Tuesday, April 22, 2014

The 2014 Boston Marathon and the Amazing Seth Wold

I have mentioned that I love my Altra's, right? I have also mentioned that I love all of the Altra guys, right? I was never given more reason to love both than as I watched the Boston marathon. I wasn't really paying attention to the beginning of the race. The end is so much more interesting. I was getting ready to leave for work when my wife, who is an avid start to finish Boston watcher said, "You goota see this. There is some guy running with the front of the pack and no one knows who he is." First I thought it might be a crazy spectator that they would have to forcibly remove from the street, but what spectator can stay with the lead group for that long? This had to be a very good runner. Then I saw the screen shot:


Wait a minute. That guy is wearing an Altra shirt and Altra compression socks. Is that Seth Wold? It is Seth! How cool is that!!!!

Seth reported on his blog that he had injured his leg about a week before the marathon. He had arrived in Boston on little sleep as he tended to his injured wife. When he got to Boston, he had to do some heavy lifting to set up booths for Altra and Pro-Form while Meb, Hall and the others were getting their third massage and hot tub soak of the day. Due to his hurt leg, a sub six min/mile pace was painful at best, and yet he opted to run with the lead pack for as long as he could instead of run at a more realistic pace for the best time result possible. I love his choice. 

The New York Times stuck this classic picture on the front page yesterday:


Seth is running in blue between Meb, the ultimate Boston marathon winner and Ryan Hall, a famous runner in marathon circles. Hall appears to be looking at Seth's shoes, and who wouldn't? It reminds me of the old Spike Lee, Michael Jordan commercial. 



We cannot crawl into Hall's brain to see what he was thinking, but I bet he at least tries in a pair of Altra's in the next week.

Seth ran in some pretty elite circles while at Boston.


Here he is shown with the great Lauren Fleshman and Kara Goucher. 

I am not the only one talking about this. Deadspin reported on Seth as well. You can read it HERE.

Okay, so get this. Seth and I will be running together at the start of the Timp Trail marathon. I think I will pull a Seth and ask my wife to take a picture during the first hundred meters of the race to show me running with him. I think I can do it for 100 meters. After that, I will watch his backside disappear into the distance as I such wind for a while. Seth is the current Timp Trail marathon record holder at three hours and 40 minutes. Seth is such a good guy that he may let me stay with him for 150 meters before he takes off.







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