The NYC Running Blog

The New York Times reports that New York Road Runners was the victim of a real estate scheme in Harlem:

By May 2008, an independent developer agreed to buy Mr. Vargas’s share for $4.8 million, giving him a $1 million down payment.

Five months later, New York Road Runners, the nonprofit organizer of the New York City Marathon, signed a contract to buy the same 60 percent share for $8.5 million.

NYRR never completed the transaction:

The Road Runners never paid Mr. Vargas any money, prosecutors said, but put $1 million into an escrow account. The group also spent about $300,000 in fees for lawyers and other consultants related to the transaction, prosecutors said.

Read More…

Andre Exume, 74, was profiled in The Daily News about his New York City Marathon training:

Retired civil engineer Andre Exume, 74, has been running 10 miles every morning to get in shape – after finishing last year’s 26-mile run in six hours, 45 minutes.

“I was very unhappy with my performance. I was feeling under the weather. I can do much better,” said Exume, who came to the U.S. from Haiti in 1965.

This Nov. 1, he’s aiming to outdo his personal best of four hours, 18 minutes – which he set in 1993 at the tender age of 58.

Reuters is reporting that NBC & New York Road Runners have extended their broadcast and advertising revenue sharing deal for another three years, starting with the 2009 New York City Marathon. NBC will be doubling its national coverage of the race to two hours and the New York affiliate WNBC will be offering more than five hours of race coverage.

Read the article at Reuters…

Read the press release from New York Road Runners…

From Bloomberg.com:

Minutes after Sean Swift won the annual JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge this week in New York’s Central Park, he fired off a text message to last year’s champion.

“Thanks for not running this year,” Swift, 24, wrote to his friend Karl Dusen, an analyst at American International Group Inc. who took the title in 2006, 2007 and 2008. “Maybe now I’ll get a bonus.”

Continue reading at Bloomberg.com…

The AP reports that the 2009 New York City Marathon will have the largest field ever, with more than 40,000 runners expected to participate. Additionally, for the second straight year, over 100,000 people applied for the race:

Race director Mary Wittenberg, president and CEO of New York Road Runners, says “breaking the 100,000-applicant mark again, in the midst of a recession, speaks volumes” to the importance of running in people’s lives.

Runners can now log in to see if they’ve been selected to run in the 40th NYC Marathon. The NYRR website states that a confirmation e-mail will be sent out on Friday, June 5th.

The New York Times takes a look at the people who start but do not finish the New York City Marathon, about 2% of the field. Remarkably, the fastest runners take up a disproportionate amount of DNFs, with a possible explanation:

For elites who run just half a race, they not only reduce the chance of injury, but could be in top shape to compete again within weeks. Some elite runners are paid appearance fees, and receive a paycheck even if they do not finish. Recreational runners have no such consolation.

The analysis was also extended to international runners:

Among runners who may feel extra pressure to finish, Wittenberg said, are those who traveled from overseas, investing more time and money to get to the starting line. Runners from other countries compose about 60 percent of the field, but they made up only 50 percent of those who did not finish.

Seven runners needed twice as long to run the second half of the marathon as they did the first half, a measure that goes beyond “hitting the wall.” All were from Europe.

The article also takes a look at another demographic, age:

Another group that concerns Wittenberg is men in their 20s with some athletic success, because they may be more likely to undertrain.

Marathon split times from last year’s race show that among United States men, those in their 20s were more likely than older men to post a second-half time that was far worse than their first half. About 2.4 percent of the younger men posted second-half times that were at least 50 percent longer than their first-half times. For the older United States men, the proportion fell to 1.6 percent.

NBC New York has an interview with Warwick and Nola Ford, authors of the newly released Fun on Foot in New York, about the best routes to run in the New York City area:

Here’s a New York Times article on the death of Al Gordon. From the article:

Mr. Gordon became something of a legend for his dedication to physical fitness, which he believed explained his longevity. He took one puff of a cigarette in his life, he said, didn’t salt his food and limited his alcohol intake to a glass of Champagne a year.

He was twice the oldest participant in the London marathon and sometimes walked from airports to his hotel. He made cold calls to prospective clients well into his 90s. At 105, he was still working four days a week at Deltec Asset Management.

Mr. Gordon was a past president of the Harvard Club of New York, and his generosity to Harvard is evident in the Albert H. Gordon Track and Tennis Center there, as well as a professorship at the business school. The New York Road Runners named its library and an annual race after him.

RunnersWeb.com has an article about the 2009 NYC Half Marathon, which will open for registration this Friday, May 1st at noon on a first come, first served basis.  The article discusses the possible high demand for the race:

Demand is expected to be heavy; 19,500 people applied last year and only 10,500 were accepted.

The Brooklyn Paper is reporting that the Brooklyn Half Marathon will indeed start in Prospect Park and end in Coney Island, giving the area a much-needed “shot in the arm:”

For the first time, the Brooklyn Half Marathon will end, rather than begin, at the famed Boardwalk in attempt to “stimulate the economic impact in the area” that has fallen on tough times, said Meghan Chisholm, a spokeswoman for the New York Road Runners Club.