RunTex, The Runner's Store – Heard Around The Lake: News, Notes and Idle Gossip

SAN DIEGO—The name Tim Murphy probably doesn’t much of anything to you. But in the lexicon of the most influential people in running, Murphy should be at or near the top of any list of the people who have done the most in the last 20 years to popularize our sport.

Tim Murphy was never much of a runner, but has always loved the sport and had a great fondness for runners. I first met him in the mid-80s when Tim was trying to get the Carlsbad 5000 road race off the ground. I helped him with publicizing the race and made sure to run it every year. As the race mushroomed in popularity to the finest 5000in the country, Murphy formed his own race production company—Elite Racing—which grew over the years from his apartment living room to a full service race company that even had its own TV production wing which televised its own races and put on a monthly road race show.

Even so, Elite was still pretty small potatoes with a few nice, but inconsequential races in Southern California. One year, Tim branched out and took over management of the Chicago Marathon, but he was just a hired gun.

Murphy had his heart set on starting his own marathon, but wasn’t interested in developing just another run-of-the mill, me-too event. Murphy wanted something entirely different that would change the face of running.

I distinctly remember the day in 1995 when he told me of his plans to start a new, major marathon in his adopted hometown of San Diego. I knew San Diego quite well, raced there a bunch and was familiar with the labyrinth of road blocks the city threw in the way of any race.

Despite having a huge, active running community, San Diego’s marathon history was lousy. The only marathon of note was the Mission Bay Marathon which had a boring, rotten course and died—I think—in 1986 after 22 years when only about 900 people ran it.

Murphy ran it one year and hated it. His marathon dream was to produce a huge, citywide marathon in San Diego, replete with all the trappings of a major event. To me, a “huge marathon” in San Diego meant something in the neighborhood of 6000 runners covering a course in some outlying, desolate area which the city might—just might–grant its blessing.

Murphy was having none of that. He told me: “We’re starting in Balboa Park, going through downtown and we’re going to have 20,000 runners first time out.”

To put it bluntly, I thought he was crazy and told him so. Even he could get the city to agree to such a course, 20,000 runners was a pipe dream when the only marathon at the time that could attract that many runners was New York City.

Laid back San Diego? Never happen, especially with all the red tape the city was likely to throw at such a plan.

Murphy didn’t care what I—or anyone else—thought. His incredibly ambitious plan including putting a band and cheerleading squad at every mile with a headliner at the finish.

“Music? You never even hear it,” I said. “Who cares about music in a marathon?”

Shows you how much I know. More than 20,000 runners (including me) showed up for the first San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon and although there were plenty of technical difficulties, the race somehow worked. And the music-theme concept spread and spread.

Pretty soon, Murphy and his company had music marathons in such unlikely cities as Nashville and Phoenix and a half marathon in the running wasteland of Virginia Beach. Nashville wasn’t an immediate hit, but Phoenix and Virginia Beach were sell outs.

Under his watch, Murphy and his team (which included Austin’s Peter Douglas, the man behind the 10/20 series)) grew the Rock ‘n’ Roll brand into the most powerful brand in running. The half marathon, which had always been an afterthought, became the most popular racing distance. Last year, there were 1.6 million half marathon finishers in the U.S. And of the 30 biggest half marathons, 13 were Rock ‘n’ Roll (or Country Music) races.

Tim Murphy doesn’t own the Rock ‘n’ Roll races anymore. He sold it to the Competitor Group a few years ago for a boatload of money.

But his influence on our sport is clearly evident this week with the San Diego Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon which will have 10,000 marathoners and another 15,000 in the half marathon.

I saw Tim Murphy, who still lives in the San Diego area, the other day. But Murphy won’t be anywhere near the marathon he gave birth to in 1997. That race spawned an entire industry and changed the shape of our sport forever.

