THE BROOKS BLOG

Desiree Davila of the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project finished 11th overall and was the 2nd American at the IAAF World Championships last weekend in Berlin!  With her time 2:27:53, Desi now has the second fastest marathon time for US women in 2009. Check out her interview below and take notice: Desi has cemented her spot as a favorite for the 2012 London team with this performance….Go Desi!

Track and Field Videos on Flotrack

Check out Brian’s post-race interview over at Flotrack…Thank you Brian - you did the USA and Brooks proud!

Beijing- Day 7
Marathon Day!!  Today was the Men’s Olympic Marathon and team USA ran well.  The young Kenyan stole the show by breaking the Olympic record by three minutes on a warm day here in Beijing.
Ritz, Hall, and Sell moved up throughout the race to end up 9th, 10th, and 22nd overall.  Sell was in 66th place at 10k and around 40th at halfway.  The team ran tough and no one left anything out there on the course!  This was the deepest marathon field ever assembled and the US should be proud.
The Hansons-Brooks ODP has come a long was since starting their partnership in 2003 and so has Brian Sell!  Congrats to both on their first Olympics and here is to hoping for many more!!!
Tonight we are off to watch the closing ceremonies and try some Peking Duck.  It has been a great experience here in Beijing and one none of us will ever forget.  I hope to see many more of our athletes running down the dream in London 2012!  Run Happy, Run London……….

Beijing- Day 6
Today we headed out for an early morning 10 miler and talked about all the possible outcomes of tomorrow’s race. I wouldn’t put anything out of reach for our team!! All three are very fit and from what I have heard all three have different race strategies which should make it all very interesting.
After our run we headed to the great wall of China! This was such an amazing site and we saw many other athletes there including Shawn Johnson from the US Gymnastics team. Such a small girl!!
The wall was so amazing and believe it or not….so was the lunch we had afterwards at a family style Chinese eatery. I find myself eating more healthy here than in the US, minus the occasional McDonalds run.
We are headed over to the stadium tomorrow at 6am to watch Brian’s race! There are 15 of us in the cheering section but pretty much the whole Ludus Tour group of 300 will be behind Brian and the US team! Can’t wait…..make sure you all watch and cheer for the team!
On a completely unrelated note I would just like to tell you that my bathroom has no tub. I pretty much shower in the bathroom itself and the water just runs all over the place. The water stays there all day and it is just kind of gross. You have to wear shoes in their the rest of the day so that you aren’t walking into puddles. Anyway, just FYI.

I am sitting here in Vancouver, BC where my flight will hopefully leave for Beijing in about an hour. I just had some Subway and I made sure to stuff myself since it could be last “normal” meal for a while!! Here is a video from flotrack.com to keep everyone excited about the marathon this Sunday!

We are a little over a week out from the final and most daunting event of the summer Olympics! The Men’s Olympic Marathon will be a great display of fitness, talent and above all perseverance over the oppressive Beijing heat and humidity! I know Brian Sell has been down in Florida for some time now and is running in 90+ heat for his workouts with 80% humidity most days. According to his coach Kevin Hanson he has been nailing his workouts and is ready!!
Well, the bag is packed and I am off tomorrow morning after a quick run. I will get there just in time to catch the men’s 1500m final on Tuesday night. It just got a lot less interesting with Lagat not making the final?!

On August 24th, when he runs against the world’s best marathoners in Beijing, Brian Sell will be wearing a special version of the Brooks T6 Racer, pictured below. All non-mesh overlays were removed from the forefoot to suit Brian’s preference for running his marathons with no socks. The shoe’s tongue features the American flag and Brian’s nickname: “Sellbo.” The new T6 will be available for purchase in February 2009. (For now, you can check out the next closest thing — the Brooks T5 Racer.)

Go Brian!