Lucas Heartbreak; Rupp Outkicks Lagat!

Women's 5000m

One of the hardest, cruelest things to be seen in Track and Field is "the stagger," that agonizing nightmare in which the body gives out before the race is over. With only a few meters to go the runner appears to be moving in slow-motion, the muscles in near paralysis, the once smooth and powerful form reduced to a parody of running.

In last night's 5000m final, Julia Lucas pushed the pace from 1200m out, running consecutive sub-70 laps and building a lead that looked like it guaranteed her a spot on the team. Alas, in hindsight her move was tragically mis-timed. With 400 to go, she still held a 1.5-second lead on second place and nearly 5 seconds on fourth place, but the hard move from so far out had taken its toll and she didn't have another gear. Molly Huddle and Julie Culley caught her with 200m to go and she tried but failed to fall in with their acceleration. Meanwhile, Dartmouth's Abbey D'Agostino was in fourth and closing. Behind D'Agostino, Kim Conley was running well, but was another two seconds back. Neither chaser had the Olympic A standard.

All Lucas needed to do was hang on. Even if she slowed a bit, it seemed inconceivable that she could a) be caught and b) that if caught, her pursuers would meet the A standard. But with 100 to go, Lucas was done. There was no lift in her stride, nothing more to give to the effort. Later she would describe the final meters as if she were running underwater. Losing ground with every labored step, it suddenly looked like D'Agostino could pull of the impossible and get third. But it was Conley. coming from fifth place who was running the best.

In the final few meters as Lucas staggered to the line, Conley sprinted past D'Agostino, leaned, and edged Lucas by 0.04. Her late charge also brought her just under the Olympic A standard, earning her place on the team.

D'Agostino, the twenty-year-old Massachusetts native and graduate of Masconomet H.S. has been an incredible story this year, winning the NCAA championship a couple of weeks ago and PR'ing again in Eugene. She continued to add to her credentials with her fifth place -- also under the A standard and within two-tenths of a second of an Olympic berth.

In her press conference Julia Lucas talked about "giving the race away," but in retrospect, it was as simple and as heart-breaking at starting a 1000-meter kick with 1200 meters to go. The finish line photo is hard to view without reliving the agony of those last few meters.

Men's 5000m

Did Oregon's new favorite son, Galen Rupp, know what he was doing in the 5000m final, jogging lap after lap of the Hayward Field track in the company of Bernard Lagat and Lopez Lomong? Galen, you realize these guys have Olympic 1500m caliber kicks, right?

The three favorites were in front with a lap to go, having run a modest 12:30 for the first 4600m. Rupp took the lead and pushed the accelerator to the floor, knowing it would be a total commitment all the way to the finish line. Lagat and Lomong kept pace, and then around the final curve, Lagat pulled up to Rupp's shoulder, and then went ahead coming off the final turn.

If it were last year, Lagat wins this race. But this year's Rupp is scary fit, and against Lagat the consummate kicker, Rupp pulled a Centrowitz, fought back, and re-passed on the inside, hitting the line in 13:22.67.

With that 52 last lap, Rupp won his second event of the Trials, broke a 40-year-old Trials record set by Steve Prefontaine, broke an 0-12 losing streak against Lagat, and provided the latest evidence that he's a real medal threat at London.

Race video from NBC

Trials and Tribulations

As the U.S. Olympic Trials resume after a two-day hiatus, I've been thinking about how the Trials meet often turns out to be "better" than the Olympics themselves. I don't mean better in the sense that the performances will be better or that the athletes are superior, I mean better in the sense of being more dramatic and emotionally compelling, producing outcomes that you want to talk about for days or weeks afterwards when you're no longer sitting in front of the T.V. watching it all unfold in real time.

As an example, at our track workout on Tuesday evening, a spirited discussion broke out about whether Shalane Flanagan showed good sportsmanship by taking the lead and slowing the pace to allow her teammate Lisa Uhl to make contact with the pack after falling back to tie a shoelace. Of course this action didn't help those who, like Natasha Roegers, were chasing the Olympic A standard. From the women's 10K, we went on to talk about Curtis Beach, Alan Webb, Galen Rupp, Ritz, Allyson Felix, etc., etc. The point is that these trials have already produced human stories more interesting than most reality shows.

Ever since Aeschylus and the ancient Greeks we've known that the most compelling formula for drama is to place human beings in near-impossible situations and watch them suffer and self-destruct, or at best endure.

