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ST. LOUIS (AP)—Long after the rest of the St. Louis Cardinals shaved off their good-luck mustaches last year, Brendan Ryan(notes) kept the look going. Just like his breakout year.Cardinals’ Ryan hoping ‘stache can help snap slump
Stands to reason he’s decided to try facial hair again in an attempt to recapture that long-lost feel as he struggles along with his team.
“I’m doing anything possible to make some good things happen,” Ryan said. “Whatever it takes.”
The 28-year-old Ryan was the opening day starter at shortstop, valued for his exceptional range on defense and timely hitting coming off a .292 average a year ago. Manager Tony La Russa has often said he’s the best defensive shortstop he’s had, a group that includes Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith.
Ryan landed on the bench Sunday due to a 1 for 28 slump at the plate combined with erratic play in the field that included consecutive two-error games during the last homestand—miscues La Russa blamed on Ryan attempting to dazzle with the glove.
Ryan’s first start in five days in a 4-2 victory over the Marlins was a positive step back: a single and walk, sure-handed plays in the field.
But he realized it was a small step and needed to earn his way back after being demoted to a platoon role, a move timed with Felipe Lopez’s(notes) return from the 15-day disabled list. He was back on the bench Friday behind Lopez, who has played well at shortstop, and second baseman Skip Schumaker(notes).
“I’m not going to bury him, so he’ll get his chance,” La Russa said. “It’s certainly not like we lack confidence in him, but when a guy’s struggling as much for him as for us you’ve got to get him out of there.”
Plus, Ryan was batting just .167 with six RBIs and entering the weekend.
“I’ll come to the park ready to play, but I’m going to have to assume it’s going to be Skip and Felipe,” Ryan said.
Ryan got a late start to spring training after undergoing wrist surgery in February but appeared to be up to speed by opening day. Instead, only problems. Normally an effervescent player, he’s been tightlipped and grim during at-bats.
La Russa said it’s been difficult watching Ryan’s spiral, and was pleased to see Ryan have some success.
“He’s got a great heart,” the manager said. “His emotions aren’t on his sleeve, they’re all over his body.”
During his enforced down time, Ryan has been working on getting his timing back at the plate. Batting coach Mark McGwire worked with Ryan during the winter and has emphasized balance, swinging at the pitches he can handle instead of chasing deliveries out of the strike zone, and getting the count in his favor.
He believes his woes are both mechanical and mental.
“I care a lot, and I think that can be a problem at times,” Ryan said. “Things were not going my way for quite a while and it’s hard to just kind of look past that, but it’s part of being a professional.”
Lately, Ryan has been working with the Cardinals’ other batting coach, Mike Aldrete.
“I’ve gotten a couple of texts from guys who said ‘It doesn’t look like you’re having fun,”’ Ryan said. “I need to find a way to have fun again.”
That’s where the mustache comes in. Or will eventually. After Thursday’s game, there wasn’t much to show for the effort.
Last weekend, Ryan tried shaving his head.
“So we’ll go with the ‘stache,” Ryan said. After Thursday’s game, he was wearing the “Respect the Stache’ T-shirt players made last year, too.
“Just because. Why not?” Ryan said. “I’m trying to pretend it’s almost opening day, it’s a fresh start.”
Top American Marathoner Ryan Hall Supports Lance Armstrong, Comments on Dopinghttp://trueslant.com/runningshorts/2010/05/21/top-american-marathoner-ryan-hall-supports-lance-armstrong-comments-on-doping/
America’s top marathoner has nothing but support for America’s top cyclist.
Ryan Hall said yesterday he thinks Lance Armstrong has been clean for each of seven Tour De France victories, citing the hundreds of tests Armstrong has passed throughout his career.
“Until a test says otherwise, I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt,” Hall said. “There’s always going to be talk about people using, but it’s just a lot of talk. I don’t get into the speculation.”
Hall also expressed disappointment at the way Floyd Landis, who’s private emails to cycling officials were leaked to the Wall Street Journal and set off a new round of widespread doping allegations in cycling, dragged Armstrong through the mud.
