A satirical look at running in the U.S.A. and beyond
Momentum gained for Prefontaine sainthood - Legendary American distance runner, Steve Prefontaine, has become the focus of an increasingly passionate movement which organizer Joey Thompson hope will result in his receiving the rare status of a Saint. Thompson says he hatched the idea after having a vision while running the hills that Prefontaine himself trained on during his collegiate years at Oregon.
Compression shorts linked to infertility - Harvard researchers have recently released data that has caught the eye of tens of thousands of male runners. The increasingly popular use of "compression shorts" underneath more standard athletic attire was studied in a year long retrospective study completed by Harvard trained scientists, Edward Shields and his cohort Elijah Yarnell. Shields and Yarnell studied the sperm count of runners of varying abilities and found one hard fact that served notice: 62% reduction in viable sperm count in those runners wearing compression shorts.
Hugh Hefner swears off sex! - In an astounding turn about, legendary "Playboy" magazine founder, Hugh Hefner, has quit sex cold turkey after he discovered a new passion. "I found out what I was missing by spending my whole day with a bed full of playmates. They may all have been as soft as biscuits and smelled like strawberry jam, but they can't stack up to a good ten-miler. I'm just glad I found out about running before it was too late".
Running shoe fetish may lead to prison term - It has long been said that Imelda Marcos had the world cornered on the record number of shoes accumulated over a lifetime. But after the discovery of four storage garages full of old running shoes she may have to take a back seat to an obsessed ultramarathoner from Fort Lauderdale. Gregarious sixty-year-old Paul Bailey was arrested early Monday morning after he attempted to smuggle in a truck bed full of stolen running shoes that he had absconded from the previous days "Walt Disney World Marathon". The gray-haired Bailey admitted that he routinely honed in on international races that garnered the greatest amount of participants.
Secret documents reveal carboloading scam - In an astonishing development a corporate insider's shocking revelation has led to the indictment of the long time owners of the powerful Barilla Company. They are charged with perpetrating a fraud on the marathon running community by "influencing" clinical studies from an assortment of worldwide food-testing laboratories. There is not even a single study that shows runners who carbohydrate-load have improved racing performance. Most of the studies actually showed that pasta hurt the runners because they gained weight after eating plate after plate of pasta.
Cross country team addicted to sport drinks - A dangerous new fad has swept into Northern Idaho after local police raided a suburban garage late last Tuesday. Garbage bags of empty Mountain Dew "Amp" were confiscated and loaded into a dump tuck for evaluation at the state crime lab. Authorities are piecing together the stories of a secretive cult of long distance runners who had been abusing the increasingly popular sports drink.
New sliding event for the Chicago Marathon - "Chicago Marathon" race director Carey Pinkowski announced Tuesday that he will be adding a new event to the next edition of the legendary footrace. The announcement came fresh on the heels of the 2006 race that gained instant notoriety for the climactic slip and fall of race winner Robert Cheruiyot as he crossed the finish line. "Given the tremendous publicity Cheruiyot's fall has generated, I have already added a new event to the docket for next year's race", said Pinkowski from his downtown office in Chicago. "I have tentatively called it the 'Pheiddipiddes Slip and Slide'. In this division each runner will still have to run the marathon distance, but they will have to finish it by sliding headfirst the final fifty yards on a slick plastic mat".
Kenyan walker shunned by village - A Kenyan man has been cast out of his boyhood home of Eldoret because of his predilection for competitive race walking. The shunned man, 23 year-old Samuel Oseigo, spoke out from the neighboring country of Tanzania where he had been granted "aerobic asylum" by the Tanzanian government. Oseigo related a lifelong passion for an activity inherently foreign to the runner-rich Rift Valley portion of Kenya.
Czech couple: "Our son will win!" - Tomas and Johana Novak have a simple plan for their unborn son and they are not shy in unveiling it to the world. "He will be a champion baby-runner," said Tomas as he was interviewed from his humble home in Koprivnice, Czechoslovakia. "I have made plans for it to be so."
Spam addiction overpowers runner - Long-time vegetarian and marathon runner Sally Pierce has vanquished many foes in her sterling competitive career, but it is a ten-ounce piece of meat-based product that currently holds the upper hand. Spam, the long-time favorite of both rich and poor alike, has derailed her training and for now put her racing career on hold.
Ultrarunner to test outer limits - Greek endurance runner Aesop Bion has announced his plan to run uninterrupted for a span of seven weeks in an attempt to set a new world record for continuous ultradistance running. Bion's proclamation comes on the heels of fellow countryman Yiannis Kouros and his legendary record setting ultramarathon running career. Kouros has competed in countless races varying from distances of up to 12 days duration and spanning 1000 miles.
