hills Road

I’m in Boston for the day. I’ll be back tomorrow to stay until after the race on Monday, and believe me, it’s going to be busy. There’s an immense amount of energy spent, before this race like no other I go to, on discussing the possibilities. Who might challenge? How might they do it?

I did a preview for the IAAF last night, and in the wake of this morning’s press conference I should have two more pieces up there in the next few days. (I’ll link them as they appear.) I have two copies of the program, which means I should be posting my feature (feature! I had a feature!) after the race is over.

And I’ll have dozens of bits and pieces which won’t make complete stories, which I will post here if I have time.

Monday evening I was at an organizational meeting for the Boston Marathon press room. The marathon (or, as it’s spelled around here, The Marathon) was six weeks away, but there is plenty to do in that time for an event of that scale. Boston is also the next significant event on my calendar, so I’m looking forward to it.

This will be my seventh year in this particular job at Boston, and my fifteenth consecutive year at the marathon. (My first, in ‘95, I was just a spectator; since then I’ve been working in some capacity every year but 2000, when I attempted to run.) For someone my age, that seems like a long time, but almost without exception, the other team captains at Monday evening’s meeting had been associated with the race since the early ’90s, or in some cases the early ’80s. Even if I counted all my thirteen years in the press room and not just my seven years in this job, I would still be the new guy in the room.

This is a strength Boston has which is often overlooked. The longevity of the staff in the press room is echoed throughout the race’s structure. There are team captains running water stops who were there when Bill Rodgers was winning. The captains can count on teams which are largely the same year after year. Few, if any, races can claim that degree of cumulative experience, and to some degree that’s what makes the race work.

The marathon has changed, of course, and changes a little more every year, but for the veterans it has been an incremental change. They aren’t coming in on April 20 and facing 20,000 athletes for the first time. The race may no longer start at noon, but for the veterans that just means, “We do the same thing two hours earlier.”

There’s a page in the marathon press guide listing all the “streakers” who have run Boston annually for many years. If I recall correctly, you need more than 25 consecutive finishes to even make the list; these are people who made Boston an annual ritual before I was even a runner. It’s easier to keep a streak going on the volunteer side, of course, but I think it might be interesting to talk to some of the many volunteers with long “streaks” at Boston.

I feel a little bad about that headline, but there’s some truth behind it. Yesterday, I came to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletics Center (RLTAC, an abbreviation often used and rarely explained) from Boston University, where the New England Intercollegiate Championships was being held. (Maybe some other time I’ll try to explain the meet I used to know as “Big New Englands.”) B.U.’s fieldhouse was packed with athletes, coaches, some parents, and miscellaneous fans like myself. Once the rounds were over and the afternoon session was in full swing, they were moving new races on to the track as soon as the previous race was over, not quite as quickly as Penn Relays but still pretty briskly. Every athlete in every race had a built-in fan base in their team, and no lap of any race went by in silence.

So going in to Reggie was quite a contrast. Sitting in the two-thirds-empty press risers, I discussed other results around the country–Kim Smith, Jenny Barringer, German Fernandez–with another reporter, who wondered out loud, “Do you ever think we’re at the wrong meet?” The press wasn’t there (many of them, wisely, preferring various NCAA conference meets,) the fans weren’t there, and even many of the athletes didn’t show up. (Only one of the men’s shot put’s “big three” will be putting this afternoon.)

It’s not Boston; the meet has actually improved dramatically since the days when an overly-optimistic contract doomed the event to several years of anonymous existence in Atlanta’s cavernous Georgia Dome. There was a lot of energy (but very little space) the year it was held in New York City’s Armory. But it’s really hard to go to the Boston Indoor Games at RLTAC and then come back three weeks later for a “national championship” meet which has less energy and enthusiasm than an essentially meaningless collegiate meet across town.

Larry Eder has a series of observations about what’s wrong with the USATF Indoor meet and constructive suggestions for improving them at RunBlogRun. I can’t speak to the quality of his suggestions, but he has more and more thoughtful ones than I do.

My report from the Reebok Boston Indoor Games (thank heavens the title sponsor has given up that silly “RBK” affectation) is on iaaf.org.

I’ll have a “Brief Chat” with Shalane Flanagan post-race on Runner’s World’s Racing News blog soon (tomorrow or Tuesday) and a meet story in the next issue of New England Runner, as well.

Update: Added the link to the Brief Chat, which ran today (Monday).

Kara Goucher told us that Coach Bill Squires, who advised her coach, Alberto Salazar, as he trained for the Boston Marathon, came out to one of her workouts this week and was briefing her on the Boston course.

Knowing Coach Squires, I asked, “Did the workout start on time?”

“Well,” she admitted, “we may have been delayed a bit.”

