Beijing Notebook: Random Thoughts On The Women's Marathon

August 17, 2008

by Amby Burfoot

I wasn't going to write a column about the Women's Marathon after it
was finished. Figured: Let bygone's be bygones. Move on to another
event. But marathons still fascinate me so deeply, on so many different
levels, that I'm finding it impossible not to register a few thoughts.

Predictable... Or Not?
Sometimes I think a big marathon is incredibly tough to handicap.
Other times, it seems as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise. Maybe it's
both; maybe the marathon contains multitudes.

Before the race, I wish I had written something like the following:
Constantina Tomescu Dita will be leading at 35K (almost 22 miles), and
Catherine Ndereba and Zhou Chunxia will win medals. I would have seemed
so prescient. And yet the above was entirely predictable. But the devil
is in the details, as they say.

I would never have picked Tomescu to win. Or to medal for that fact. I
would have had her in the second five. For the past five years, she's
been the best almost-best marathoner in the world. She's got a bushel
basket full of seconds and thirds in Chicago and London. But she rarely
comes out on top, having won only the 2004 Chicago Marathon and the
2005 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, neither in a true world
class time. And she was eighth last April in London. Tomescu's 38; I
hung a label on her: "over the hill."

Wrong about that. She stole the marathon, but she didn't break any
laws. She simply challenged everyone else to run as hard as she was
running, and they all declined the invitation. I don't understand why,
but that's their problem, not mine. One of the things I like best about
Tomescu is her ragged running form. Some people think form is important
in the marathon and they even give form lessons, sometimes with a
substantial price tag attached. But form is a surface issue, like the
color of your eyes and hair. It has essentially nothing to do with
marathon performance. If you want to get faster in the marathon, I'll give you some free advice: Move your legs faster.

At the start of the marathon I assumed that Ndereba would stalk the
leader every step of the way. In Athens, she ran too conservatively,
finishing fast enough to grab the silver but not to challenge the
winner, Noguchi. A month ago, her coach told me she wouldn't make that
mistake in Beijing. So she did. Go figure.

Still, you can't take anything away from Catherine The Great. She's now won
four Bostons, two Chicagos,  two World Championships, and one Osaka. That's nine
major marathon victories by anyone's count. She's also got a World Championships
silver, two Olympic silvers, and seconds at London, New York, and a Chicago. So that makes 15 majors in which she's
been first or second. I can't think of anyone else close to this total, not when you look for Championships as well as city marathons.

Apparently she was thrilled to be second here in Beijing, as she
dropped to the track and raised her arms to the heavens in a lengthy
salute. I was standing next to Running USA coach Terrence Mahon when I
remarked that I would have been cursing my bad luck at a second Olympic
silver when Catherine was giving praise. "That's why she's won all
those medals, and you haven't," he said softly. Touche.

[Twenty-four hours after I wrote this column, a friend sent me a link to an African newspaper that quoted Ndereba as follows: "I did not notice Tomescu taking off" and Ndereba thought she was leading the race. During the marathon, I had speculated in a live blog that this could be a problem because she was running 20-30 meters behind the lead pack for much of the marathon, and hence would not necessarily have seen someone taking off ahead.]

[A week later I was able to confirm this with Ndereba's manager, Lisa Buster. She said Ndereba never saw Tomescu make the break. Until very late in the race, too late, Ndereba "thought the medal contenders were in the group she was in," said Buster.]

Champions In Defeat
Deena Kastor didn't finish and Paula Radcliffe did, the opposite of
their experiences four years ago. Deena's at least got her 2004 bronze
medal; Paula doesn't have one yet, though she indicated that she plans
to try again in four years in London.

Over the years, Deena has become a philosopher as well as a champion,
and she spoke with precision and a wistful wisdom about the foot injury
that struck her early in the marathon, and caused her to stop. "As
athletes, we have ups and downs," she said. "Unfortunately,  you can't pick the
days they come on." [We learned late in the day that x-rays revealed that Kastor had broken a bone in her foot.]

There could hardly be a more true statement in all of sports. I often
tell recreational runners who imagine that it would be oh-so-sweet to
run a 2:19 marathon that the life of an elite athlete is not all red
carpets and time-bonus checks. When recreational runners have a bad
day, they can just wait a couple of months to recover and run their
next race. When an Olympic hopeful gets injured, she has to wait four
long years. And you don't get any younger and faster during that time.

I have mixed feelings about Radcliffe's race, which ended with a 23rd
place in 2:32:38. In the harsh reality of hindsight, it's easy to see
that she was attempting the impossible, and the impossible doesn't
happen in an Olympic Marathon. Not the kind of impossible that has you
training in a swimming pool and racing on the hard, humid streets of
Beijing. It would be fascinating to have more than a few beers with
Radcliffe and ask her why, really why, did she attempt the impossible?
Did she believe in it? (Very doubtful.) Did she want to quiet the
fierce British press by limping through 42.2 K in pain so they could no
longer call her a "quitter?" (as some did after Athens.) If so, that's a
horrendous reason for running. No one should care that much about the
press. And no one should risk serious injury by running an Olympic
Marathon on one leg.

[Six hours later, I just found this post-race quote from Radcliffe. "I knew I was pushing it coming in with three-and-a-half weeks of running. You
can't take shortcuts in the marathon and I guess I learned that today." My point exactly.]

A Japanese friend told me the Japanese are furious at Noguchi for
withdrawing a week before the marathon. Many wanted her to emulate
Radcliffe. They thought she should at least start. She should be a
warrior, she should run a kamikaze marathon. That sort of thing makes a
good movie script, but it could also lead to a marathon disaster. The Japanese will be crushed by the Beijing results.

Random Events
I couldn't figure out why Magdalena Lewy Boulet fell behind so quickly,
and then dropped out. She seems like the strongest and steadiest of
runners, and had been so chipper the last time I saw her at the Track Trials in Eugene. After the Olympic race, I found out from Blake Russell's husband, John. He
said that Lewy Boulet had banged her knee in the plane while flying to
China and it had developed into a disabling injury. "I just can't bend
it," Lewy Boulet said in a statement to IOC press. "I was hoping it
would warm up and go away, but it got really stiff. I'm disappointed. I
was looking for the top 10." There's a clear message to all marathoners
here: Next time you're flying to a big race, wear a baseball catcher's
shin and knee guards. [This story might have suffered some in the passing along. I just read where Lewy Boulet said she banged her knee on on a shuttle bus in the Athletes' Village. So wear those shinguards on buses, too.]

Russell was the only American finisher, placing 27th in 2:33:13. She ran near the leaders through half-way, then dropped back. Her perspective: "I had no idea what was going on with Magda or Deena. It was tough out
there. I put myself in good position, but they kind of pulled away the
second half. I thought I would catch more people. ... I'm so excited to
be here and I had to keep telling myself to go for it."

If you tried to do team scoring, you wouldn't find a lot of countries
with three, high placing women. Especially not with the US, Ethiopia, and Japan
faring so badly. Kenya showed its normal depth with 2-5-10 (17). China
was next with 3-4-41 (48), and Great Britain third with 6-23-26 (55).

What Did We Learn That Will Inform The Men's Marathon Next Sunday?
Nothing. Except perhaps that marathons are predictably unpredictable.