News and Notes

An interview with Team USA MN's Antonio Vega from Running Times is HERE.
There is a strong line up for the speakers at this year’s Grandma’s Marathon. Olympian Kara Goucher, Dick Beardsley, author Hal Higdon, and coach of the current women’s Olympic marathon champion, Constantina Dita, Valeriu Tomescu, will talk at the race expo on Friday, June 18. Grandma’s weekend starts on Thursday, June 17, and culminates in the race on Saturday, June 19.

A nice feature on the University of Minnesota’s women’s track team captain, Rikita Butler, is on the U of M site HERE. Chad Austin has an interview with Ed Rousseau HERE that includes a priceless picture of the septuagenarian passing a much younger runner.

With Boston approaching on Monday,it brings back memories for many of us of Ron Daws, who made a name for himself on the US distance scene because of his success in the Beantown classic. The annual Ron Daws 25K was run on April 3 and has a whimsical note on the MDRA site noting a course measurement issue during this year’s race: “A clear April morning greeted the 31st edition of this spring MDRA 25K event. Fastest times were posted by Wynn Davis of River Falls, WI who cruised to a 1:31:16 running with Ben Schneider. Jenna Boren of St. Paul (1:44:50) led the women. A post race check disclosed the course was actually 15.76 miles as cones marking a turn around point were placed incorrectly. We regret the additional two tenths and there will be no extra charge. We hope you can join us next year as now that the road construction is done we go back to the original 25K course!”

In MIAC news, Bethel’s Dan Greeno won the 5K at the Jim Duncan Invitational, hosted by Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, last Friday night with a school record setting time of 14:35.55. The time breaks his own school record, set last season, by almost 14 seconds. His time meets NCAA provisional standards and currently places him seventh in the nation. The Augsburg women's 400-meter relay team of Whitney Holman, Chelsey Rice, Ashley Carney and Shanek Telphia set a school record of 49.25 placing third in the eventat the Hamline Invitational on Saturday. In addition to her performance in the relay, Telphia won the 200, equaling her personal-best time of 25.36, and was second in the 100 in 12.63.

A film on Ethiopia's double Olympic champion in the marathon, Abebe Bikila will have showings at the annual Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival next week. Details about the film, as well as when and where it will be shown are HERE.
Photo courtesy of Photo Run