So what's the big news in Midwest distance running right now, apart from the beginning of college X-country season which is just on the horizon? One of the biggest road races in the Midwest is the Health Plus CRIM Festival of Races in Flint, Michigan.
http://crim.org/races-events/crim/
For information on the inaugural USATF-Indiana 5K Championship,also on Saturday, August 23rd, please see below or visit: http://www.born2run5k.org/Born2Run5K/Born2Run5K.html.
The CRIM Festival includes the Michigan Mile Friday evening, August 22nd with the main event, the 10 mile run, on Saturday, the 23rd, at 7:30 am followed by a smaller 8K race at 9:30 am and a 5K race at 10:00. The CRIM has a lot of history, having started in 1977, and the 10 mile run is a big race. Last year almost 8000 runners finished it. The entire festival attracts nearly 15,000 participants. They typically have several elite open runners. Early in its history such leading lights as Greg Meyer, the 1983 Boston Marathon champ, was a winner
| Greg Meyer, winning the Boston Marathon in 1983 |
http://graphics.boston.com/marathon/images/1983a.jpg
and Herb Lindsay, who qualified for the 1980 10,000 meter Olympic trials in 1980, was another important early winner. On the women's side, Joan Benoit Samuelson, the winner of the 1984 Olympic marathon, took the women's title. More recently they have had outstanding runners such as Molly Huddle win their race.
| Molly Huddle, on the left, battling Shalane Flanagan for the lead in the 2013 US National Road Racing Championship. |
This year the Michigan Mile will not only have some top open elite competitors but will also be the USATF Masters 1 Mile Road Championship. Top masters runners (40 years of age and over) will compete for an overall masters title as well as age group medals and prizes. For the open professional athletes it is the 5th of 6 races in the Bring Back the Mile Tour. Current leaders include Olympic silver medalist Leo Manzano on the men's side and Gabriele Grunwald, a competitor in the Indoor World Track and Field championships earlier this year. A sub-4 minute mile is possible on the men's side. The Masters athletes will not run that fast but the 40-44 year olds should come in well under 4:30 and some veteran runners like 65 year old Sabra Harvey on the women's side will likely finish well under 6:00 as will 73 year old Doug Goodhue who will try to stay under 5:45.
USATF-Indiana is offering a new event the USATF-Indiana 5K Championship on Saturday, August 23, 2014 in Westfield, IN. This includes both an Open and a Masters Championships and is part of a broader national USATF initiative to encourage local associations to host more road racing events and to publicize the concept of age-grading. Several top Indianapolis area Masters runners, including Lucie Mays Sulewski (former women's champion of the Indianapolis Mini Marathon),
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| Lucie Mays Sulewski winning the Indianapolis 500 Mini-Marathon |
Cindy Harris, Jame Harris and yours truly, are entered. Come join us!
Check in next week for the first installment on the upcoming college X-country season, with special emphasis on teams in Indiana.
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