“If what Landis says is true, there should be tests or evidence to show for it,” Hall said.
Armstrong denied Landis’ allegations yesterday in a brief public statement.
Despite their differences, the running and cycling communities share a lot in common, including the physical demand of top aerobic fitness that is required for each endurance sport. More than any skill sport – where the lame argument that “steroids can’t help batters hit a 100 mph fast ball” persist – endurance sports are more simplistic for determining success.
So when doping news in one sport breaks, it inevitably draws attention from fans of the other. That’s why when news broke of Landis’ admissions yesterday, runners chirped their reactions to Facebook friends and Twitter followers. It’s why LetsRun’s homepage has been splashed with related headlines about the story for the last two days.
Professional runners followed it closely as well and they have opinions about it too. Hall’s reluctance to play into speculation is based partially on keeping a competitive edge. “Some people think that 90% of the [running] competition is dirty. To me, that’s basically like throwing in the towel because when you start thinking that, you start thinking they are superhumans.”
Since late 2006, when he burst onto the elite running scene by breaking two American records in four months – 20K in October 2006; Half Marathon in January 2007 – Hall has been one of the world’s best marathoners. He has six top-7 finishes at Marathon Majors, including two third places. His PR, 2:06:17 is the second fastest American time behind only Morocco-born Khalid Khannouchi.
Hall said that the higher he has risen in the national and world rankings, the more frequent testing has gotten for him.
Still, despite his benefit-of-the-doubt attitude towards Armstrong, Hall acknowledges a need for better testing procedures in his own sport.
“The testing still needs to improve. How they test needs to change.” The most important time to be testing is in the weeks before a race, he said, not immediately after.
http://www.diamondleague.com/Home/IAAF Diamond League – Diamond Race: How it works
The IAAF Diamond League encompasses 32 individual event disciplines, with a points scoring ‘Diamond Race’ which runs throughout the 14 meeting series.
Each of the disciplines is staged seven times with the top three Athletes being awarded the same amount of points at each meeting with the exception of the Final where the points are doubled. The AVIVA London Grand Prix with 27 disciplines on two days counts as one meeting.
1st place 4 points (Final: 8 points)
2nd place 2 points (Final: 4 points)
3rd place 1 point (Final: 2 points)
The Athlete with the highest number of points in each discipline at the end of the IAAF Diamond League season wins "The Diamond Race”. In case of equality on points, the number of victories decides, if there still is a tie, the better result at the Final decides. For an athlete to win a Diamond race and its associated prize, he / she must compete in the final (Zurich or Brussels) of their event discipline.
Winners of each Diamond Race will get a Diamond Trophy and a cash prize but more importantly, will have shown season long consistency to earn the unchallenged honour of being the World Number 1.
PRIZE MONEY
Per each event at each meeting
All 32 disciplines have the same prize money with a total of 30,000 USD x 15 = 450‘000 USD per meeting
Place - Prize Money
• 1. 10,000 USD
• 2. 6000 USD
• 3. 4000 USD
• 4. 3000 USD
• 5. 2500 USD
• 6. 2000 USD
• 7. 1500 USD
• 8. 1000 USD
Diamond Race Trophy
per each Diamond Race winner at the end of the season
The winner of each of the 32 Diamond Races will receive a 40,000 USD cash prize and a spectacular Diamond Trophy created by Beyer, one of the oldest and most respected jewellers in the world, which was established in Zürich in the 18th century.
IAAF Diamond League
Universal Sports
In principle, pace-setting a race seems to carry a pretty cut-and-dry job description.
Meet director hires runner to lead field through a designated point in the race at a predetermined tempo.
Runner runs agreed-upon time and distance.
Runner gets paid.
But what happens when the competitors that the pace-setter is hired to lead don't follow?
What you get are awkward situations like the one that happened at the Diamond League in Doha, where the hired rabbit for the men's 3000m steeplechase never stepped off the track.
