April 18 , 2006 - page 2

The highlight of my trip is related to the running world that I enjoy so greatly. I’ve been running for nearly 10 years and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a lot of people. Luckily, that has afforded me the opportunity to meet some outstanding athletes. However, I never dreamt that I would meet the people I met on Thursday night. I have a good friend who is a higher-up in USATF, the USA Track and Field, the governing body of the sport in the United States.

He is in town with his wife for the London Marathon. Of course I wanted to meet up with them in order to get a little flavor of home here in London, plus they’re very nice people in general. The story takes an even better turn, though. As we were sitting around talking and eating, several groups of people passed us and my friend knew people in each of the groups and I got an introduction. I met some amazing people, although I don’t know if will mean as much to non-runners out there.

Firstly, I met Ian Stuart. A British Olympian, he is most famous for beating out the foremost American runner of the 1970’s, Steve Prefontaine, for the bronze medal in the 5000 meters at the 1972 Munich Olympics. That was good, but meeting the next individual was honestly one of the highlights of my life. Haile Gebreselassie walked into the room and had a seat at a table near us. Gebreselassie formerly held world records at 5000m and 10000m and is the current world record holder for the half marathon. On Sunday, rumor has it that he is going for the world record for the marathon.