“I got a Harvard shirt, because I’ve been training on their track this week. I’m hoping it makes me smarter by osmosis.” — Kara Goucher

Talk about the Boston Indoor Games so far has revolved around three records: the men’s pole vault WR, because of Steve Hooker’s performance at Millrose; the women’s pole vault AR, because of the Dragila/Stuczynski duel at Millrose; and the women’s 5,000m AR, because Shalane Flanagan has an excellent chance of becoming the first American woman under 15:00 indoors. (The race could easily be that fast; the question is more likely to be whether Flanagan is in shape to hang on to the pace that long. It’s early in the season yet.)

The fourth mark, which I’m probably not the first one to mention, is the men’s 1,000m AR. The mark is 2:17.86, and it belongs to David Krummenacker, who set it at this very meet in 2002. The same night, Tim Broe whacked a chunk off Steve Scott’s indoor 3,000m mark, a record now owned by Bernard Lagat, and though Lagat has bested the pre-2002 AR in the 1,000m, Krummenacker’s time stands supreme.

(I interviewed Krummenacker after he set the record. I was one of very few reporters at the Boston Indoor Games that year; there are plenty of us now.)

Despite my build-up, however, the 1,000m record is essentially soft. The reason is that it’s not run as often as it used to be. It’s not an international championship event any more (if it ever was); the world record is nine years old (2:14.96 by Wilson Kipketer) and apart from a few fast times from Abubaker Kaki and the men he outran last year, very few marks since Kipketer are at the top of the list. Certainly a 1,000m AR is more attainable than an 800m AR; just ask Krummenacker, or Ocky Clark who held the AR nearly thirteen years before that. (Johnny Gray’s 1:45.00 800m AR has been old enough to drive for nearly a year now.)

All of which brings us to the man of 2008 at 800m. No, not Andrew Wheating, but Nick Symmonds, who actually won the race that stamped Wheating’s face on everyone’s memories (and was, as far as I could tell, a class act about sharing the spotlight). Symmonds, like Krummenacker, has a background of 800m/1,500m doubles. He’s run well in Boston before, and he’s familiar with the track. In other words, he has about the same credentials Krummenacker had in 2002.

Perhaps the best part of this race, though, is that whether or not the pace is record quality, Symmonds is unlikely to have the win handed to him. Christian Smith and Duane Solomon, who have both represented the USA internationally in the 800m (Solomon in 2007 at the World Championships, Smith at the Olympics last year) are also in the race, as is a veteran by the name of David Krummenacker.

Maybe this isn’t a record attempt by Symmonds, and it’s obviously set up to make a good race no matter what the time. But the environment is there and the mark is not out of reach. If the record goes, don’t say I didn’t warn you just because I didn’t mention this race in my preview.

Update: Looks like Kaki is going for the WR in Stuttgart.

My preview is online now at iaaf.org. I’ve complained about preview-writing before, but the plain fact is that writing previews lets me write meet reports, which is more fun. And the two in combination let me get paid for going to track meets, which is even more fun.

I’m missing the press conference today, which is too bad, because I had a market for a Shalane Flanagan interview. I haven’t forgotten about my Adam Nelson back-stock, but he’s not throwing this weekend, so my mind has been elsewhere.

About this preview specifically, it’s worth noting that a U.S. track fan might find more at this meet to be excited about than I have mentioned in this article. The gap lies in the fact that U.S. track fans, in addition to their interest in the top levels of professional competition, also have eyes on the best Americans, high school runners, and/or masters competitors, and internationally, these are fields that just don’t matter. The high school runners are “interesting” only in so far as their competitiveness internationally as Juniors (which is to say, historically not much, in this country). The best Americans are “interesting” only if they’re regularly making appearances in big internationals, so Alan Webb despite his uneven record is interesting. Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher with their medals are interesting. Nick Symmonds, who could probably run for Mayor of Eugene and win at this point, is… not all that interesting. Rob Myers, the most underappreciated miler in America today, is… not all that interesting from this point of view.

The advantage to this approach is that it allows me to mask my shallow knowledge of sprinters and field eventers.

I’ll also be writing a meet report to appear in New England Runner. It will probably mention many of the same performances, but it will also mention the masters milers and high school athletes like Omar Abdi, who have local connections. If Shalane Flanagan runs an AR at 5,000m, something the Global Athletics crew thinks is a real possibility, that will be huge for NER, but most interesting for the IAAF only if in doing so she manages to beat both the Ethiopians entered.

I’m writing up a preview of the Boston Indoor Games for iaaf.org (I’ll link it when it’s posted, never fear). I’ve used some playful leads for this in the past, but I don’t think I’d get away with the one I just considered. Specifically, I considered implying that I had been able to cut-and-paste the previous year’s preview for several years now, but I wouldn’t be able to get away with it this year.

That would be Canada.

My Reach the Beach Relay teammate Neil informs me that David Blaikie’s Boston: The Canadian Story, one of those hard-to-find history books mentioned in reverent tones among serious track geeks (or just Boston geeks), is available online, at Blaikie’s website.