A Catch-Up, Round-Up of Recent News

With the Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon occupying the bulk of our attention for the past week, it's time to catch up on recent happenings from across our sport. Below, in bite-sized form, is all of the sport's recent news ...

(This news round-up is dedicated to Bonnie in Shorewood ... who thanked us over the weekend for DtB's ability to let busy folks like her have careers, raise kids, and train for marathons and still keep up on the latest goings-on in the sport.)

Wayzata #2 in Heartland ... On the strength of their Griak Invitational win two weekends ago, the Wayzata boys cross country team earned the #2 ranking in Nike Team Nationals Heartland Region. University High School of St. Louis hold the #1 spot which Rosemount, now #6, had occupied since the start of the season. Stillwater is ranked #9 in the poll that was released on October 5.

In the Heartland girls' poll, Eden Prairie is ranked #7 and Burnsville is ranked #8. Yankton, South Dakota holds the #1 ranking as it has all season.

MSHSL Rankings ... Yet another Class AA girls team sits atop the state rankings. Let's see if we can recount the previous #1's in order ... Lakeville North, Prior Lake, Brainerd, Eden Prairie, and now the Blaze. Wayzata continues to lead Class AA boys, but the big story there is Roseville's leap from #12 to #5 after their upset of Stillwater in Alexandria last week. The Plainview-Elgin-Millville boys were the big movers in Class A, going from #8 to #2 in a week. Things were quiet on the Class A girls front with Adrian still holding #1.

Ward Qualifies for the Olympic Marathon Trials ... While lots of other marathoners were sweating it out at Twin Cities or in Chicago, Erin Ward of Run N Fun punched her ticket to the Women's Olympic Marathon Trials with a 2:45:58 at the St. George Marathon in Utah. Women need a 2:47:00 to qualify.

Teammate Kelly Mortenson, the 12th place finisher at the 2000 Trials, missed the men's standard of 2:22:00 with a 2:23:29 on the last day qualifying for men.

TCM, the Kenyan Perspective ... TCM Elite Recruiter Rick Trueman alerted DtB to THIS story about TCM written for the area's African community.

Marcelo Ordaz-Cruz's Racing Chair Fund ... Gary Westlund at Charities Challenge informs us that his organization has raised $828.72 to outfit Interstate 35W bridge collapse survivor Marcelo Ordaz-Cruz with a new racing wheelchair. Ordaz-Cruz finished 9th in the men's wheelchair division at TCM in 2:36:09 despite overturning his chair in a crash near the 19 miles mark.

Charities Challenge has secured a $2000 "matching donation" for the fund that will effective double the value of individual pledges up to that amount. Westlund would like to raise $5000-6000 for Ordaz-Cruz.

Gophers #4 and #24 ... The University of Minnesota women retained their #4 ranking in the NCAA Division I poll this week. They are the #1-ranked Big Ten women's team in the poll. The Gopher men moved up a spot to #24. Both Gopher squads are scheduled to compete at the NCAA Pre-National Meet in Terre Haute, Indiana on Saturday in a dry run on the national meet course.

Remembering Caty Delwiche ... We found two more stories from this weekend describing how Caty Delwiche's college and high school teams were remembering her death last week. Kevin Pates wrote about her Glencoe-Silver Lake team HERE as part of the Duluth News Tribune's Swain Invitational coverage. (There are some really cool photos from the event HERE.) The Mankato Free Press, HERE, was on hand at MSU - Mankato's home meet which served a racing memorial to the fallen runner.