Gebrselassie's Treadmill Fun Run

Here's a story I wrote for Canadian Running about Haile Gebrselassie's treadmill run at the Adidas Running Camp, including a video clip. I'll be writing up a full article with details from my interview with the Adidas Super Seven in the July issue of the magazine.

And here's a new clip of Tyson Gay demonstating his race start.

Haile!

Adidas Running Camp

The Adidas Super 7: Gebrselassie, Vlasic, Wariner, Gay, Campbell-Brown, Ohuruogu, Felix


How often do you get the chance to interview seven of the best athletes in the world, and watch them train up close? I just returned from the Adidas Running Camp in Santa Monica, California, with Tyson Gay, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Allyson Felix, Jeremy Wariner, Christine Ohuruogu, Blanka Vlasic and Haile Gebrselassie. Between them, they have 16 Olympic medals. The event kicked off with a run with Haile near the Santa Monica pier. Can you say thrill of a lifetime? I'll be writing an article about the running camp in a future issue of Canadian Running magazine.


Haile and me


Running with Haile by the Santa Monica pier


Haile running 4:00/mile on the treadmill (and still talking!)


Jeremy Wariner and Tyson Gay coming out of the blocks

Hangin' with Haile in Motor City

(Photo: Detroit Free Press)

A few minutes before the start of Sunday's Detroit Free Press/Flagstar Marathon, the race coordinator called me forward from the first corral to the start line. For a couple of embarrassing minutes I stood there all alone holding my 2:47 pace sign, with several thousand runners staring at me (or so it seemed).

The elite women that I was pacing were then ushered to the line from their warmup area, along with the elite men and their pacer, a small man with a big smile named Haile Gebrselassie. While I was in the midst of briefing the elite American women on my pacing strategy to help them quality for the U.S. Olympic trials, I turned to see Geb strolling to the line with his characteristic grin. We exchanged a quick smile and a nod before I finalized my pacing duties.

When the gun went off, my mind was entirely on getting through the first mile near the 6:22 pace I had to maintain for the whole marathon, but looking back, it's amazing to think that I was lined up at the start of a marathon not two metres away from one of – if not the – greatest distance runner in history.

Will The Joggler get to meet Gebrselassie?

When I signed up to run as a pacer at the Detroit Marathon for the U.S. women's Olympic trials qualifying time of 2:47, Haile Gebrselassie was the last person I expected would be at the race. But officials have confirmed that the Ethiopian star will in fact run a portion of the race on October 21.

I hope to meet the man who set the marathon world record of 2:04:26 in Berlin on the same day that I set the joggling world record of 2:50:09 in Toronto (not that I'm comparing myself to the greatest distance runner the world has ever seen, but I would like the chance to tell him about my record, and maybe get him to try joggling).

If Geb is out for an easy run in Detroit, would he run as slow as 2:47 pace? I don't know if he could run that slow. I suspect his easy pace would be around 5:10 per mile.

In other news, 'CBC News: Sunday' did an update on the joggling saga. Dianne and I watched it, laughing and cheering all the way through.