Exciting weekend for racing

There are some exciting races this weekend. The Houston Half Marathon is this years US Championship for the half marathon distance. Shalane Flanagan, the American Record Holder from 3k to 10k, will make her half marathon debut there. She will be up agains a great women's field except for Deena Kastor who decided to run the Phoenix Rock n' Roll half marathon the same day. I don't understand that logic unless Deena is not confident in her fitness. Ryan Hall is also skipping the US Championships to run in Phoenix. I just don't get it. They are both flat and fast courses with great competition. Flotrack will have live coverage of the Houston Half Marathon Sunday morning, check it out!


I was thinking about Sergio Reyes' Chicago Marathon time of 2:15:30 and wondering how well that ranked last year out of all the American times, so I looked it up on USATF.ORG. His time was the 14th fastest American marathon time last year! His half marathon time of 64:05 in Columbus was 22nd fastest US half marathon time of 2009!

First was Meb winning NY in 2:09:15
Second was Ryan Hall with a 3rd in Boston in 2:09:40
Third was Dathan with 11th in London win 2:10:00
Forth was Jason Hartmann winning Twin Cities in 2:12:09

There were only 42 American times under 2:20
An American male won NY, Twin Cities, Grandma's, Philadelphia, Eugene, Jacksonville, and Columbus with times of 2:20 or faster!

I also found a site on Letsrun.com that ranked the 10 best US marathon performaces of 2009 and they gave Sergio an honorable mention with "the Patriot Award" for being the first American male finisher at the Chicago Marathon.

NY, Twin Cities, Chicago, and CIM had the most times on the sub 2:20 list and I ran two of those races this past year! Three of the top 20 times were run at CIM and three of the top 25 times were run at Twin Cities.

After looking at the USATF 2009 bests I realized how amazing Kara Goucher's year was. She was in the top 15 in every distance from 1500m (4:09:77) to the marathon which was the fastest US marathon last year at the World Championships in Berlin in 2:27:48. She also had the 6th fastest mile and 5k and the 2nd fastest 3k.

No other runner male or female was as versitle. Jenny Barringer was near the top in every event from 800m to 5k and had the fastest steeple with an American Record. Desiree Davilla was on every list from 5k to the marathon. Galen Rupp was in the top 20 from 1500m to the 10k. Bernard Lagat was fastest American in 1k, 1500m, 3k, and 3rd in the 5k. Dathan Ritzenhein was the closest to Kara in overall distance dominance. He was on every list for 2009 from the 3k to the marathon with an American Record in the 5k (12:56).


We have had some great weather out here so far this year. We should feel fortunate to run in southern California when the rest of the country is covered in snow. Check out this article about a race in Pittsburgh called the Frigid 5-miler!