steve outing's blog

This is remarkable...

Hardrock 100 champion ignores sprained ankle

Excerpt: "Taking more than half an hour off the course record of the Hardrock 100-mile endurance race is an impressive achievement. Doing it with a sprained ankle borders on superhuman.

Hey, everyone. The YourRunning.com tech gnomes have been hard at work making the site better.

In recent days they rolled out ... MAPS ATTACHED TO STUFF!

You may have noticed these already on some photos, videos or blogs. When someone posts content to YourRunning.com, they're now given the option of identifying on a map where the content belongs physically.

Got an e-mail from the Bolder Boulder this evening, telling me not only that my official time was finally ready 2 days after the race, but that (how exciting!) I could go here to see myself (and 50,000 other runners) come down the final stretch of the race into Folsom Stadium.

This web video might come in handy next time I have trouble falling asleep. :)

The newspapers confirmed what I suspected as my daughter and I went by the paramedics doing CPR on an elderly guy in the middle of yesterday's Bolder Boulder 10K: The race had its first runner death in the 29 years of the race.

According to news reports, bike-riding medical personnel were at the guy's aid quickly, doctors running in the race stopped to help, and a paramedic crew was on the scene in minutes. But he still didn't make it.

I wonder if he was part of the Bravehearts running group of heart problem survivors that Simon mentioned last week.

I did the Bolder Boulder 10K this morning, alongside my youngest daughter (age 9, hence my time of just under 2 hours) and with apparently around 50,000 other runners and walkers. We all had these little chips from Ipico tied to our shoelaces -- the first time that the venerable race has gone digital. (Hurray! It's about time.)

In theory, the system is great: It tracks your overall time and mile splits, and at the end you can send in a text message via your cell phone and (supposedly) within 20 minutes get a message back with your results. Nice.

This is wild. Looks like Denver's Colfax Marathon may have been 1/2 a mile longer than the official 26.2! The linked story says some runners complained -- probably because many had GPS units or Forerunners and their stats didn't say 26.2 at the end. Yikes!

So here's a funny question:

What companies would you like to see sponsor YourRunning.com, give away prizes, etc.?

I ask because:

1. We need to attract additional sponsors to fund the operation of YourRunning.com.

2. Since you are a running super-enthusiast (why else would you be reading this website?!), you may have connections to running-related companies that would value reaching out to the YourRunning.com community.

Bobby Bostic isn't the only one, it seems, to have quite a Hot and Cold Running tale to tell. (Bobby, who just completed the 2007 North Pole Marathon and bike race, last year finished the Death Valley Ultramarathon.)

As reported on Global Cool, Sean Cornwell and Ed Stumpf have a similar tale. They competed alongside Bobby at the North Pole, and earlier this year completed the Sahara Marathon (as in Sahara Desert in Africa). ... I wonder what's tougher: the Sahara or Death Valley?

Sean, according to the article, also took a brief skinny dip in the Arctic Ocean.

So Bobby Bostic completed the North Pole Marathon over the weekend (AND a challenging 26.2-mile bike race) and is now hanging out in Longyearbyen, Norway. He'll be posting up a storm in the coming days with stories and photos about his weekend. Meantime, I got on Skype with him this morning (well, my morning, his evening) just before the awards ceremony. Here's our conversation:

Steve says: Glad you made it back! How was it?

Bobby says: It was fantastic!... I've been trying to load all of my pictures this afternoon, but the connection is dreadfully slow. I started typing up my notes, but got sidetracked with a dogsledding trip I took this morning.

So what do you think when a marathon bans iPods? Just noticed this news item about a Duluth marathon banning them for participants -- following a national trend. The story notes: "USA Track and Field recently enacted that ban for all sanctioned running events to increase participant safety."

Rather than a blanket ban, I think race organizers should make the decision. I ran a marathon in Fort Collins, Colorado, a couple years ago and listened to music. The race was small enough that there really was no safety issue, with runners pretty spread out not long after the start. As a 4-hour-plus runner, the music helped me keep my sanity.

On the other hand, at a really crowded race like the Bolder Boulder 10K (45,000+ runners) I can see the logic of a ban on headphones.

What do you think?

(Bobby Bostic: Did you listen to your iPod during the North Pole Marathon?)