Band of Thebes

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This week while you've been complaining about walking, or sitting, in temperatures in the 90s, eighty-one ultra marathoners ran 135 miles in Badwater, the nonstop race across the hottest place on earth, from Death Valley to Mount Whitney. Photos invariably show participants slogging through vast open spaces in heat ranging to 130 degrees and above near Stovepipe Wells but they fail to capture the grueling elevation climb of more than 8,600 feet. This year's winner, Carlos Alberto Gomes De Sá, 39, of Portugal [above], ran the 135-mile course in 24 hours 38 minutes. The oldest finisher was 66. (A 76 year-old was among the fifteen who did not finish.) Keith Straw, 58, known for running in his signature pink tutu, completed the race in 42 hours 44 minutes. It was his third Badwater. In April he won the Virginia 24-hour Run for Cancer, clocking 120 miles, and ran Boston.

Of this year's nineteen women who finished the race, the fastest were Catherine Todd, 34, in 29 hours 55 minutes, and Pamela Reed, 52, of Jackson, Wyoming, in 30 hours 39 minutes. They placed 11th and 13th overall. Full results here.

I learned about Badwater ten years ago from my pard's good friend Chris Bergland, the openly gay world record-holder, Kiehls model, and author of The Athlete's Way: Training Your Mind and Body to Experience the Joy of Exercise [Kindle], who finished 4th in 2003. Read his book.

photo via

Old Glory at the International Fun Run

 

Tintin lookalike with the US flag shaved into his hair in honor of running the NYC marathon. With thousands of visitors I did the International Fun Run yesterday morning and took most of these photos while racing from the UN to the former Tavern on the Green. Enjoy the blurry.

Coming Out in Anicent Greece: 18 Year-Olds Run Nude Torchlit Race

 

Next time the conversation rolls around to bemoaning the world we've lost and your friends are stuck on the old oxymorons -- Manhattan apartment, living wage, political civility -- try quoting James Davidson in his breathtaking book The Greeks and Greek Love. Discussing how society announced the transition from off-limits boyhood to expected dating at age eighteen, he writes:

"In fact they seem to have 'come out' in a rather spectacular fashion in Athens, running a nude torch race during the night before the great summer festival of Athena's birthday, the Panathenaea, from the altar of Love in the gymnasium of the Academy outside the city walls to an altar in the city. Of course the spectacle attracted an audience. Comic authors describe people waiting at the city gate in Ceramic parish to welcome these new graduates with "slaps of Ceramicus" ... and for those men who didn't yet have boyfriends it must have been like a bit like an express cattle market."

That's not such a surprise when you remember athletes in the original Olympics competed naked. But dry your tears because it turns out nude races are thriving throughout the US, Canada, England, and Spain (home of the legendary Patxi Ros nudist run each September, far below). Last weekend was the Running Bare 5K in Pelion, South Carolina and the Bare Buns Run in McDade, Texas AND the Bare Burro 5K in Colton, California. This coming weekend is the Fig Leaf 5K in Dawsonville, Georgia and the Skinnydipper Sun Run in Decatur, Texas. The following weekend is the Hidden River Trail Streak in St. George, Georgia and the Dare To Go Bare 5K in Lutz, Florida. The list goes on and on. If you're going to suggest that Depew, Oklahoma is a long way from Athens, wait till May 16, when a sizable contingent of Bay to Breakers run naked as Bare to Breakers, covering 12K of San Francisco and nothing else. They encourage "the enjoyment of photographing bare runners."

The Panathenaea it is not, but each Halloween season at least five American cities host Naked Pumpkin Runs. Thank you, Boulder, Seattle [below], Portland, Arcata, and Sebastopol. This will allow certain types many centuries hence to say, Oh, look what we missed! Why couldn't we live in 2010? They used to put carved pumpkins over their heads and run naked through the streets.

Two Marathons in NYC This Weekend

Two mood shots from Saturday’s qualifying race to determine the three men who will run on the U.S. team for the marathon in Beijing Olympics next August. The winner was 25 year-old Californian Ryan Hall, who had never run a marathon until last April. (He had, however, been on the Stanford track team and held the U.S. record for the 20k.) Saturday’s race seemed like the perfect event – lowkey, fun, exciting, with a very small crowd watching – until later news spread that 28 year-old Ryan Shay had collapsed and died at around mile 5.5, near the Boathouse. The highlight of Sunday’s NYC Marathon was the women’s winner, Paula Radcliffe, who is 33 and British and blond and seemingly normal, but no, she gave birth to her first child in January of this year and ran up until the day before she went into labor and resumed running twelve days after. Not so long after Paula ran by, a police escort, television crew, and tight entourage zipped past surrounding Lance Armstrong. Yes, he’s an egomaniac but he is fast on foot. Perez Hilton says Katie Holmes ran too, dear god.