Flat Hills Road

I was asked last night which events I was most excited about at the upcoming World Indoor Championships. Because not all of the world’s best compete during the indoor season (e.g. Usain Bolt) and many of the events have different technical demands (e.g. 60m as opposed to 100m, both flat and hurdles) the quality of finals in Doha is likely to be more uneven than it usually is in an outdoor World Championships.

That said, there’s some really good competition on the horizon in events where the world’s best are showing up.

• In the distance events, the women’s 1500m should be interesting. Gelete Burka is the “defending champion,” but in Valencia she was robbed of her chance to cross the line first by a doped up Russian, and in Berlin she was just robbed, period, by someone running roller derby instead of athletics. Add neighboring Bahrain’s Maryam Yusuf Jamal, gold in Berlin and silver in Valencia, and we have a world class final.
• Bernard Lagat said in February that if he and Galen Rupp were the U.S. team for the 3,000m, they would medal. Lagat won gold in this event for Kenya in 2004, but much depends on who Kenya, Ethiopia, and hosts Qatar enter; the last two golds have gone to the Bekele brothers, and Saif Said Shaheen took silver in Moscow ‘06.
• Ethiopia is sending Meseret Defar, the 3,000m World Record holder. Kenya is sending Vivian Cheruiyot, the 5,000m World Champion and the woman who knows best how to beat Defar. (Have I mentioned my feature about Cheruiyot and Linet Masai in the recent Running Times?)

Outside the distances, which have to compete with the World Cross Country Championships for the best athletes, there are plenty of fantastic competitions.

• Trey Hardee, the decathlon World Champion, will face off against Bryan Clay, the Olympic champion, in the indoor heptathlon. The multi-events at World Indoors, unlike the rest of the events, are by invitation only, and the IAAF gets the best eight multi-eventers available for a top-class competition.
• Christian Cantwell wants to win a third shot put indoor championship, something nobody has ever done before. He also wants the world record. He’ll have to throw over Tomasz Majewski of Poland to do either.
• The women’s 60m hurdles has more athletes at near-parity than any other event I can think of. Lolo Jones, Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, and Damu Cherry all have a shot; so would Jessica Ennis, but she’s doing the pentathlon.

Unlike Valencia, where the track was fit inside the bowl of an indoor velodrome and therefore produced very dramatic and distinctive images, I have no idea what to expect of the inside of the Aspire Dome. More like the Tyson Center in Arkansas, the B.U. track, or what?

Doha is GMT+3, so they are eight hours earlier than U.S. Eastern time and eleven hours ahead of Pacific time. This means most evening sessions in Doha will be over before noon in the U.S. I’m not sure I’m looking forward to that part.

There were two big pieces of news in the running world today, although most of my Facebook feed is talking about just one of them. It’s big news that both Meb Keflezighi and Ryan Hall are running the Boston Marathon, and it should be. Just Meb or just Ryan would be OK news, but both Meb and Ryan means a better shot than ever that we’ll have an American winner. (Look at it this way: just Deena couldn’t do it, and just Kara couldn’t do it, but what if we had Deena and Kara one year?)

The other news, that may not be so widely discussed, was that Ardath “Ardie” Rodale died at her family home this morning at the age of 82.

If that name looks familiar to you, it’s probably because of the last name. Ardie’s late husband, Bob, was the son of J.I. Rodale, organic farming crusader and founder of what was then Rodale Press. Bob took over for his father and built a minor magazine empire, among other things buying and merging The Runner and Runner’s World and bringing the combined magazine to Rodale’s headquarters in Emmaus, a sleepy town just south of Allentown in eastern Pennsylvania.

Bob died in a traffic accident in Moscow while promoting organic farming in newly-opening Russia in the early ’90s, and with that Rodale became one of the biggest woman-run companies in the country. Ardie was the chair from Bob’s death until 2007 and CEO until 2002. (Her daughter Maria is now the CEO.) It might be coincidental that Rodale was frequently on the “best companies to work for” lists in that time, but I’m thinking not.

I worked for Rodale, and therefore for Ardie, from 1996 through 2001. (She handed me my five-year pin.) In all that time I never felt like I was a cog in a machine; in fact, I knew from talking to people at other magazine companies that the Rodale work experience was unlike that at any other publishing company. We didn’t work for an intimidating bully, but for the sort of grandmother who set high expectations and wanted you to reach them. I was extraordinarily fortunate to have had the privilege.

Ardie didn’t take as close an interest in Runner’s World as Bob had, and it’s unlikely that her passing will have a direct effect on it or the sister magazine Rodale bought several years ago, Running Times. (It’s worth noting that I have two articles in the December issue of Running Times.) But Ardie had a role in the running world for a long time, and her passing bears notice.

I have two pieces in the December 2009 Running Times: a profile of masters middle-distance ace Scott Hartley (not the first time I’ve shined the spotlight his direction) and a discussion of the new progress being made by American distance runners against the East African dominance in the track distances, as highlighted by the 2009 season and particularly the World Championships. It’s on your magazine racks if it hasn’t reached your mailbox.

For those who haven’t had enough of me being opinionated, I have an analysis, with some commentary, of USATF’s Project 30 report posted on the Running Times site.

It’s a credit to the panel and their secretary that the report’s conclusions seem almost inevitable given their research. The important part of the report, I came to understand, is how it gives CEO Doug Logan an agenda, even a mandate, for change, without making that agenda part of his personality. (I suppose this is the role management consultants play when it’s time to fire people in big corporations.)

I hope it works; I’d like to see the relay impediments removed so we can see USA vs. Jamaica in both 4×100m relays in Berlin this summer. I’d also like to hope that USATF’s political sinkholes can be avoided, because they’re part of the problem.

Favorite part of this piece: I’ve been running low on sleep, and when I was reading the report at some point the only way I could come up with to describe the more wishful-thinking-heavy parts of the report was, “I want a pony.” It’s only a fraction of the report, but they’re so pitch-perfect for most of it that the unlikely parts look that much odder in context.

I really recommend that anyone sincerely interested in the future of the sport read the whole report. The background material, in particular, is an education.