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Running: On trail with marathon of ideas
By Joe Shafran, For The Capital
I read the story over the weekend that at age 42, pro-football’s Jerry Rice was told he may be too old to play the game. Rice strongly objected, saying that he’s "still got some football in me".
In the past few days, I’ve been doing my running on one of those high-tech treadmills at the Annapolis Merritt to see if I still had some serious running left in me. I kept upping the speed until the digital words and numbers flashed in red, that "you are doing a 7-minute mile." It gave me a thrill; so I kept it going for a couple of minutes, feeling secure with my trainer, Sky Canine, even though he had on head sets and was listening to music on his MP3 and was on a nearby machine.
The oddity of the whole thing is that I gave up marathoning a few years back thinking that with advancing age, I shouldn’t abuse my body with all that pounding. And as I did those bursts of speeds at Merritt, I thought back in amazement that in my marathon days, that’s the pace I was keeping up for the entire three hours.
So, different than Rice, I admit that I really don’t have any more 3-hour marathons in me, so please don’t look for me suiting up for either the half or full marathon this weekend on the B & A trail. I wish all you young ones and old ones, much luck. It starts at the Severna Park High School at 7:30 a.m.
The Annapolis Striders have a slew of runners signed up but do need volunteers for a variety of duties.
For those who ran the Strider’s 10- miler last summer, if you saw the current edition of Vital Signs, one of the publications of the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis ,you now know where your registration money went. As promised, it went to the center for use in the emergency room. In Vital Signs, there is a nice picture of the Strider hierarchy having turned over the money to the hospital.
All the snow we’ve had the past week has had me on a treadmill rather then out on the streets and paths, but I do know there were plenty of hearty souls who weren’t stopped by snow. I think of the 6:06 club, the band of runners who, weekdays, regularly run the early morning hour in downtown Annapolis. However, a check last Thursday with one of their leaders, Gill Cochran, didn’t paint a great picture. The report was that only Cochran and Merle Meffie showed up in the snow. There are reports that a chagrined Cochran was heard characterizing the absentee runners as "rookies".
In their defense, I must remind that many of the rookie, unlike Cochran, live a good distance from the starting line and were just following instructions from the road reporters, to just stay home.
I didn’t see him personally, but I would be surprised to hear that "Speedo", the sort of phantom runner in downtown Annapolis was not out there Thursday in the 6 o’clock hour, bare chested in his all-weather outfit of just shorts and shoes. And if you didn’t see Bob Blaskewicz, 60, the marathoner from Millersville on General’s Highway in his shorts and reflective vest, it wasn’t the snow, but rather a bothersome Achilles’ tendon that has kept him off the berm.
And as for the now familiar band of the couple dozen midshipmen men and women, of the Navy Marathon Club, who shoot out of Gate I at the Naval Academy on Thursday’s, I was told by their coach, Nathan Nudelman, that many of them erred on the side of caution last Thursday and took a snow day, but did get to Baltimore over the weekend for a race at Dundalk.
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And speaking of the upcoming B&A marathon, my mention in the last column of a 2-hour marathon, did raise some eyebrows. I meant to say a 2-hour marathon, referring to the time in which some of the Mids at the Academy and other youngsters do a marathon. However, come to think of it, a 2-hour marathon may not be out of the question. Khalid Khannouchi, the 33-year-old native of Morocco, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is registered for this fall’s Chicago Marathon and he is boasting that if there’s a good wind at his back, he may better his world record of 2:05:38 that he set in London in 2002 and it may well be a 2-hour Chicago run.
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For those beleaguered and complaining motorists who are caught in the Saturday and Sunday morning race day road closings, WTOP (1500-AM), the all-news radio station in Washington, includes the closings for area races in their traffic reports "on the eights" and when they do the weather, some of the meteorologists give the temperature and wind direction for many of the area races.
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As an unpaid Deputy Minister of Propaganda for the Maritime Republic of Eastport, I’m duty bound to remind you that the MRE Spa Creek Bridge run/dog day afternoon this spring has been changed from its usual March date to May 7. Lord willing, I’ll be there for the race hoping to better my time of 51 seconds that includes a stop for water. This is the world famous .05K race, which I am not pleased to tell you that if my math is correct, I’m doing about a 12-minute mile.
Running Calendar
Sunday: 8:30 a.m. Salisbury, Tim Kennard Memorial 5-mile run and walk. Benefits the Costal Hospice. It starts and finishes at the Maggs Center at Salisbury University . Call 1-410- 548-3098.
Sunday: 7:30 a.m. Severna Park High School. The B&A Marathon/Half Marathon. Plenty of runners. Race monitors are needed. The web site is batrailmarathon@comcast.net or call 410- 268- 2036.
March 13: 1 p.m., Baltimore, Charles and Franklin Streets. The Comcast Shamrock 5K. Entries by Monday. Limited to 4,000. Post race music live by Kristen and the Noise. 410-561-3570
March 19: 8 a.m. Harman’s Park, Hanover. Joe Cannon 5K run and fun walk, sponsored by county rec and parks department. Benefits Recreation Deeds for Special Needs Scholarship and North Arundel Hospital Oncology Center. 410-222-7311(ext.3554).
April 15: The 12th Dead Sea Ultra Marathon. "Run To The Lowest Point On Earth". 50K, 42K and 21K, Jordan. www.deadseamarathon.com Starts in the early morning and you must finish by sundown.
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