Gene has run three marathons under 3:00 since turning 70, only the second runner to do so along with the legendary Ed Whitlock. You can also follow him on Strava, if you want to witness some amazing feats of training and racing. In addition to marathons, he races ultras up to 200 miles. This weekend he’s competing the the Philadelphia Freedom challenge, which entails a half marathon and an 8k on Saturday, followed by a full marathon on Sunday. Yesterday he “took it easy” in the half, running 1:39, before going out and blasting the 8k in 33:33 — 6:43 pace! As I write this, I haven’t seen marathon results yet. I’m guessing low-3:00’s.
All in Notes
Corey Bellemore, the world record holder for the Beer Mile (4:33.6), ran a 3:49.05 for 1500 meters to finish second in the Canadian T&F nationals last weekend. That 1500 time converts to about a 4:07 mile. So to put the beer mile record in perspective, it only cost him about 27 seconds to stop and drink a 12-oz. beer each lap, and to run with the consequences. (Incredibly, Bellemore has actually run a Beer Mile in 4:24.x, but he left a half-ounce too much residue in his empties, so he was DQ’d.) … I was curious so I looked up age group Beer Mile records. My age group would be the 50-68 (?!) men, and the world record is 6:23. I might have a shot at this… without the beer stops!
This past weekend the USATF Nationals were held at Drake and televised by various NBC stations. We don’t get the premium stuff, so from what we saw this was the US “sprint, throw and jump” championships. Occasionally there would be a result from a distance event posted. (I guess we’re being trained for the Tokyo Olympics next year.) There were some notable distance achievements: Molly Huddle won her fifth straight 10k championship, Emma Coburn her eighth steeple, Shelby Houlihan nipped Jenny Simpson in the 1500 and went on to win the 5000, Lopez Lomong won the men’s 10k for the second year in a row, and Craig Engels upset Matt Centrowitz in the 1500.