As the stakes grow higher and the strain increases, most of us -- and the athletes at the trials are no exception -- have a hard time maintaining our carefully controlled manners and begin revealing the turmoil within. Sometimes what is revealed is not flattering; sometimes it's poignant and heart-wrenching.

How great was it to see Ritz make the team in the 10K after finishing fourth in the trials? How painful was it to see Alan Webb struggle home last in the 1500? Did Bumbalough behave badly in the 5000 heats? Did Rupp? Should Jeremy Wariner have spoken to the media after failing to make the team in the 400? Under the stress, they all seem flawed and all-too-human.

I might be wrong (I hope I am), but I don't think I'll feel the same way about London. Making the team is such an accomplishment in itself, that not winning a medal or not making the finals of the Olympics seems like a misfortune or missed opportunity, but not a tragedy. I have the feeling that not making the team is much, much worse.

So... back to the meet in a few hours. There's so much more drama left. heck, we still don't know who's on the team in the women's 100. Far from being incidental, our experience watching how the athletes handle the stress -- how they show good or bad sportsmanship, how they handle failure or success -- is what keeps us emotionally involved in the outcome, providing us with catharsis.

They're not called trials for nothing.

Ashton Eaton WR in Decathlon Highlights Incredible First Two Days at U.S. Olympic Trials

The 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials keep getting better... and stranger.

On Saturday, Ashton Eaton completed one of the greatest decathlons in history, setting a new world record of 9039 (the old record was Roman Seberle's 9026 from 2001).

Meanwhile, confusion reigned after the women's 100m as Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix were given the same time (11.068) and place (3rd) in the final event of the evening.

Eaton Dominates

Eaton's performances in the sprint events were unworldly. He opened the competition on Friday with a 10.21 100m -- a personal best and the fastest the event has ever been run in a decathlon.

In the very next event -- the long jump -- Eaton soared 8.23m (27-0) on his first attempt, another personal best. More remarkably, it matched the 10th best mark in the WORLD this year. In two events, Eaton had amassed 2164 points and had a 242-point lead over two-time world champion Trey Hardee.

After a serviceable shot put (one of his weakest events), Eaton won the high jump with a leap of 2.05m (5 centimeters off his personal best) and finished Day 1 by winning the 400m in 46.70. Both events were likely hampered by the heavy rain that fell into the evening in Eugene. Nevertheless, heading into the second day of competition, Eaton had 4728 points and a 300-point lead.

Day 2 started quietly for Eaton. He edged Hardee by 0.01 in the 110 hurdles as the two continued to pull away from the rest of the field. (It was in this event that defending Olympic Champ Bryan Clay's chances appeared to vanish; he finished in 16.81 and was initially DQ'd for pushing over the last hurdle. Eventually the DQ would be reversed, but the poor performance and a subsequent foul in the discus doomed his bid to make the team.)

In the discus, Eaton had a decent throw, but Hardee was much better, gaining 129 points on the leader. But from that point forward, it was all Eaton. He won (and PR'd) in the pole vault with a jump of 5.30, and followed that with a PR in the javelin. At this point the U.S title was a foregone conclusion. But there was another goal.

Needing to run 4:16 to break Seberle's world record, Eaton ran a four-second PR of 4:14. To put that in perspective, he had improved his 1500 PR a grand total of two seconds in the last three years, but improved it by four seconds with the record on the line. In a classy move, the fastest man in the field, Curtis Beach, eased up at the end of the race so that Eaton would cross the line first.

Tarmoh, Felix Tie for Final Spot in 100m

An unprecedented result in the women's 100 overshadowed Carmelita Jeter's win and Tiana Madison's second place. After initially declaring that Jeneba Tarmoh had edged Allyson Felix for third, review of finish-line photos showed that the two training partners had finished in a dead heat.

As of this writing, nobody seems to know how to select the third athlete for the Olympic team, or when such a decision will be made.

Uncool: How NBC Makes Track and Field Dull

Here we are, only a few hours away from the start of the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials for Track and Field; in a rational world, I would be clearing my schedule to watch as much of the T.V. coverage as possible. Instead, I'm preparing to be disappointed yet again by NBC and it's "No Bleeping Clue" approach to the sport I love.

