USA 15k Championships; and Romance

Ask Husband, I spent a good hour online on Saturday trying to figure out how I could watch these races on television on Sunday.  Grumbling the whole time.  Surely it was aired somehow, somewhere, but I failed to google the details. And when I channel-surfed, the only sport that turned up was college basketball.  Ugh, gross.

It would have been a great race to watch, since it was set up in an equalizer format (where the women are given a statistically-determined lead over the men based on average finishing times for the distance, and they then compete against each other to the finish).  This is the second time in a week I’ve read about races set up like this (the other was at the LA Marathon), and would love to spectate such an event one day.

But, I found the results online today, my one break in a 10-hour day (I had lunch at 4:30 PM, okay?).  From what I read, sounds like the men’s race was a sight to see, with Andrew Carlson shaking off Dan Browne (44:21) somewhere in the final 5k to take his first national championship (in 44:12).  My man Brian Sell, despite headlining the lead-in press, didn’t make it to the podium and came in 5th (44:47). Now, most days I’ll tell you I love to root for the underdog, but I wanted Deena to win and was psyched to learn that she took home her 6th championship title in the distance (49:36)–only after giving Carlson the thumbs-up as he passed her to an overall win.

This is the first I’d read about Carlson, and I like him already, based on the quote he gave for Team USA Minnesota’s press release about racing next to Deena:

Then I went into the tunnel toward the finish line and it opened up into a football stadium. There were all these people in the stands cheering. It was a great way to finish. . . You never think you are going to get a chance to duel with an Olympic bronze medalist so that was an interesting race (with the equalizer format).

Now, I imagine not all runners are grounded, and it could be that Carlson is being disingenuous with us via his team’s publicist; but I prefer not to be so cynical. So instead, I say: this is something I love about runners.  Even those who run at the top of their class, and train with the country’s top professional teams, still get a (positive) charge out of the other stars in their sport.  There’s none of that bullshit bluster and posturing I see during the sports news on TV. Or maybe there is; I could be wrong, I’m just a fan watching all this at a great remove.  But, it always seems to me like the elites are generally respectful of each other, even though they compete fiercely with each other.

I’d be a fool to deny that running has its share of doping and rivalries; and probably, if it got more airtime (see above: googling for broadcast info), and prize purses were larger, and more abundantly available, then I suppose the sport’s athletes would more frequently reveal the less savory personality traits we see in pros from other sports.  But for now, I’ll take a little romance with my running, and I’ll wear my rose-colored glasses as I squint into the champions’ glow coming off the podium.