Taking on the WORLD!!!

I was going to put something up about this before Megan raced and then I saw "W"s post on the message board, which reminded me that the race is coming up quick and I better get my butt in gear.

Megan Metcalfe (former WVU National Champion) will be competing for Canada in the Indoor World Championships this weekend in Spain. She flew out earlier this week after knocking off a great workout(a 2K time trial going through the mile in 4:35!!) and looks to make a big splash in this loaded field. There will be a lot riding on this race, as Megan could earn her berth to the Olympics if she places well. Canada is infamous for screwing over their Olympic Athlete's with ridculous standards but if Megan can show she can compete with the best in the world then they'll have no choice but to give her a shot when the Olympics roles around in a few months. Here's hoping that everything goes perfect and all her hard work and preperation gets rewarded with a huge performance. Good Luck!

Keep updated on how Megan is doing with live results from Spain.

Awesome Race

You've got to check this race out. Heather Dorniden from MN is leading the 600m race at Big Ten when all of a sudden she takes a nose dive onto the track and lays stunned. But does she she let a small thing like that throw her out the race?

A model runner.

Last fall Cabell Midland state champ and mid-distance star Danielle Winningham won a modeling contest to become the new SOFE girl in an upcoming ad. She went to NY during the New Year celebrations to do her shoot for the upcoming Ad Campaign. Little did she know that her presence sparked the jealousy of long time SOFE girl Ahna Sunnspot, who immediatly challenged her new rival to a walk-off. Dee-Dee was being introduced to the "real" world of modeling, the stuff they don't show you in magazines or on E! Television. Of course being the competitive person that she is Dee-Dee simply annihilated Ahna Sunnspot in the walk-off to become SOFE's new go to girl. In the process she was also able to rescue the Prime Minister of Malaysia from an assaination attempt using her stone cold look the "Magnum". So Congratulations to Dee-Dee on being the best runner/model (and not the other way around) in the state! You can of course check out her ad in American Cheerleader, Seventeen, Cosmo Girl and Teen Vogue. Luckily, I'm already subscribed to 3 out of the 4 listed magazines.

Josh Simpson 2nd at NACAC

Hey guys...Josh here, just wanted to thank all the well wishers from this past weekend ,while I was down in Orlando. Looks like I brought some of the Florida weather back with me for this Monday. So get out there and Enjoy your runs!! I wanted to come on here and give a little recap of the NACAC race. Who better to tell the story than me. So for you that want to know the details...Read on...If you dare.

First off I'd like to say that running as a Team again was amazing. I haven't had the opportunity to feel that team unity in a LONG time. And doing it with Team USA was a special bonus. My teammates, Thomas Morgan, Travis Laird, and Ben Bruce made the trip fantastic. So... Race day came in Orlando and as we sat around watching the junior girls, and junior boys, and senior girls get thumped by Canada. Watching USA get beaten down every race made me just want to kill our race that much more. There was a sense of pride for our countries running that made me feel like I could take on all Canucks ;) lol. And the added bonus would be that my former, almost, teammate Robbie Watson was on Canada's team.

The Race started off hard, with Robbie Watson of Canada taking the lead while Ben Bruce and I trailed right behind him. As the 1st loop came to and end there was still a big pack of guys. After the second loop Robbie had extended his lead some with myself and Canada's Dylan Wykes right on my shoulder. At this point the race was probably in favor of Canada. The 3rd loop didn't change much, other than Robbie had extended his lead a little more, to about 20 meters. With myself and Dylan Wykes chasing behind with my teammate Thomas Morgan slightly behind. The extremely Hot day was making the race pretty hard and gutsy as making a crazy move may have doomed any of us in the scorching heat. And that may have helped cause what happened on the 4th loop. With about 1500 meters left in the race, Thomas Morgan came up on my side and we both made a strong move around Leader Robbie Watson and we really started to push in the last 1k of the race. We had started making the gap on Dylan and Robbie over that last 1k, and coming into the finish it was real exciting knowing we had broke them and even more exciting hearing the announcer call out both of our names and say how we were crushing the course record. Thomas finished pumping his arms and I finished behind him clapping my hands in the air and hugging him at the line cause we knew we had won the race for the USA. Our teammate Ben Bruce ran a hell of a last 2k as he virtually tied Robbie Watson and picked up 5th place while Travis Laird took 6th place right behind him. It was very exciting when we were all done because even as we were racing some baseball players were cheering, GO USA. And then everyone came over and they were all really excited that we had done it. I wish I had won the race, but to tell you the truth it didnt bother me at all that Thomas got away from me a little, cause for once in years and years I felt that Team unity that we all shared. A Great Weekend for me and I'm proud that we could do that for The USA.

Now everyone else reading this, get out there and train hard! Be the best you can be. You can only do that by training hard in the season and off-season. Strive to be better than your dreams. And if you work, you will amaze yourself. Best of Luck to you all.

Athlete of Week - Jason Santucci

Jason earns the honors this week with his impressive 5K over the weekend where he ran 14:35.9 at the Armory Fast Track Invite. This was a new PR for him and it ranks him well ahead of everyone else on the 2008 Top Performance List. That's saying a lot considering that he's lost almost 50 lbs over the past two years to get back into racing shape. He made the transformation with the help of consistant 100+ mile weeks (with only one day off in 8 months) and the 5 for 5 special at Arby's. His high mileage and hard work will pay off when he starts to take on the marathon in the next couple of years, chasing after the "B" Standard.

Not only is his running at the highest level it's been at but his Guitar Hero skills have also taken a jump as he's moved up to Expert and has really started to train like a legend! The countless hours that he's put into that are almost as impressive as his running credentials. We here at RunTheArb would like to wish Jason good luck with his running over the next couple of months going into outdoor and also on beating "Pyschobilly Freakout" on Expert. I hate to be a doubter but you have no chance.