Trials and tribulations.Byline: Ron Bellamy "Rockin'" Ron Bellamy (born December 13, 1964) is an American professional boxer. He is the half-brother of former NBA center Walt Bellamy. Ron also started his career in basketball, playing collegiately at UNC-Charlotte and professionally in New Zealand and Europe. The Register-Guard They don't have to count the days until the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials begin. They know the days, to the minute, and how quickly they're passing. They know the workouts remaining, and the races they'll run between now and then, and the track meets where they can take another shot at clearing a higher bar, or throwing beyond another line in the sector. At least 20 local track and field athletes are aggressively working toward the Olympic Trials, which will be held July 8 through July 18 at Hornet Stadium Hornet Stadium is a 21,195 seat football stadium in Sacramento, California. It is located at Sacramento State. It was completed in 1969. It is the home football stadium of the Sacramento State Hornets. in Sacramento. They range in prominence from Marla Runyan Marla Runyan, born January 4, 1969 in Santa Maria, California, is a marathon runner who is legally blind. After graduating from Camarillo High School in 1987, Ruyan went on to study at San Diego State University, where she began competing in several sporting events: the , an Olympian in 2000 and the national champion at 5,000 meters for three straight years, to Kyley Johnson, the former University of Oregon The University of Oregon is a public university located in Eugene, Oregon. The university was founded in 1876, graduating its first class two years later. The University of Oregon is one of 60 members of the Association of American Universities. high jumper who works roughly 55 hours per week - from 2 p.m. to midnight - for the Enterprise car rental agency at the Eugene Airport Eugene Airport (IATA: EUG, ICAO: KEUG), also known as Mahlon Sweet Field, is a public airport located 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Eugene, in Lane County, Oregon. and trains in the mornings. Because of her status as an Olympian, her national titles and her performances in the high-profile Boston and New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of marathons - as well as the fact that she is legally blind, as the result of Stargardt's disease Stargardt's disease A hereditary condition characterized by progressive retinal degeneration, due to a defect on chromosome 1; SD is similar to age-related macular degeneration. See Macular degeneration. , a form of macular degeneration macular degeneration, eye disorder causing loss of central vision. The affected area, the macula, lies at the back of the retina and is the part that produces the sharpest vision. - Runyan is a nationally known figure in track and field, and she'll be in the spotlight in Sacramento. Johnson, still chasing the one more inch he needs to clear to be conditionally qualified for the Trials, didn't even get his biographical capsule published in the USA Track & Field Media Guide. Not that Runyan is taking Sacramento for granted, but her goals have looked beyond the Olympic Trials, to performing well in the Olympic Games Olympic games, premier athletic meeting of ancient Greece, and, in modern times, series of international sports contests. The Olympics of Ancient Greece Although records cannot verify games earlier than 776 B.C. in Athens, Greece, in August. Johnson, who shares a house with five other guys in Eugene, four of them track and field athletes in the upstart Team XO, is trying to get to the Trials. "My goal this year is just to make it to that stage," Johnson said. "It's something I've always dreamed of doing. There's probably a one-in-a-million shot that I would place in the top three, but once you get into those championship meets, a lot of strange things have happened. ... " Between the national prominence of Runyan and the relative anonymity of Johnson are athletes with dreams and sacrifices, who are focused on the Trials, all with their own stories. Athletes such as distance runner distance runner n. A runner who competes in distance races. Nick Rogers This article is about sailing competitor. For NFL player, see Nick Rogers (football player). Nick Rogers is a sailing competitor from Great Britain. He won a silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics with Joe Glanfield in the 470 (dinghy) class. , an Olympian four years ago. Jenny Crain, who left a high-paying corporate job in Milwaukee two years ago to move to Eugene because she hadn't reached her potential as a distance runner. John Stiegeler, the former NCAA NCAA abbr. National Collegiate Athletic Association javelin champion for Oregon, seeking to recapture the form he had before a