Am I being harsh? Let me illustrate what's wrong with NBC's coverage by telling you what I've learned from the high school kids that I coach. I should tell you that most of the kids who join the track team at CA aren't very familiar with the sport. They rarely pay attention to what other high schoolers are doing, and very few of them follow the sport at the college or professional levels.

At some point I decided that it was one of my responsibilities to remedy this situation by introducing them to the wider world of Track and Field. With that goal never far from my mind, I took to starting practices with a short video -- to share with them some of the great moments in Track and Field history. It's interesting and sometimes surprising to see their reactions. Sometimes they are totally into it, bursting into applause at the finish of a close race; sometimes they are left unmoved. Over the last couple of years, I feel like I've developed a pretty good sense of what appeals to teenagers who would never consider themselves hard core fans, and who have probably never watched a track meet on TV.

A few weeks ago I watched NBC's coverage of the 2012 Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, one of the finest track meets in the world. The next week I watched the same network cover the Adidas Meet in New York. The coverage of both meets was horrible, as usual. Truly, NBC has perfected the art of ruining a track meet for the passionate fan, and one can almost admire the thorough way they go about it.

It starts with hiring the same old mediocre talent to do the play-by-play, and letting that talent focus on a single athlete while ignoring all the others, including (often) the eventual winner. Another technique is to interrupt any race longer than four minutes for commercials and promos for other NBC programs, or simply not show the longer races at all. Dwight Stones gives a ten-second summary of the field events using clips that are usually totally devoid of drama or suspense. Finally, the whole thing is treated as merely a warmup for the Olympics. After watching for ninety minutes, I swear never to watch an NBC broadcast again, since it's blatantly an exercise in network self-promotion.

Usually, when I get angry about coverage of Track and Field and start yelling at the TV, I get no sympathy. My wife says that I'm out of touch with what normal people think, that only get-a-life runners like me care about Galen Rupp breaking 13:00 for the first time, or decathlete Ashton Eaton competing in the hurdles, or Allyson Felix needing to get out of that speed suit, for god's sake (has there been anything worse for track and field than that?)... Normal people don't care, she says, and those are the people who will be watching the Olympics. To this observation I have rarely had a coherent answer.

But now thanks to my team, I have the opinions of dozens of kids who don't obsess about runners and times, who don't know or care who won what race in Beijing or Berlin or Daegu. The kids at CA are my focus group, and I trust their responses to televised track and field more than my own. You know what they like? I'll tell you what they like.

They like close races where the runners are trying really hard and no one knows who's going to win, and everyone has a chance. They like to see tension building over the course of a race, whether it's a short race or a long one. Most of all, they love to hear the announcers get excited, REALLY excited. That's the one thing that always, ALWAYS makes a video interesting to them -- when the announcers are going nuts and screaming and acting as though what's happening on the track or in the field is the most amazing thing that's ever happened.

What makes it cool, is when the announcers lose their cool.

My kids' all-time favorite videos include Chris Solinksy (Beast Mode!) running sub-27:00 at Stanford in 2010. In that video, the Flotrack guys who are announcing the race can't believe what's happening, and their excitement and that of the crowd is electric.

Chris Solinsky - Beast Mode

The CA kids also like Billy Mills winning the 10K gold in Tokyo ("Look at Mills! Look at Mills!!). Another favorite is Dave Wottle winning the 800 gold in Munich (which has a spectacular fall at the end -- they also like to see people fall). By the way, even though I don't think Jim McKay is a brilliant broadcaster, he manages to mention most of the runners in the race by name. NBC never does that.

Compared with these gems, or virtually ANY British telecast, NBC's coverage is monotonic and monothematic, never rising to a level that could be called genuine excitement. NBC's announcers treat every race like it's just a time trial for the runners to feel good about themselves. With the exception of one or two pre-selected favorites, NBC treats most of the competitors as though they were cardboard props, and they don't bother to learn their names or their stories. Fundamentally, NBC sucks at making races seem cool. Most of their announcers don't know how to express passion (if they feel it at all). It's infuriating to watch a great race through the eyes of someone who can't be bothered to get excited about the runners in the race, and how they got there, and how they suffer, and how they triumph in the end or fail. All NBC wants to do is develop their preconceived story lines and tout some meet two weeks or two months hence. That's all that matters to them.

Before watching the Pre Classic, I was wishing I had told my kids to watch it. After watching, I'm glad I didn't risk all my credibility by telling them it would be exciting. Based on how it was called, it was about as exciting as a commercial for Geritol.

