Posted: February 22, 2006

Athletics: New York Road Runners To Support U.S. Distance Camps

From David Monti

© 2006 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

Coming off of their successful hosting of the U.S. Cross Country Championships last weekend, the New York Road Runners announced on Monday that they have made a $240,000 grant to the USA Distance Project to support high performance running camps.

"This is another major step forward in the support of American long distance running," said the Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg at the New York Track Writers luncheon where she was joined by USATF CEO Craig Masback. "This is another statement of our belief in American distance running. We have every confidence that we have the talent to win an Olympic Marathon medal and to win major marathons. We want to do all we can to make that happen."

The money was raised through the sale of special entries at last year's ING New York City Marathon where 200 entries were sold for $2500 each, raising $500,000. The remainder of the proceeds from that pilot program went to supporting youth running iniatives in New York City, including the New Balance Track & Field Center at the Armory.

The $240,000 USA Distance Project grant will be divided amongst four camps: Team Running USA California (coach-in-residence, Terrence Mahon), Boulder Performance Group (coach-in-residence, Brad Hudson), Team USA Minnesota (coach-in-residence, Dennis Barker) and the Big Sur Distance Project (coach-in-residence, Bob Sevene). The Road Runners did not disclose how much funding each group would receive. These groups also receive funding from other sponsors and patrons.

"This is an important next step and will give outstanding coaches the ability to work with outstanding athletes over a long period of time," said Masback.

While these camps already have top athletes like Meb Keflezighi, Carrie Tollefson, Deena Kastor, Dathan Ritzenhein and Jorge Torres in residence, the coaches also draft up-and-coming post-collegiate runners each year, providing a stable training environment and top-notch coaching for promising stars.

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