horrendous injury. Becky Holliday, in her first year as a post-collegiate after making the World Championships team for the Ducks in the pole vault pole vault Track-and-field event consisting of a vault for height over a crossbar with the aid of a long pole. It became a competitive sport in the mid-19th century and was included in the first modern Olympic Games. . Snapshots, less than two months from the Trials: Marla Runyan She won her third straight national championship at 5,000 meters last June, but it was a tough year for Marla Runyan, ending with a disappointing performance in the New York Marathon. She is coached by her husband, Matt Lonergan, and doesn't blame coaching for what happened. "It was more me pushing the envelope all the time, wanting to do more, wanting to be at a higher level," Runyan said. "I know how fast the rest of the world is running in the 5,000. You have to be running in the 14:40s, and 15:05 doesn't cut it. "I just put a lot of pressure on myself last year, I really did. I over-did it, and the end result was that I struggled to have one good race." Runyan, 35, has a personal best of 15 minutes, 5.48 seconds in the 5,000, which barring setbacks will be her main race at the Olympic Trials, with a semifinal scheduled on the opening night. After that, she'll decide whether to run the 1,500 or even the 10,000. Her first scheduled race this season is a high-powered 5,000 in Boston on May 29, and she'll seek her third straight national road-racing title at 5,000 meters in the Freihofer's Run for Women Freihofer's Run for Women is a 5K road race for women, formed in 1979 as a race through the streets of Albany, New York. In 2005, the race was won by Asmae Leghzaoui, though several world class athletes boycotted the event due to Leghzaoui's past history of using illegal on June 5 in Albany, N.Y. She'll run the 1,500 in the Prefontaine Classic The Prefontaine Classic is one of the premier track and field meets in the United States. Every year it draws a world caliber field to compete at the University of Oregon's Hayward Field. History The first annual Prefontaine Classic took place in 1974. at Hayward Field For other uses of "Hayward", see Hayward (disambiguation). Hayward Field at University of Oregon is one of the most well-known historic track and field stadiums in the United States. It has been the home to the University of Oregon Track and Field teams since 1919. on June 19. When she made her national breakthrough in 1999, Runyan had to talk her way into the Pre Classic and trained in shoes purchased at Copeland's, on sale. Now, she's got a Nike contract, and she and Matt own a house, and with that comes the pressure of expectations. "Everybody has their goals," she said. "For a lot of people, it's all about just getting to the Trials. For a lot of other people, it's about making the team. And then there are people like me who go `Wait a minute, I made it to the Olympics, and I made it to the finals in the 1,500, but I didn't leave there feeling very happy about things. ...' "All this time, I've always thought about how I would perform at the Olympics. But considering the struggles I've had this spring, I'm feeling like I'm backtracking (algorithm) backtracking - A scheme for solving a series of sub-problems each of which may have multiple possible solutions and where the solution chosen for one sub-problem may affect the possible solutions of later sub-problems. and thinking `Let's not Let's Not is a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov. It was first published in Boston University Graduate Journal in December 1954. It was written for no payment as a favour to the journal, and later appeared in the collection Buy Jupiter. take anything for granted here. Let's just get on the team.' ' Kyley Johnson As a Duck, Kyley Johnson cleared 7 feet, 1/2 inch in the high jump and won a Pac-10 title. He's 25 now, and this season he's jumped 7-1 1/2 ; the Olympic Trials "B" standard is 7-2 1/2 , and while there are no guarantees that mark would get Johnson to Sacramento - "B" qualifiers will fill out the 24-man field if there aren't enough qualifiers who have met the "A" standard of 7-5 3/4 - it was good enough for qualification four years ago. "I've probably had 25 to 30 attempts at 7-2 1/2 , and I've had a lot of heartbreakers," Johnson said. "I'm right there, just barely missing it. ... It's one inch. It's encouraging, because you can hold up your fingers and go `It's only one inch away,' but it can be a lot when that's all that's holding you back." Johnson coached himself last year; now, he's being coached by Val Nasedkin, who believes he can get Johnson to 7-5, but next year. And so Johnson works long hours at night, trains in the morning, competes on weekends. "I knew deep down that if I walked away I'd always