Now, with the Trials about to start, I'm preparing to be disappointed again. I have no confidence that NBC will make my viewing experience a pleasant one. It's true, I'm just a get-a-life runner, out of touch with the general Olympics-watching public. But for every one of me, there are thirty kids who would watch track if it was cool, if it had passion, and if it were presented to them by guides who got so into it that sometimes they lost their reserve, shouted, screamed, and laughed in amazement at the miraculous events unfolding in front of them.

The Stealthy Greatness of Josh Lampron

There he was, sitting in perfect position on the shoulder of the leader with 100 meters to go in the deepest H.S. mile race in history. At that moment Mansfield senior Josh Lampron looked poised to win the Boys dream mile at the Adidas Grand Prix Meet. But on this day, the honor would go to another. As Lampron later described it, he "rigged up" in that final straight and wasn't able to accelerate, hanging on for third in a personal best 4:02.98.

Race Video

That Lampron, the defending national champion, would be in position to win against such a talented field was no surprise. Earlier this season, he ran 3:45.74 for 1500, the fastest high school 1500 in the nation this year and one of the top 20 times in history. In the three weeks prior to the Adidas meet, Lampron had doubled three times in the 800/mile, first at the Hockomock league meet (1:53.89/4:23.98), then at the EMass Div. II Championships (1:52.03/4:09.59), and finally at the Mass. State Championships (1:51.99/4:07.88).

It was, perhaps, that effort at the State Championships that dulled his kick at the Adidas meet. Originally scheduled for Saturday, June 2nd, the meet was twice postponed and finally held on Tuesday, June 5th. Lampron was pushed hard in both his races. In the 800, he had to overcome a challenge from three-time state 600 champ Andre Rolim (1:53.38). His effort in the 800 broke a state meet record that had stood for 37 years. In the mile, Lampron faced what was arguably the deepest field in Mass. state meet history (eight runners under 4:20), and in particular, Marshfield's Joel Hubbard, who ran 4:09.27 and posed the toughest challenge. After that double, he had only three days to recover for the Adidas meet... but he also had the satisfaction that he had helped his team win another State Championship.

But for all the achievements, state championships, and national reputation, it seems to me that Josh Lampron has been a "quiet" talent. Unlike other Massachusetts mid-distance greats (Riley, Powell, Gras, Barnicle, Amirault, e.g.), Lampron was never dominant in cross country. He didn't run in the state XC meet as a sophomore, finished eighth as a junior, and didn't run as senior due to injury. In track, he was a relative late bloomer. As a sophomore, he made the state meet in the 800m, but finished 18th in 1:59.69. If there was anyone who foresaw that one year later he would win a national title in the mile, I'd like to know who that was.

And now Lampron has one meet left in his high school career -- outdoor nationalsUSATF juniors, where he has to be considered one of the favorites in the 1500m. With a few more days rest, I hope he hits that last straightaway with legs ready to kick for the win. Should he get it, it will be a remarkable achievement for someone who didn't really emerge until his junior year.

Josh, we hardly knew ye.

Interview with Mike Burnstein, Co-Founder of Janji

Dave Spandorfer and Mike Burnstein -- co-founders of Janji

Mike Burnstein (Brookline H.S., Class of ’08) is one of the most accomplished distance runners to come out of Brookline’s renowned program. A recent graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, Mike earned multiple Div III All-American honors in both Track and Cross Country there.

Beyond his athletic accomplishments, Mike is also co-founder (with friend and teammate Dave Spandorfer) of Janji, a running apparel company whose mission is to raise awareness and fund relief efforts to help address issues of food security and access to clean drinking water. Their clothing uses designs based on the flags of countries with urgent food and water crises; with every item sold, Janji directs a portion of their profits to relief organizations in that country.

Mike will be hosting a Boston launch party for Janji at Marathon Sports in Brookline on Tuesday evening, June 12th at 7:00 p.m. Mike also agreed to an interview, to discuss how and why he started Janji.

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Jon: Welcome, Mike, and congratulations – I understand you just graduated from the Washington University, right?

Mike: Right.

Jon: What was your major?

Mike: I majored in Urban Studies and minored in Entrepreneurship.

Jon: When did you have the idea that you might want to start a business?

Mike: In 2010 -- the spring of my sophomore year – I came up with the idea for Janji while talking with my teammate and current co-founder Dave Spandorfer. We were on the bus to Track nationals at the time. Before then I hadn't considered a career in business, but the basic idea for Janji inspired me to get into it.

