Skewed Running
Mad Runner Disease spreads - Fred Hunter used to run 40 miles per week. But three months ago the office equipment repair technician complained to his wife about fatigue and a vague heavy feeling behind his eyes. After some discussion they attributed the symptoms to increased job stress brought on by a recent restructuring at his company. Things would soon get better they felt, and the weird-smelling berry flavored Recycle energy bars that Hunter had been snacking on lately seemed to perk him up. Then last month during one of his long weekend runs, Hunter became disoriented and severely dehydrated, finally collapsing dead in a remote area far from his usual training routes. When an autopsy revealed dozens of half-inch diameter marbles that had formed within his brain tissue, Mad Runner Disease was listed as the official cause of death.
Serial road race arrow alterer arrested - Federal Running Administration (FRNA) special agents assisted by Rochester Police arrested Howard Grotke early Sunday morning, the man they believe is the serial race course direction arrow alterer who has terrorized race directors in several states over a three year period. Grotke's arrest at a downtown Rochester intersection on the course of the "Lilac Festival 10K", during which he surrendered without resistance after being observed changing the directional indication of two chalk arrows that had been placed earlier on the pavement, culminates the longest and costliest investigation in FRNA's twelve years of existence.
Expensive self-serve water stations anger runners - With no plans to abandon the traditional staffed water stations at its many races which include a winter marathon and a popular 5km summer series, Phoenix-based Arizona Road Racers is bucking a trend that some foresighted analysts say could soon make free water expeditiously handed out by volunteers as rare as full service gasoline stations and hot meals on airplanes. Executives at H2OCorp of St. Louis see dollar signs when they review the running club's extensive race calendar. Taking over drinking water distribution at each of those Arizona races would be just one small step in the company's aggressive strategic plan to control 50% of domestic road race water stations by 2010.
Disabled runner may drive SUV in marathon, says Supreme Court - Reversing a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the Supreme Court Friday ruled 5 to 4 that disabled runner Steven Sirota may drive his 2000 Chevrolet Suburban in next month's "Macrohard Lakeside Marathon" near Seattle, though with several stipulations, some of which are highly technical in nature. But the court refused to address the question of what would happen if Sirota won the race and demanded prize money that the race committee has made clear he would not be eligible for.
Genetically modified runners escape from lab - Three long distance runners who had recently undergone experimental leg muscle implantation of genetically modified kangaroo cells, escaped early yesterday morning from a forth floor research laboratory at Stony Brook University Hospital, on the campus of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The three were part of a controversial project known as Super Runner, created by geneticist Dr. Lee Crandall who speaks enthusiastically on his lecture circuit about remaking the modern day runner with the "magic of gene manipulation and cloning."
Running logs show exaggerated mileage - On a crisp Sunday afternoon last month, Lou Aurichio finished an out-and-back training run along a popular pathway that follows the Lake Michigan shoreline through a city park then onto the campus of Northwestern University. Measuring 5.4 miles, the route which starts and finishes at his house on Hinman Avenue, is one he runs regularly a couple times a week, year-round. A week earlier, Aurichio agreed to have his favorite running route measured after being approached by someone from the Extra Miles Project. The research study, funded by the athletic shoe industry, is focused on the exaggerated distances that earlier smaller studies indicate many runners routinely enter into their running logs.
Runaway runner stopped by giant cakes of tofu - It was supposed to be a routine 10-mile point-to-point downhill training run along the meandering two lane highway that descends through National Forest land to the valley floor and the town of Flavonville. One that 43-year-old Sedric Sankie, who craved the fast pace, had been doing a couple times a month. His wife Julie would drive him up to the start from their home in town. Then she'd wait for him five miles down the hill where he'd stop for water and a gulp of sport drink. But this time it would be different.
Runners too thin, says Surgeon General - Newly confirmed U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, declaring that the nation's runners are too thin, today unveiled a high-priority program that seeks to bulk them up with a combination of nutritional education, exercise reduction, and millions of free cheeseburgers and thick-shakes. "Runners are an aberrant segment of the population," he explained while standing beside a chart showing average adult body mass projections for the next decade. "Over-exercised and undernourished, they threaten to slow America's rapid progress toward the goal of becoming the fattest people in the universe."
Iraq has weaponized running shoes, White House claims - At a luncheon yesterday hosted by the National Running Association, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the group that there is irrefutable evidence that Iraq has successfully mated a can of Pam cooking spray to the Saddam 3000 running shoe. He said President Bush will present some of that evidence during a speech at the United Nations next week, in which he will urge the world body to pass a forceful resolution requiring Iraq to immediately dismantle the modified shoes, submit to unrestricted inspections, and abandon its orthotic development program.
Runner pleads guilty to attempted bribery of track coach - Runner Jim Tunkcart, 41, pleaded guilty yesterday to a charge of attempted bribery involving Spencerport High School track coach Ray Emerson. In court testimony, Tunkcart recounted how over a four year period he gave Emerson an undetermined number of Miller High Life 12-packs, in exchange for the incorporation of additional 200 meter intervals in the Wednesday evening track workouts at the high school, that Emerson conducted for the Spencerport Area Road Runners Club.
Beer pipeline break worries roadracers - Last week's beer pipeline rupture in the desert west of Phoenix has disrupted supplies and created concerns at the Arizona Road Racers, a large running club that has a long tradition of serving beer at its events. Anticipating a beer shortage at its "Thanksgiving Day Classic", the club's Board of Directors met in emergency session last night to formulate contingency plans and to prepare for a meeting later this week with State and federal regulators and representatives from the pipeline owner, Gulf Midstream.
Natural disasters, O.J., wreak havoc with California road racing - Late last week as Governor Pete Wilson and Federal Running Administration (FRNA) Director Patricia Habib helicoptered over the washed-out course of the "Sun Coast 12K", running officials statewide scrambled to put races back on schedule, reassure corporate sponsors, and alley growing fears in the running community in the wake of a near continuous series of natural disasters that have turned road racing upside down.