wonder if I could have jumped a lot higher," he said. "I've got the rest of my life to live a normal life and just work. I wouldn't want to look back five years from now and wonder if I could have made it to the Trials, or if I could have jumped 7-3. "If I don't get it, I want to know that I did everything I could to try to achieve that." Nick Rogers Less than two months before the Olympic Trials, Nick Rogers is trying to figure out why he's training so well and racing so poorly. An Olympian at 5,000 meters in 2000, Rogers, 29, continues to work with the coach who got him there, former Oregon coach Bill Dellinger. His original intent was to run the 10,000 meters in the Trials, but an attempt to go after the Olympic "A" standard (27:49) at the fast Cardinal Invitational in·vi·ta·tion·al adj. Restricted to invited participants: an invitational golf tournament. n. An event, especially a sports tournament, restricted to invited participants. Adj. 1. was disastrous; he ran only 29:22.37, well off his PR of 27:55.17. "It would be one thing if I was expecting it from being injured," Rogers said. "But my training's been nearly perfect, and I've been running better workouts than I've ever run. In that respect, it's been really frustrating." Now Rogers is in a quandary - does he keep pursuing the 10,000, or drop down to the 5,000? The clock is ticking, and the fact that he's been an Olympian before brings pressure as well as motivation. "It's motivating, because I know I want to get back there and have another shot at being in the medal race," he said. "But it's also pressure, because people have a lot of expectations if you've done it before to do it again. "You just need to step back from that pressure and say `OK, yeah, I've done it before and I can do it again.' Don't make it a negative pressure; make it a positive." Jenny Crain If she didn't have it all, Jenny Crain had a lot - a corporate headquarters job with Northwestern Mutual in Milwaukee, where she earned close to six figures a year, traveled and was close to family and friends. She left it two years ago to move to Eugene and run. By then, she'd finished as high as fifth in the 10,000 meters in the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships - in 1998, when she ran her personal best, 32 minutes, 30.1 seconds - but work had been a higher priority. "I had a whole career in Milwaukee," said Crain, 36. "My whole life was there. But the window of opportunity for my running was becoming smaller." Crain researched coaches nationally, settled on Eugene's Dick Brown, worked with him for a year via long distance and moved to Eugene in April 2002. "I think I took a fabulous risk," she said. By the end of the year, she was no longer working with Brown. She thought about moving back to Wisconsin; she stuck it out, and now is coached by Lonergan. "I'm in the best shape of my life right now," she said. "I'm healthy, I'm happy, I'm doing really well." Crain still has more in her life than running. She's started her own business, Performance Consulting Performance consulting is a subdiscipline of consulting that focuses on teaching people to be more effective in the workplace or in their personal lives. Its goals can be summarized in the slogan "work smarter, not harder". . She coaches managers in the financial services The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. industry, helping them set and achieve goals in productivity, marketing and personnel; she has clients across the country. Last month, Crain finished 12th in the U.S. Olympic women's marathon trials, but her focus is July 16, the finals of the women's 10,000, and achieving in that race the Olympic "A" standard - 31:45. "I want to run - I shouldn't say `want to' - I will run the best race of my life," she said. "I know I have the ability to run the Olympic standard, and the question is whether that will be good enough to get me on the team. "I know I can run with these women. Everybody's fit when you're on the line for the Olympic Trials; so much of it is about belief, and believing you belong on that team, and that's the whole journey I've been working toward. "I've been running for roughly 22 years. I just have to think about all the things that have prepared me for that moment to be on that line and to execute my very best performance." Does she believe she can make the team? "Yes," Crain said. "I do." John Stiegeler In the spring of 2001, on the runway at Hayward Field, John Stiegeler won an NCAA championship. The graduate of Marshfield High School Mashfield High School may refer to one of these high schools in the United States:
 s), city (1990 pop. 15,076), Coos co., SW Oreg., a port of entry on Coos Bay; founded 1854 as Marshfield, inc. 1874, renamed 1944. threw the javelin 252 feet, 10 inches, an Oregon
school record.