Patrick Langat of Kenya was hired to tow along a field that included Kenyans Ezekiel Kemboi, gold medalist at last summer's World Championships, Paul Kipsiele Koech, silver medalist at the 2009 World Athletics Final, and Brimin Kiprop Kipruto, the Beijing Olympic champion. The designated pace according to Kemboi was 7:55.
When the gun went off, Langat broke to the lead and no one gave chase. He kept going at his pace, and wound up opening nearly a 60-meter lead. It wasn't until the bell lap, when Kemboi and Koech managed to close the gap on the fading Langat, eventually passing him going into the final turn. Langat never stepped off, and wound up finishing third in 8:09.12, earning one point toward the Diamond race.
To the uninitiated, it might seem like Langat did not fulfill the job he was hired for, or at the very least violated some code of pacing etiquette.
Apparently, no such code exists.
"There is no unwritten rule that says a rabbit must step off the track," American distance great Alberto Salazar said. "If he's running that pace and no one goes with him, there's nothing that says he has to stop. In fact, he probably worked harder than anyone else and deserves to finish."
Although it's rare, pace-setters have wound up winning races they were hired to help someone else win.
Perhaps the most famous incident on the track happened in 1981, when American Tom Byers was hired to rabbit a mile race in Oslo that featured Steve Ovett, Steve Cram and John Walker. Byers pulled away with no one giving chase, and by the final lap had opened a 70-meter lead. Ovett, the reigning Olympic 800m champion, tried to close the gap but wound up finishing a full second behind.
Other notable instances have occurred in the marathon.
At the 1994 L.A. Marathon, Paul Pinkington was paid $3000 by race organizers to pace. When favored Luca Barzaghi of Italy did not follow the early pace, he fell so far behind Pilkington during the final miles that he assumed Pilkington had dropped out of the race and slowed up. Pilkington had in fact crossed the finish line first in 2 hours, 12 minutes, 13 seconds. When Barzaghi crossed some 40 seconds later, he raised his arms thinking he had won.
At the Chicago Marathon in 2001, race director Carey Pinkowski hired Ben Kimondiu and Joseph Kariuki to pace the race. Kariuki dropped out at 15K, leaving Kimondiu as the only pacer. When he reached the halfway point with no one around, he actually stopped and started jogging in place. After a while, when no one came, he continued on, running alone until the late stages. It wasn't until the 40K mark that Paul Tergat caught up. Tergat, who went on to set the world record in 2003, and Kimondiu continued to duel over the final two kilometers with the rabbit pulling a six-second victory out of his hat in 2:08.52.
"You don't see it happen too often because they usually hire guys who are in shape to run the designated split for that distance," Salazar said. "If you're in shape to lead the race for the whole distance, then you should probably be in the field."
Salazar said he has never seen it happen first hand, but recently feared he might.
At the Brutus Hamilton Invitational at Cal-Berkeley last month, Salazar was coaching Galen Rupp in the 10,000m, a race that featured two rabbits through the two-mile mark. When the first rabbit did not go fast enough, second rabbit Bolota Asmerom, a 2000 Olympian at 5000m, took off unchallenged.
"I told Galen to sit back but when Bolota started to get 50, 60 meters ahead, I started to think, ‘This guy's not gonna stop,'" Salazar said. "I started to tell Galen to pick it up. By the time he caught him, Bolota did step off, but you'd hate to lose a race because you didn't go with the rabbit."
That would be a tough carrot to swallow.
| 1 | David Torrence | 24 | M | Oakland | CA | 04:04.0 $4000 | |||||||
| 2 | Daniel Huling | 26 | M | Columbus | OH | 04:05.4 $2500 | |||||||
| 3 | Jordan Horn | 26 | M | Flagstaff | AZ | 04:05.7 $1500 | |||||||
| 4 | Derek Scott | 24 | M | Bloomington | IN | 04:06.1 $1000 | |||||||
| 5 | Garrett Heath | 24 | M | Winona | MN | 04:06.4 $800 | |||||||
| 6 | Lopez Lomong | 25 | M | San Francisco | CA | 04:06.4 $500 | |||||||
| 7 | Liam Boylan-Pett | 24 | M | Washington | DC | 04:06.7 $325 | |||||||
| 8 | Alex Tatu | 25 | M | Charlottesville | VA | 04:07.9 $100 | |||||||
| 9 | Darren Brown | 25 | M | Austin | TX | 04:08.8 $75 | |||||||
| 10 | Robert Myers | 29 | M | Rushville | OH | 04:11.0 $50 | |||||||
| 11 | Michael Hendry | 25 | M | Charlottesville | VA | 04:11.6 | |||||||
| 12 | Sam Dech | 30 | M | Oklahoma City | OK | 04:12.9 | |||||||
| 13 | Jonathan Pierce | 26 | M | Mammoth Lakes | CA | 04:12.9 | |||||||
| 14 | Jordan Fife | 26 | M | Bloomington | IN | 04:15.7 | |||||||
| 15 | Aaron Aguayo | 25 | M | Johnson City | TN | 04:21.6 |
The greatest sprinter of all time is ready to run his first marathon. Carl Lewis says he will celebrate his 50th birthday by running the open portion of the 2012 Houston Marathon.Link to SI.
Lewis trained in Houston under coach Tom Tellez, while winning nine Olympic gold medals between 1984 and 1996. But Lewis insists there will be no training this time. "I'm not doing any 20-mile runs to prepare for it," Lewis told SI. "And I won't be running for time. This is something I want to do once."
Lewis said he wants to try a new challenge in his life each year after he turns 50. His strategy: "I'm going to wait until the last hundred meters and then pass some people so I can get one of those finish-line photos," he says.
“I know I’ll take a lot of heat for letting Galen do all the work and then kicking at the end, but as I said before, I never chase times. I just try to win. That’s our group’s philosophy.”http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/sports/24754314-41/record-oregon-solinsky-track-field.csp
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The 25-year-old Solinsky, who hails from Stevens Point, Wis. — the same hometown of Suzy Favor Hamilton — said a U.S. record attempt in the 5,000 will be his main goal this season, and he wants to do it at Hayward Field......“But the big race is planned for the (Prefontaine Classic) in early July. The mission is to run a sub-13 on American soil.”
1 Gebre Gebremariam 25 ADID Ethiopia 27:42 $7500 + $20k CR
2 Peter Kamais 33 ADID Kenya 27:49 $5000
3 Julius Kogo 24 WTC Kenya 28:19 $3000
4 Chris Thompson 29 OTC Great Br 28:25 $2000
5 Alistair Cragg 29 ADID Ireland 28:33 $1250
6 Abdi Abdirahman 33 NIKE AZ 28:35 $750
7 Ben St. Lawrence 28 NEWB Australi 28:36 $600
8 Mohamed Trafeh 25 NIKE CA 28:37 $350
9 Ed Moran 28 NIKE VA 28:39 $250
10 Shadrack Biwott 25 OTC Kenya 28:57 $100
Introduction
Lance Smith provides not a history of running, but a brief overview of some of the important developments that lead to changes in training methods.
Man probably started running out of necessity, either to eat or to escape being eaten and running was always part of warfare and communication (Pheidippides, a messenger bringing news of battle - Pharaohs and noblemen of ancient Egypt having runners precede them to proclaim the importance of their master). No one knows when running became a recreation but races of 3200m (4 laps between two pillars 800m apart) took place in Egypt 3800 B.C. Running was a part of the ancient Olympics; in fact for the first 13 Olympiads a sprint race was the only event, although longer races and other events were added to the programme over the years. The first Olympics were held in 776 B.C. and continued for almost 1200 years. At first the Olympics were religious festivals honouring various gods and the idea of physical perfection, but over time contestants lost their religious ideals and winning money became the prime motivation. Of course, running was important in many other cultures and there are records of Native Americans having races lasting several days.
