RunnersDaily.co.uk Daily Running News & Links

If you were running in one of Europe’s premier marathons this weekend and you ran out of fuel at the 20-mile mark…would you be hitting the Berlin Wall?

I’d just like to thank my family, agent and manager for supporting me through the long preparation period of that joke, my editor for working on the wording and my gag writer for co-writing it, as well as my calendar manager for making sure that it was released to the world’s laughter-starved millions on the right Friday, just before the Berlin Marathon and not the London Marathon, although my Wall Joke Advisor informs me that there is a London Wall (constructed mainly from Kentish Ragstone) that would do very well for a similar joke next spring.

So now you’ve been ‘cheered up’, on with the link round-up.

1. Haile Gebrselassie forewent the Olympic Marathon in order to attempt to break his own world marathon record at Berlin, where he set his mark of 2:04:26 last year. Here’s a scientific look at whether it’s possible, let down a little by the fact that there are no Berlin Wall/marathon wall jokes in it.
2. I love my coffee, always have - but are caffeinated energy drinks the thin end of the wedge? Here’s a blog and educated debate about whether teenagers, at whom Red Bull and the rest are targeted, should have their cans labelled with caffeine content.
3. What with Andy Baddeley winning the Dream Mile, and now Lisa Dobriskey winning the Fith Avenue Mile, maybe British miling is on the up again. Here’s a chat with Dobriskey about her victory.
4. Ron Hill is soon to celebrate his 70th birthday. One of Britain’s greatest marathoners (and sports textile innovator), he is perhaps better known for his ’streak’ - not nude running, but running every day without fail. Ron’s streak is a phenomenal 44 years. Here is a feature on the man.
5. Finally, a little more humour to brighten your day - what do you mean there hasn’t been any yet? Cheeky - with this spoof of Usain Bolt.

Have a great weekend, happy racing and training.

The weekend - 48 hours of Bacchanalia, hedonism, sleaze… and maybe a little running - lies ahead. So we’ll start our weekly link round-up with a quite different 48 hours…

1. In the world of ultrarunning Dean Karnazes is a figure of some scorn - or maybe envy, since he is a self-marketing marvel. Aiming to break the record for the furthest distance run on a treadmill in 48 hours was his latest stunt.
2. Talking about self-marketing marvels, a reminder of how last week (yes, this was in the round-up) Carl Lewis revved up the motor on his mouth with a few choice opinions on the Jamaican sprinting phenomenon.
3. And then Pat Butcher had a word or two himself on the subject of Carl Lewis. Maybe this will start a big war of words.
4. If your weekend is, like mine, a near unending cascade of sensuous delights of every possible description, then you might like to pay attention to the concept of naked weight loss.
5. Finally, if your weekend pleasures involve retail therapy, you have several tens of pounds burning a hole in your pocket and you fancy some new shoes, then here is a totally unbiased review of some Nike shoes from the Nike running website.

Have a great weekend!

The kids have all trudged wanly back to the bearpits of school, the grey autumn winds prise the tans off our very skins with their chill fingers…oh, and the international track season draws to a close. The Golden League jackpot has been won, and this weekend that slightly confusing concept that is the World Athletics Finals takes place in Stuttgart for the last time.

1. Let’s start with the Golden League. Not quite zero to hero, but Pamela Jelimo’s rise has been truly meteoric.
2. The brightest star of the summer has been Usain Bolt, and the media is crammed with stuff about him, yet this piece on him manages to entertain and inform in equal measure.
3. If ever there was a warning about keeping going through ‘bad pain’ - rather than what we might call ‘good pain’ - then this, horrifically, is it.
4. Carl Lewis has never been one to rev down the motor attached to his mouth, and here he is outrageously candid about recent sprint performances.
5. In the wake of Pat Butcher’s ‘boring’ tag for Tirunesh Dibaba, there is a piece looking at her marketability in relation to her talent.

Have a great weekend, happy running and happy racing!

As the Olympics move towards the climax that I think everyone has been waiting for - the sight of a lissom X-Factor winner and a grizzled and occult-obsessed guitar hero performing on stage together - Runnersdaily present to you their usual weekly link round-up. It’s been a bit thin this week, what with one thing another, but we do our best…

1. No one can have failed to notice the British team’s unusually high placing in the medals table, and Steve Cram is of the opinion that the war on drugs has helped this come about. (In the US, the medal tables are not like ours - guess who’s on top?)
2. I am a big fan of Paula Radcliffe, but not a huge fan of the BBC and their approach to news coverage. This editorial piece may sound a bit harsh, but he has a point.
3. Could Nike REALLY have forced Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang to pull out of his race? The same Nike that allegedly forced a very sick Ronaldo to play in the 1998 World Cup final after he had been left out of the team on medical grounds?
4. It’s better having a Usain Bolt media frenzy than a Dwain Chambers media frenzy, and here is one of the best stories about the phenomenal Jamaican sprinter and his ambitions for the longer distance.
5. Finally, not a running link, but an Olympic story about the shagfest that is the Olympic village.

Happy running!

The first Olympic strides will have been run on the track in Beijing as you read this, with the women’s heptathlon, men’s 100m and 1500m amongst others, getting going. Just as Mongolia won a judo gold because in that country there is a strong tradition of wrestling-type sports, so some countries will take to the track expecting success. You won’t see many Jamaicans competing in archery, mountain-biking or table-tennis, nor many Kenyans swimming butterfly, sailing a Finn or urging a horse over jumps, but they sure come into their own when it’s question of putting one leg in front of the other. Here’s hoping for a wonderful athletics competition in Beijing. And here’s a selection of the week’s links from the main site for you to revisit:

1. On the subject of nationality, there’s an irony about this story about Kenyans who run for other nations.
2. Scot Alan Wells was Olympic 100m champion in Moscow, and here he reminisces on his success.
3. It’s so easy to speculate, and opinions are free, as they say. Swimmer Michael Phelps has lifted his Olympic medal tally to record heights, but according to this piece it doesn’t make him the greatest Olympian.
4. Photographers can add to the Olympic experience, and here is gallery of the weirder images taken so far.
5. Finally, although these aren’t running shoes, they do apparently make you fitter and reduce cellulite. So do running shoes, actually!

Have a great weekend in front of the box!

It’s a big day today. The ‘elf with Botox’ countenance of Sue Barker will be on our (UK) screens passing bland and predictable comment on the Olympic opening ceremony at Beijing. There’ll be tightly-drilled phalanxes of Chinese nippers doing all the usual group movement so beloved by totalitarian regimes and quite possibly the odd firework or two, since gunpowder was invented over there, obviously, and we need reminding of that. What zillions of superpowered fireworks will do for the air quality is anyone’s guess.

Then battle will commence. But no athletics or running until later; swimmers and archers and boxers and taekwondoers will have their moment in the first week. Nevertheless, people like Paula Ratcliff (not sure how to spell her name, I see it so rarely) still get a few paragraphs for practically anything at this stage of the game. ‘Professional runner goes for a run’ shock. ‘Professional runner wants to do well in Olympics’ probe. ‘Professional runner suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs to earn more money’ scandal.

It’s easy to forget that there is a running world outside Beijing just now, and the content of the world’s media reflects that. So our link round-up is a bit Beijingy, and will continue to be so, but it won’t last for ever.

1. There are and there will be plenty of Olympic memories and archive material out in print to complement the current Games. Coe vs Ovett, Ben Johnson, all that stuff. This one is interesting, moving and relevant, though.
2. I sense that the competitiors in this race are not that bothered about sitting in front of the TV watching the latest from Beijing. It is, after all, many thousands of miles long.
3. Another nice human interest story from the Beijing build-up.
4. A doping feature, but not an Olympics story. About amateur athletes, who should really be ashamed of themselves.
5. Let’s finish with a movie review and a non-Olympic theme. Spirit of the Marathon.

Here’s hoping for a spectacular Olympics. And don’t frowst in front of the TV right from the off - get running!

It’s Friday. Again. Time for the blog to lighten up by way of introducing the weekly link round-up. Now, how about some running humour to get things going? Maybe you’ve heard of these side-splitting ‘You know you’re a [insert type of person here] when you [insert pants-wettingly funny definition here]? Like, you know you’re a fireman when you get called out to extinguish a blaze in a plastics factory.

You know you’re a runner when…you regularly go out for a run.

You know you’re a runner when…you enter a 10k race.

