Sacramento Running News

Coach George

By George Parrott, Special to SRN

In the Western U.S., we have only the Prefontaine Meet in Eugene in May that hosts any of the world’s top track and field athletes. The May date is too early for much in the way of top performances, but it is a chance to see what track and field might, and used to, be in this country.

In NYC, the Adidas Grand Prix is also part of the Diamond League schedule, and this year saw a sub 4-minute mile in the high school invitational race.

But in Europe, track and field, or “athletics” as it is termed there, is still a major sport. Appearance fees, performance incentives and end-of-season bonuses bring out the absolutely best the world has to offer in athletics for the Diamond League in the major European events on the 14 event overall schedule.

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Pistorius in 2007 (Image courtesy of Wikipedia)

While on this very day, Oscar Pistorius will be running in the 400 meter semi-finals of the World Championships, over at the Science of Sport, Ross Tucker continues to dig into the research on whether those’ prosthetic lower legs give him an unfair advantage. (Hold onto your hat! Tucker posts five lengthy and interesting analyses of the science and politics.)

While Pistorius won the right to compete in the World Championships through a legal appeal, I have my doubts about whether he (or anyone else on these prostheses) will be allowed to compete in open competition for very much longer.

I have always viewed cross-training as something to help prevent injury. Some claim it can make you faster. The science on this has been sketchy at best, and some new studies (as reported by the New York Times) do not really clarify anything.

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