That year, he placed seventh in the USA championships and was ranked No. 3 in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . A year later he blew out his left knee - torn anterior cruciate ligament anterior cruciate ligament n. Abbr. ACL The cruciate ligament of the knee that crosses from the anterior intercondylar area of the tibia to the posterior part of the lateral condyle of the femur. , torn meniscus meniscus /me·nis·cus/ (me-nis´kus) pl. menis´ci [L.] something of crescent shape, as the concave or convex surface of a column of liquid in a pipet or buret, or a crescent-shaped cartilage in the knee joint. - requiring reconstructive surgery reconstructive surgery n. Plastic surgery. reconstructive surgery, n surgery to rebuild a structure for functional or esthetic reasons. . Last year - in retrospect, Stiegeler said, he came back too soon - his best throw was 241-5. Since then, Stiegeler's had more surgeries - in December, to clean out a tear in his throwing shoulder and to remove screws from his knee; in January, to treat inflamed tissue as a result of the December knee surgery. He didn't begin throwing until March, and in two meets at Hayward Field he has thrown only 194-3 and 204-9. "I'd like to be throwing farther, obviously, but athletics is something where you have to learn patience, and that's something God has used this time for with me, just teaching me patience and contentment," he said. "How quickly I come back, I don't know Don't know (DK, DKed) "Don't know the trade." A Street expression used whenever one party lacks knowledge of a trade or receives conflicting instructions from the other party. . But I know that I will." Stiegeler, 24, is already qualified for the Trials based on his mark last season. He's coaching himself and working varied hours for his father's home construction business. He's not sure how many more years his body will allow him to throw the javelin. His goal for the Trials is relentlessly lofty. "To make the Olympic team, that's my goal," Stiegeler said, noting that he's in very good shape, but that he'll have to make significant improvements in his technique, approach and speed. "The ability is still there," he said. "Getting it to come out is another thing." Becky Holliday A year ago, this newspaper ran photograph after photograph of Becky Holliday flying over the bar in the pole vault for the University of Oregon. She won the Pac-10 championships, the NCAA regional meet, the NCAA championships. She set an NCAA record, 14-8. She finished in a tie for third in the USA championships, making the team for the World Championships. It was a back-breaking season, almost literally; because of a technical flaw, Holliday said, she suffered a stress fracture stress fracture n. A fatigue fracture of bone caused by repeated application of a heavy load, such as the constant pounding on a surface by runners, gymnasts, and dancers. in her lower back after the NCAA meet. She didn't compete during the indoor season and feels healthy now, and is working on improving her technique as she continues to work with her college coach, Mark Vanderville. In two meets at Hayward Field, she's vaulted 14-5 1/2 and 14-1 1/4. She also works as a part-time caregiver for Alzheimer's patients and others at a local assisted-living facility, though she's been recently accepted in the jobs programs for Olympic hopefuls offered by Home Depot The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) is an American retailer of home improvement and construction products and services. Headquartered in Vinings, just outside Atlanta in unincorporated Cobb County, Georgia, Home Depot employs more than 355,000 people and operates 2,164 big-box . As a member of the World Championships team, Holliday has legitimate Olympic aspirations; at 24, she hopes to compete in two more Olympic Trials after this one. "I want to make the team," she said. "I don't want to go down there just to go to the Olympic Trials. Last year was a boost to my confidence, making the World Championships team, but that bring a lot of pressure, too. "The pressure's on, and I use it in my training every day, to reach the goals that I have. And the goal is definitely to go down there and make the team." CAPTION(S): Jenny Crain has made strides since teaming up with coach Matt Lonergan and hopes to make the U.S. team in the 10,000. Thomas Boyd Thomas Boyd may be
|
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion