Big Five Anyone????

Clem's dethronement must have bugged him more than he and I realized, so on October 8th, I got an e-mail from the supercoach, stating that this was no time for Gil to retire. I guess Clem felt that he needed another chance to get the trophy back.
Then, a few days later... another e-mail from Clem! I could have guessed it. With New York, Chicago and Berlin out of the way for Dora, Gil, himself and me, he pointed out that we now only needed to run Boston and London to complete the Big 5. Did he forget that I had just announced my retirement?
But the damage was done.... and I started to feel that I had to redeem myself by running a spring marathon. Oh yes, that made a lot of sense. Do badly in a flat marathon and try to get back on track with the Boston marathon. That sounds for a recipe for more heartbreak! And I don't JUST mean running up heartbreak hill. Anyway, I thought about it for a couple of days, and just as I stopped obsessing about it, I get a call from Dora. Out of the blue!!!! No knowledge of Clem's correspondence!
"What did I think of running Boston? With only 2 to go, she thought it would be neat to finish the Big Five!" What is it with these Europeans? Did SLG create this monster called Dora?
I thought I would bring her down to earth by telling her there is a qualifying time for Boston. Of course I had already checked my time. I "qualified" through NYC marathon 2007, so did Clem. Of course I had to go check out Gil's qualifying time. He qualified by his result in Berlin. What is this. A conspiracy???
So I still thought I could dissuade Dora and continue my retirement. But guess what. She found a website that guarantees her an entry. Go figure.
Admittedly, as I said in a prior blog entry, other great women have come out of retirement as well. So I broached the subject with the King. "Absolutely not, he was done running marathons....did he qualify?....mmm, it would be neat, running all five.... but what about the trophy? .... Clem wants to do this so he can get the trophy back after 6 months"
So, I mulled it over with the founding fathers (back me up here Mark and Stefan). As Clem had said in November 2007, the first rule of SLG and the CMIYC trophy, is that the rules can always be changed. So here is the deal. If we do get crazy enough to run Boston, there will be NO eligibilith for the CMIYC trophy. The reign of the sitting King or Queen lasts for a whole year, and for this purpose, a year is defined as a minimum of 300 days. Does that put your mind at ease, Gil?? BIG FIVE ANYONE?????

The King reaffirms his reign

In order to get SLG-ers excited about running again, I thought that maybe what I had to do was go look at some other races in the area. Not in Central Park, not in NYC but maybe a bit further afield... And this is how the next story unfolds.
For years, I had to hear about this 5 km run in Scarsdale where the first woman and man over 50 received the "Stanley Newhouse Trophy". For years, I had to listen to Gil proclaim that he would have won the trophy if he would have run it but "he didn't want to run it because he didn't want to get hurt for the NY marathon or the Chicago marathon etc"
So, when the subject of the Stanley Newhouse Trophy surfaced again, I reminded him that "you have to be in it, to win it" so he signed up. In order to lend him some support, and to go and check out this race, I decided to sign up as well. So here we were, in this fancy Wetschester suburb, the King and the coach, at the start of this "flat" race with some 200 odd competitors. There were no chips to be tied on your running shoe, no bar code strip to hand in at the end, a guy on a bike who gave the final instructions and pressed his stopwatch, and arrows on the road to indicate the course. I hadn't run a race like that in a long time, maybe never. But boom, the horn went off and we were off...
The course was as "flat" as the north hills in Central Park but it was over in a flash. Actually the wait for the trophy ceremony was longer than the actual race. But sure enough, when they announced the male winner of the trophy, our friend the King was called to the podium and hoisted up his prize, a silver bowl with some serious engraving on the side, stating the fact that on Ocotber 19th, 2008 the recipient had come in first in the over 50 category, in a time of 20 minutes and change, which meant that Gil had run better than 7 minute miles. Wow!!!!
And the Queen, never one for false modesty didn't do half badly herself. She passed one woman who looked like she could be in her age category around mile one. She left some high school kids, which had passed her early on in the 5 k, in the dust. When one of them had a late surge and caught back up with her a bit before the end, she gave it her all, and beat this young whipper snapper! All this resulted in a 5 k race in 23:50 which is about 7:40 minute miles! And a second place in the over-50 category.
Maybe we need to make this a SLG event next year. Maybe I can hold up the coveted Stanley Newhouse trophy some day!
(Newspaper article to follow!)

Haile and me

It was 3 weeks ago that Sr.LG ran the Berlin marathon. No running records were broken... which of course is not surprising, since , as Clem pointed out in a comment on the blog, all members who have their best record-breaking years still in them, were no shows. So what's the president and eternal Queen of SLG to do? She has to go look for other members of course.

Rumor has it that a runner from Ethiopia was interested in becoming an SLG member. He went through great lengths to find us, and actually stayed in our hotel. We had a chance meeting at the check in counter, and this runner, Haile Gebrselassie showed me quite an impressive running portfolio. He seemed very eager to join SLG and although I could not consult with the founding fathers, Dora, Clem, Gil and I thought that this runner could add something to our club and we signed him up immediately/ The rest of course is history. Yes, we did have a new record!!!! Haile broke his own world record that he set last year in Berlin by 23 seconds, finishing in 2:03:59!!!

This, of course is the poetic interpretation of how I got my picture taken with Haile, but I thought it would be a good way to get you people curious about the blog. I fared much worse in this perfect marathon and I am not going to dwell on the why and what ifs. All I can say is that Berlin is a very interesting city, the marathon course is beautiful, shaded and extremely flat and the weather was picture perfect.

Besides that, it felt really nice on Friday night, when SLG'ers from two continents, with fans, family and friends in tow all showed up at the bar of the Marriott Hotel. Even though there were less than half the runners of our great Chicago marathon two years ago, we were all extremely happy to be there. Dora, came with her friend Geert, who at 39 was running in his first marathon. Gil brought his sister Gloria, a veteran marathon runner who seemed poised to do well.

And here we are, sans Clem (who was staying in a diffrent hotel) on the way to the start.


As I mentioned before, my marathon did not go as planned. It was really nice to shoot the breeze with Gil and Gloria while we were waiting for the starting gun to go off. The three of us stayed together for a couple of miles, and then Gloria took off. Surprisingly, Gil and I stayed together until mile 5 and then he too was gone. Just before the half way mark, I got lightheaded. I stopped, walked a bit, swore and started jogging again. From the 24th kilometer on, I walked part of almost every kilometer that was left, and that's a lot of kilometers to be walking in. I had hoped to break 3:50, after the 20 km I realized it would be great to finish under 4 and I finished in a pitiful 4:17:09

Clem and I were the first people back to the hotel. Clem also was disappointed! Then the waiting began. How would Gil have done. Did he finish with his "broken" hip? Would he look OK? Would he feel OK? I guess we all got worried for a while, but then there he was, all smiles and walking in with his sister. Everybody was so relieved that he had finished and that he looked well, nobody even thought to ask him about his finishing time! It wasn't until later that we realized that Gil had beaten the reigning king, Clem. He had done the impossible. The CIMYC trophy was coming back to American soil!!!!!
And here we are. Gloria, the winner of our little group with a time of 3:37:50. Congratulations to Gloria. King Gil finished in a time of 3:42:09 and immediately announced his retirement. Too bad, considering that this result qualifies him for the Boston marathon..... BIG 5 ANYONE????
Clem finished in 3:46:06. More important than this result is that he knocked of marathon #92, in his quest to run his hundredth marathon in July of 2010! Mark your calendars, SLG'ers! Lief's time of 4:17:08 also made her consider retirement. She even announced it right after the run. But other great women (like
Cher and Tina Turner) have announced their retirements several times, only to unretire. So who knows.
Then there is Dora, 4:28:30. Dora does not care about fast, or faster or slow! Dora truly enjoys running marathons and has big aspirations. More about that later. And next to Dora is her friend Geert. First time marathoner, finishing in a time of 3:58 and change but who cares about the "and change". (Even the Boston marathon qualifying standards don't care about the "and change", but more about that later...). Congratulations to Geert, who according to Dora, still has a runners high, 3 weeks after the marathon.
So, it was Another Fine Day for SLG!!! And this, together with the fact that the CMIYC trophy came back to this side of the ocean, calls for a celebration. So, for all of you who can make it on Sunday, November 2nd, 2008, come for a party and help us crown the new King at SLG headquarters at 22 West 76th street. This counts as an official invitation, so please let me know whether you can make it. !!!!!