Notes on an '09 Calendar...

By Bryan Green...

We all have our favorite punctuation marks.  Some people "love" their "quotation marks".  Some, people, love, their commas.  I happen to be a fan of...the ellipsis...

I love the fact that it leaves something unsaid, that it requires the assistance of the reader to complete the thought...

This of course allows me to not have to think up anything profound or witty to end a thought, as that can just be so, well, ...

My affinity for the ellipsis goes back to my childhood growing up reading the L.A. Times and Allan Malamud, who used to write a column called "Notes on a Scorecard"... 

"Notes on a Scorecard" was a collection of snippets about the day's sporting news and each snippet ended with an ellipsis...

You could think of it as being an '80s equivalent to a collection of sports tweets, which begs the question why nobody's tried to do that for a newspaper column yet...

Anyway, this is year two of my yearly homage to Malamud and the ellipsis, with Notes on an '08 Calendar being year one...

Now here are my thoughts on 2009 with a few hopes for 2010...

The story of the Decade was the Internet, but the story of the year for me was US women's middle distance running...

For me personally it's even bigger than Usain Bolt, even though his performances were the most amazing...

Who'd have expected Vessey, Willard, Wurth-Thomas, Rowbury and Barringer to all break significant time barriers, win a World Champs medal, and in Willard's case, not lose a single race at 800m (say what?)...

Barringer's 3:59.90 at Prefontaine was my favorite individual race of the year, in part because it was so unexpected but also because before the race I told my friend Scotty that I thought she would do something special...



With Deena and Shalane's struggles and Goucher's assumed time off (to have a baby), I have no idea what to expect from the women's long distances though...

Maybe Amy Begley can make another leap...

My best prediction of the year was Dathan Ritzenhein's breaking the 5k AR in Brussels...

I'm just kidding, nobody predicted that, which is what made it the most surprising performance of the year...

You might have thought it would be Meb's NYC victory, but on the "Wow Count"--a scale based on how many times you say "Wow!" during the race--Ritz beat Meb by a score of 736 to 2...

What can I say, I always expect the improbable with Meb...

Another person who I'm starting to feel that way about is Angela Bizzarri, who made a big leap this year and looks poised to be one of our best in the near future...

Her NCAA XC Championships victory was my #2 Wow-getter this year...

Maggie Vessey had a few kicks that got her big scores, too...

Amazingly, Maggie Vessey also had a number of races near the top of my "Ugh Count", which is probably self-explanatory...

If they had an award for "Enigma of the Year", Maggie Vessey would deserve it for 2009...

Rounding out the top 5 would be Lady Gaga, Athletics Kenya, American Idol voters, and why this game isn't more popular...

Last year I predicted Ritz would run sub-2:07 in London, but it looks like I was a year off (double or nothing!)...

I'd say the odds of Meb's 10k record going down are about 75%, assuming Rupp and Ritz both take a stab at it this year...

If 2009 was the Return of Ritz, here's to 2010 being the Welcoming Back of Webb...

It's hard not to be excited about US distance running right now, with women's middle distance so strong, Ritz and Rupp leading the long distances, Meb back in force on the roads, Lagat moving up to 5k, college athletes like German and Derrick improving fast and high schoolers Lukas Verzbicas and Chelsey Sveinsson on the rise...

Speaking of excitement, it's amazing how the hype around Ryan Hall has diminished, despite two decent races...

I say that's a good thing for him...

On the world scene, Wanjiru again went undefeated at the marathon distance, but I have to admit, I'm not as high on him as I was this time last year...

I predicted last year that Wanjiru's old training partner, Mekubo Mogusu, would be due for a breakout year, but his post-collegiate runs have been lackluster...

The same can't be said for Ryuji Kashiwabara, the star of Toyo University's winning team who overtook 7 runners and crushed his own 5th stage record on Day 1 of Hakone (last 90 seconds of video)...



How exciting is Kashiwabara? My father-in-law (Japanese) who doesn't follow running at all actually called our house to talk to me about him...

If you have any interest at all in Japanese running, Japan Running News is one of the premier blogs on the web...

And speaking of giving props, I think we should take a moment to say thanks to Universal Sports for streaming live so many races, Science of Sport for their outstanding insights, and LetsRun for stepping up their game this year with the coverage and commentary...

My happy discovery of the year was the ARRS website, which has apparently been compiling its wonderful lists for quite some time (I wish I'd known!)...

I never got around to writing about them, but the two best running books I read this year were Duel in the Sun (Amazon link) and C.C. Pyle's Amazing Race (Amazon link)...

The former is just a great insight into a phenomenal race, while the latter is an absolutely surreal bit of running history...

The best essay I read all year was Offensive Play, by Malcolm Gladwell, which is sure to get some parents to push their kids away from football (hopefully to track and field)...

The must-read book I keep hearing about is Born to Run (Amazon link), which is rapidly moving up to the front of my "to read" list...

There are quite a few races I'm looking forward to this year, including Meb v Hall v Africa in Boston, a huge debut half by Shalane Flanagan in Houston, Rupp vs 27:13.98 in Stanford in May, Chris Derrick joining him there for a crack at 27:30, German running sub-13:20 and/or 3:35, Bekele vs clocks all over Europe, a crazy go nuts women's 10k with Dibaba, Defar and Melkamu all going for the WR, a sub-9:05 steeple for Jenny Barringer (sub-9:00 you say? maybe...), Teg and Lagat vs 12:56 in Europe, the top girls all returning to Foot Locker, and of course, anything involving Angela Bizzarri...

I didn't put the World Cross Country meet in there because sadly, even though it's a perfect year to do it, yet again most of the top US runners will skip it...

If I could get one wish, that would be it: get all of our best to line up together at World Cross...

Outside of that, my track/running wish list for this year really isn't that long...just hoping for more of the same, really...

As for my resolutions, well, I've added one on top of my usual pledge to read, write, and run more often...

This year, I'm going to show a little more love...to the ellipsis...

(Angela Bizzarri photo via 101lifestyle)