You know you’re a runner when…you go to a specialist running shop to buy running shoes.

Stop it! STOP IT! Enough laughter. I’ve just brought up my duodenum through my nose. (And that may hamper the release of digestive enzymes following consumption of a 5% carbohydrate drink just before a run).

1. Long running shorts or short shorts? Neither. Go for a running skirt.
2. Did I presciently mention Haruki Murakami in a blog about running books? Well since that blog his book has been in the qualities, and here is a snippet.
3. As Beijing gets closer, so does London 2012 (duh). A week in the life of His Honourable Lordness Sir Sebastian Coe.
4. It seems Russia has to re-invent itself as an athletic force, and here’s how the nouveau billions are helping.
5. Poetry at an athletes’ meeting? So that’s how the Ethiopians prepare for Beijing.

Now if you have any more of those ‘You know you’re a runner when…’, please, please keep them to yourselves.

Happy running!

So I’m back from the western Pyrenees region of France, where, after seeing a bunch of locals jammed together all trying to leave a shop at the same time, I’ve learned that you shouldn’t put all your Basques in one exit.

When you recover from that hideous pun, take a look at our round-up of the links posted on Runnersdaily this week.

1. It’s just about possible to be light-hearted about a 135-mile trail race in searing heat, apparently.
2. At the time of writing the Chambers decision has been made; this blog on Olympic selection policies is quite relevant.
3. Olympics, Olympics, Olympics…although nearly all the focus is on Beijing, just a few heartbeats away, and of course London in 2012, the 2016 games are making news here - Chicago’s bid is not all sweetness and light.
4. Back to ultrarunning - in the US, the Hard Rock 100 is regarded as the toughest 100-mile race, and a sub-24-hour finish was regarded as impossible - until now.
5. This is a great story - a young British talent flourishing thanks to Kelly Holmes’s generosity.

Happy running this weekend!

If you search internet quote searches searching for a quote on internet links you quickly find that the concept of the weekly internet link round-up has been sadly undervalued by our literary giants. Yet week in, week out, Runnersdaily provides this Friday blog dedicated to reviving the more fascinating links posted up on the main site during the week. And do Ian McEwan or Martin bloody Amis novelise it, and then hold their hands out for fat film rights payments too? Apparently not. Are they missing out on a big opportunity? That is for the world to decide. We will press on regardless.

1. This weekend is the last European Cup ever, and Steve Cram gives his verdict. It’s in the chocolate-box pretty French town of Annecy, by the way, always worth a visit outside the tourist season.
2. Would you choose a dish called ’slice of husband and wife’s lung’? No, nor would I. That’s why Beijing restaurant menus are getting a makeover.
3. Since winning the Dream Mile in Oslo, Andy Baddeley has been beating off the journos with a shitty stick, but the Observer managed to pin him down for a great interview.
4. Here is a frank article - and frankly we need more frankness on this won’t-go-away topic - by an international athlete and his experience in being urged to take drugs.
5. Finally an excellent analysis of how the Wild-west showdown that is the men’s Olympic 100m final may pan out.

Happy running!

It’s Friday the 13th - and you’re in luck! The Runnersdaily link round-up has been carefully scanned for evil, the supernatural, black dogs and slashing blades in general. You can safely click through the links without being stalked by a returnee from the spirit world bent on horrifically violent murder. Viewing these web pages on running stories will not cause you to receive phone calls from an anonymous individual with a terrifyingly hoarse voice saying that they can see you, and that you and your computer should be afraid, very afraid.

1. In the hope that posting this link brings on a spell of nice hot weather, here is a piece on heatstroke and its dangers.
2. In Japan, there is a lot of rice - it barely needs stating - and using rice husks on running shoes has been one of Asics’ tricks for a while. Here’s a piece on it.
3. The last Brit to win the prestigious Dream Mile in Oslo was Peter Elliott in 1991. Now Andy Baddeley has done it, and Steve Cram is impressed.
4. One of the all-time great races, the Comrades Marathon, takes place this weekend in South Africa. The race organisers have had to clamp down on the tradition of runners hauling overexhausted comrades across the line.
5. Can you beat these times? These are the men’s season’s bests so far. Hint: one of them is 9.72 for 100m, so if you can beat that, ring your national athletics governing body pronto.

Happy running this weekend!