THE BROOKS BLOG

Brooks hosts the NCAA Division I Cross Country Pre-Nationals for the 7th-straight year today. The meet is being held at the LaVern Gibson XC Course, the home course of Indiana State University in Terre Haute.

Brooks partner Flotrack is covering the event. Unfortunately, bad internet connectivity at the course prevents them from streaming the races live. Instead, they’ll post archived videos of the races here:
http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage/view_video/234565-2009-brooks-isu-pre-nationals/204540-2009-prenats-course-preview

More details:

• 94 men’s Division I teams
• 100 women’s Division I teams
• Top 30 in each race will be awarded a Brooks Pre-Nats EZ T!
• Two Brooks photo booths on hand

Good luck to everyone competing!

Melissa White

Kudos to Hanson-Brooks runner Melissa White , who finished eighth at 2:32:55 in the 2009 Chicago Marathon on Sunday. White shaved five minutes off her personal record and was the second U.S. woman to cross the finish line.

Hansons teammate Patrick Rizzo finished tenth in the men’s field. He also achieved a PR with a time of 2:15:48.

>>Read the Detroit Free Press story

Frayed Laces, a well-read and respected running-community blogger, had the chance to make a stopover in Chicago to see our B*R*A*S*H (Brooks Running Athlete Support Hospital) Tent at the Expo and hang out with Brooks folks.

Here’s her report , with lots of great photos.

Twitter was all, well, atwitter today with first photos of our awesome M*A*S*H-style expo booth at the Chicago Marathon expo. Brooks is offering free podiatrist consultations and gait analyses to runners and expo attendees who sign up at the booth (#733).

But that’s not all. Everyone who participates receives dog tags worth a chance to win prizes. Simply walk your dog tags over to the retail area of the booth to see if you’ve won! Prizes include 10 head-to-toe Brooks outfits, 50 pairs of shoes, 250+ cotton T-shirts, and 150 water bottles. The odds of winning something? Pretty, pretty good.

The B*R*A*S*H (Brooks Running Athlete Support Hospitality) is open till 8 p.m. tonight, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. tomorrow. Get there early to snag an appointment!

Check out these awesome Twitpics posted by our pals at Fleet Feet Chicago (@FleetFeetChgo). Click on any image to see the full photo post at Twitpic. Nice shots, guys and gals!

This fall Brooks will be sponsoring the best XC meets from around the country! And Flotrack will be there to cover most of them.

On September 5-6, Flotrack was on hand to cover the start of the season at the 2009 Brooks Memphis Twilight XC Classic. Watch race videos and interviews from the meet.

Here are the remaining Brooks-sponsored XC Events for fall 2009. Visit www.runbrooks.com for video coverage during and after events shown with an asterisk below!

OCTOBER 3
Paul Short Run
Bethlehem, PA

*Cowboy Jamboree
Stillwater, OK

*Sunfair Invite
Yakima, WA

OCTOBER 16-17
*NCAA Pre-Nationals
Terre Haute, IN

OCTOBER 17
Brown XC Invite
Providence, RI

NOVEMBER 7
*Washington State
Pasco, WA

*Maryland State
Hereford, MD

Date: Thursday, July 16
Time: The run STARTS at 7 p.m.! (Sign up/enter prize drawing by 6:50 p.m.)
Location: Opposite Super Jock n’ Jill - Green Lake

Brooks and Super Jock n’ Jill collaborate to produce a set of FREE training runs in July, leading up to the Seafair Torchlight Run. Runners and walkers of all skill levels are welcome to come and join in on the fun! There will be great prizes from Brooks at all training runs, and refreshments from TalkingRain and Green Lake Bar and Grill.

This week, John Curley will be at the event promoting his “I beat John Curley” promotion. If you are running torchlight and already signed up, go to www.ibeatjohncurley.com and challenge him to the race. If you win, you receive a free Brooks ibeatjohncurley technical top! And the chance to win $500-$1000 to give to your charity of choice.

See you at the run!
Katie Paul, Brooks Events Manager

Brooks held its first annual I.D. (Inspire Daily) Run Camp from June 18-21, 2009. Sixty-five Brooks I.D. members made the trip to Seattle for four days of running, fun, Brooks footwear and gear previews, and much much more. First stop: a tour of Brooks HQ in Bothell, followed by three intensive days at Crystal Mountain, near Mt. Rainier.

For recaps of the event, check out the blog postings of I.D. Member Jean Pommier, popular run blogger Frayed Laces, and Steve DeKoker, who runs the I.D. Program at Brooks.

Jean Pommier
Jean, a transplanted Frenchman who recently ran the Western States 100, lives and works in the Bay Area. Not only did he fully participate in all the activities at I.D. Camp—he also blogged each night. His posts are full of incredible detail, plus great accompanying photos.

• Brooks I.D. Camp - Day One (More Day One photos)
• Brooks I.D. Camp - Day Two (More Day Two photos)
• Brooks I.D. Camp - Day Three (More Day Three photos)
• Brooks I.D. Camp - Day Four (More Day Four photos)

Frayed Laces
Frayed Laces. a k a Laura Kloepper. is a highly popular blogger in the running community who was invited to the camp to participate, observe, and, of course, blog!