Plenty of Central Texans are headed to San Diego this weekend for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon, but another group will arrive later in the week for next weekend’s San Diego 100-Mile Endurance Run. Challenging the 100-mile trail which goes through Cuyamaca and Laguna Mountain range east of San Diego are Dave Brown of Boerne, Paul Salazar, Devon Kiernan and Lorena Devlyn. This will be Devlyn’s first 100-miler.
Devlyn ran the famed Comrades Marathon in South African two years ago and her close friends James Allen and South African natives Michael Budde and Patrick Hall will run it this Sunday. Allen and Patrick left yesterday for South Africa, but Budde, who ran Comrade’s once before (as did his father), has been in South Africa for a week preparing for the 56-mile race from Pietermaritzburg to Durbin—an up year.
Livestrong Austin Marathon director John Conley was released from Brackenridge after a brain operation last week. John spent five days in ICU and reports he is feeling better, but will need plenty of recovery time. Conley’s shaved head now rivals Danny Spoonts (who also works at Conley Sports) neatness.
Russ and Claire Secker are back in town after two years of living abroad. Russ and Claire, both ultramarathoners of note, have been out on the Butler Hike and Bike Trail reconnecting with old friends. Russ, who retired as a VP of Hoover and was president of the Austin Runners Club, ran the 2009 Transeurope race which is a 64-day race across Europe. Secker isn’t slowing down much. In April, he ran a 450-mile race in 12 days in France and is planning to run two more stage races in Europe this summer. Great to have the Seckers back in town.
Congrats to Alexandria Stone. One of the stalwarts of Gilbert’s Gazelles, Alex just earned her Ph. D. from the LBJ School of Public Policy at UT.
Betzy Jimenez and Kara Thorne (June) are down to their last shots for qualifying for the Olympic Trials. Kara ran a 9:58 steeple at the Mount SAC Relays last month which betters the “B” standard, but she probably needs to run faster to get into the Trials. Her goal is 9:55 (or faster) at the Jim Bush So Cal Champs in Los Angeles next weekend. Jimenez, the former UT star, has PR’ed in the 5000 meters (16:05), but needs to run at least 15:35 to secure a spot in Eugene. She’ll go for her Trials qualifier on June 9^th at the Portland Track Festival in Oregon. She’s trying to raise funds for her trips by selling quality shirts, hoodies and pints. Interested in helping her out? Go to http://igg.me/p/107105?a=273082.
Matt Kutugata, a May UT grad who won the IBM Uptown Classic 10-K in the fall, is planning to try his hand at a few national-class road races this summer. Kutugata has been accepted into the elite field for the Peachtree 10-K Road Race in Atlanta on July 4^th and is also planning to run the Steamboat Classic 4-Miler in Peoria, Illinois on June 16.
Although the Austin Distance Challenge (2012-13) schedule isn’t set in stone quite yet, it looks like there will be a 30-K added. For many years, there was a 30-K which morphed into a 20-miler but the distance was dropped a couple of years ago. This new 30-K will probably be held somewhere near Cedar Park and looks like the race date will be crammed in about two weeks after the 3M Half and three weeks before the Livestrong Austin Marathon. Much too close.
The Boston Marathon caved on their ridiculous policy for deferring from the death march that was the ’12 marathon. Originally, the B.A.A said if you wanted to defer your qualifying time to next year, you had to pick up your race packet before the race. Only 427 runners chose that route, but many runners (presumably, many who never even came to Boston) howled in protest. This week, Boston announced that 2160 were given deferments. Marc Davis, the B.A.A. communications director said: “That initial number {427} was just the amount of deferments polled from one section, from one area. There were people who picked up racing bibs at the expo, there were people who picked up at Hopkinton, there were people that ‘virtually’ picked up. They called in from out of state and said ‘I don’t want to spend $3000 to travel there, to pick up a number and not run. It wasn’t right for us to expect people to fly and book hotels just to pick up a bib.” He’s absolutely right about that, but that isn’t what the B.A.A. originally announced and the folks who came anyway and didn’t run, probably feel just a little bit shafted. They were told they had to come to Boston to defer, but, as it turned out, didn’t.
The Madison, Wisconsin Marathon did the right thing by canceling its event five days before the race date (May 28). Two other Madison Marathons had been cut off while in progress due to warm temps. The high in Madison on May 28^th was in 88 degrees with a heat index of 92 which would have been exceedingly dangerous had the event been run. Marathoners were given the option of running the half marathon which was held as scheduled.
The UT men will send 13 athletes to the NCAA Track Champs in nine different events from the NCAA Regionals at UT. The Longhorns will send two distance runners to Des Moines: Patrick McGregor who ran a season best of 3:44.26 to qualify in the 1500 and Ryan Dohner who was seventh in the 10,000 in 30:14.17. Former Cedar Park star Parker Stinson, an Oregon sophomore, was eighth in 5000 in 14:23 to qualify for the NCAAs.
The Longhorn women qualified 12 athletes in 10 events in the Regionals. Two of Steve Sisson’s distance corps—Sara Sutherland and Marielle Hall—will move on to the NCAA finals. Sutherland’s 16:18.7 in the 5000 advances her to Des Moines as does Hall’s 4:20.87 in the 1500.
What I’m listening to this morning: “The Band” by The Band. The epic album by one of the greatest groups of the ‘60s and ‘70s.