Jon: What is the basic idea of Janji?

Mike: Janji is a running apparel brand dedicated to fighting the Global Food and Water Crisis. Each piece of apparel is designed after a country's flag and each sale funds organizations in that country that are working on alleviating issues of food security and access to clean drinking water.

Jon: You’ve chosen to focus on running apparel, and it seems to me that the Janji message resonates especially with runners. Do you find that to be true? What kind of reactions do you get from runners when they hear about your company?

Mike: One of the amazing things about our sport is that the only equipment you need is a pair of shorts and a pair of shoes (and sometimes you can do without the shoes). Some of the best runners in the world come from rural areas with few modern resources. But two things that everyone needs to run successfully are proper nutrition and adequate hydration. A lot of runners tell me they feel they’ve taken those two things for granted -- in relation to running and life as a whole. Runners, more than most groups, recognize the importance of nutrition and hydration, and that inspired us to build Janji around that cause specifically.

Jon: On your web site you write that that in spite of efforts to address the crisis in providing food and drinking water to underdeveloped countries, the problem has actually gotten worse over the last ten years. It seems that additional funding, while welcome, can’t be the only answer.

Mike: One of the scariest things about the Food and Water Crisis is that it occurs silently. Childhood malnutrition was extremely prevalent in Haiti well before the earthquake in 2010 made the problems there visible to the world. Our goal at Janji is to create increased awareness for problems related to food and water through our distinctive apparel. We hope that runners continue to act as advocates for the cause beyond their apparel choices.

Jon: How does Janji make sure that money from apparel sales is directed toward the efforts and organizations with the best chance of making a difference?

Mike: We do what we can to directly impact the international crisis by funding organizations who are the best at what they do. We find organizations who don't just hand out food or water on a short term basis, but who use a systemic approach. They also need to be able to prove that their methods are successful over a long period of time. Right now we are working with Meds & Food for Kids (MFK) in Haiti (www.mfkhaiti.org), which produces peanut butter based nutritional medicine to children, and KickStart in Kenya (www.kickstart.org), which subsidizes sustainable water pumps for Kenyan farmers.

Jon: If runners want to get involved beyond buying the apparel, does Janji help them do that?

Mike: We’re not experts in public health, so we can’t recommend how to take action directly. However, promoting our partners is a really important part of our mission. MFK is currently building a new factory which will increase their capacity from 8,000 children served to 80,000! They need some help funding the construction efforts, and we encourage Janji runners to help contribute and help make the project possible. Janji can have a huge impact with direct funding, but I hope it’s only a small part of the total pie of what our community can accomplish as a whole.

Jon: I'm curious about the name of your company. Does that word have special significance to you or to Dave?

Mike: It does. "Janji" is the Malay word for "promise" or “commitment” and it relates directly to our company's mission. Janji's promise is to unite the running community in an effort to combat food insecurity and unsafe water conditions.

Jon: The Boston launch party for Janji is on Tuesday, June 12 at the Marathon Sports Brookline store. Is this open to anyone? What should people expect if they show up?

Mike: Yes! It should be an exciting night. Anybody can come -- the more the merrier. It'll be a fun social gathering where we will unveil Janji to the Boston running community. Haitian food will be served, in addition to drinks and snacks. Dave and I will speak for a few minutes and introduce the story and concept of Janji to the guests.

Jon: Before I let you go, I want to ask you about your own running. A few weeks ago you competed at NCAA Div III nationals in the 10000m and finished 8th, earning All-American honors. Congratulations! What’s next for you, or does running a company mean less time for actual running?

Mike: Thanks! Unfortunately I'm pretty much hooked on running and will probably be a runner for life, as long as I can stay healthy. I want to stay competitive and move up in distance to the marathon. I was really lucky to have great teams to train and compete with in high school and college, so I know it'll be tough to transition away from that community. It’s so much easier getting up in the morning for a long run, or kick the last lap of a tough 10k, when you know that your teammates are counting on you. One of the reasons we founded Janji was to give runners everywhere that extra motivation, to know you're running for more than just yourself.

Jon: Best of luck to Janji, and to you, Mike. You've had incredible success as a runner, and I hope that success continues, and translates to success in your business and humanitarian efforts.

Mike: Thanks Jon! See you at the launch?

Jon: I’ll try to make it!