• Brooks I.D. Run Camp Part I
• Brooks I.D. Run Camp Part II
• Brooks I.D. Run Camp Part III
• Letter from Brooks I.D. Run Camp Day One
• Letter from Brooks I.D. Run Camp Day Two
• Invitation to Brooks I.D. Run Camp

Steve DeKoker
See Steve’s July I.D. Newsletter for his recap of the inaugural Brooks I.D. camp.

ATLANTA, GA. – Melissa White and Nick Arciniaga each had strong showings for Hansons-Brooks at the 40th running of the Atlanta Track Club Peachtree 10-kilometer road race. The Peachtree 10km also served as the 2009 United States men’s 10km road championships and drew a star-studded field of America athletes.

White finished an impressive 17th overall and was the 5th American female to cross the finish line in a time of 33 minutes and 37 seconds.

Arciniaga had a breakthrough performance finishing the race in 29 minutes 45 seconds for a new 10km personal best, bettering his old mark by a full minute. Arciniaga finished 30th overall in the deep men’s field and was the 17th American to finish.

The Hansons Luke Humphrey also had a solid performance, finishing as the 20th American in the field in a time of 29 minutes and 51 seconds.

Sammy Kitwara of Kenyan ran away with the overall title in his Atlanta debut. Kitwara covered the 6.2-mile course in 27 minutes and 21 seconds.

Abdi Abdirahman won the U.S. Championship in a time of 28 minutes and 11 seconds. Abdirahman was seventh overall.

The top seed in the women’s field, Lineth Chepkurui of Kenya, won her first Peachtree race in 31 minutes and 19 seconds.

With more than 55,000 registered participants, the Peachtree race is the largest 10km race in the United States. Participants from 47 states and the District of Columbia competed in this year’s event.

The normally balmy race began at 7:30 a.m. with temperatures in the upper-60’s with low humidity. The coolest starting temperature recorded since the event’s inception was 62 degrees in 1986 and 1989.

Joseph Kimani, of Kenya, holds the course record of 27:04 in 1996. Lorhan Kiplagat holds the women’s course record of 30:32, from her 2002 Peachtree victory.

Hansons-Brooks athlete, Ryan Sheehan, won the eighth annual Papa John’s 10-Miler Saturday morning in Louisville, Ky. Sheehan led the field of over 6500 runners, covering the 10-mile course in 48 minutes and 37 seconds.

Sheehan’s teammate, Nick Arciniaga, placed third in the road race with a time of 49 minutes eight seconds, just 15 seconds from the second place finisher, Tommy Neal of Colorado.
Sheehan, who led the race from the gun, was satisfied with his performance but still sees room for improvement.

“I would have liked to have run a little faster; I’m happy to have run under 49 (minutes) but was hoping to run 48:20.” Sheehan said.

The Papa John’s course, which finished inside of Papa John’s-Cardinal Stadium, had served as the United States Track and Field Men’s ten-mile Road Championship for four years, from 2003 through 2006. Although the race did not host the 2009 US ten-mile Championship, Papa John’s presented prize money to the first three male and first three female finishers.

For more information please contact David Jankowski at hansonsbrooks@gmail.com

I am still recovering from Germany where I spent the last rainy and overcast week of my life. Last Sunday Brooks Germany sponsored a race called the Strongman. The given name doesn’t really tell the story so I decided to rename the event. The insaneman race was roughly 18-20k long and included two loops of 17 separate obstacles. I will do my best to paint a picture

The obstacles- these little inconveniences ranged from running ankle deep mud to swimming 75m across a 45 degree lake. Sometimes they throw in a hay wall about 15 ft high that you had to climb over and jump off. Sometimes they also had you run over these cute little mogul type hills of about 20 ft in height. Running up was the easy part.

The distance- to be debated really. They called each loop 9k and the total distance 18k. I would guess it was much closer to 20k overall. Afterall, it took me 1 hour and 42 minutes to run this distance with obstacles.

The race- my race was ok. I was moving my way up through the field and trying to pace myself. Not the greatest strategy for this race I found. About half way through the 2nd loop I had moved up to 2nd or 3rd when we started to lap runners. It’ was no normal situation. You had to just stop and wait your turn to go over obstacles. This really ticked me off. I wanted to race and I was just starting to make progress. I decided to embrace the idea of this event and basically just started plowing through people. They loved it! Push a guy off the hay wall, drown an innocent runner, kick a guy�..no one cares. It’s the freaking insaneman! They actually respect you more for pushing your way through. I ended up 10th since I didn’t know running around the last water swim was allowed and cost myself about 5 minutes. Oh well, it was a unique experience to say the least!!

The aftermath- my legs are really sore. I think I was granted official navy seal status based on completing the run so that is always nice. I really can’t put it into words or describe any better�..so I will just post this video to help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9v-tzfGWQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblog%2Eseattlepi%2Ecom%2Fmarathon%2F&feature=player_embedded