Posted: March 30, 2006

Athletics: Crazy 8's 8-K Unveils New Course

From David Monti

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

Organizers of the Indian Path Medical Center & SunTrust Bank Crazy 8's 8-K Run, scheduled for evening of July 15, have unveiled a new figure-8 shaped course with a stadium finish.

"The new course actually runs on exactly the same streets, but in a different order," said co-event director Hank Brown in a press release. He added that completing the race in the J. Fred Johnson Stadium would provide runners with a "spectacular finish."

The old course, where both men's and women's world records were established (22:02.2 by Peter Githuka of Kenya in 1996 and 24:27.8* by Asmae Leghzaoui of Morocco in 2002), had an expiring measurement certificate so a re-measurement was necessary, anyway. "So, we felt like if we were going to move, this was a good time, plus we saw an opportunity to relocate to a much better staging venue, but still use basically the same course," Brown continued.

Dave Rogers, the official USA Track & Field certifier for the state of Tennessee, personally measured the course and thinks the new design has some advantages over the old one. "Some advantages of the new course are that it has a long, flat straightaway for the start before turning right onto Eastman Road,"said Rogers. "Also, having 'Githuka Hill' (Wilcox Drive) on mile-2 rather than mile-4 should make it less of a challenge."

The fastest 8-K races marks set in the world so far this year are 22:12 by Sammy Kipketer of Kenya and 25:16 by Alevtina Ivanova of Russia. Both marks were set at the Uptown Run in Dallas, Tex., last Saturday.

*Sonia O'Sullivan also ran 24:27 on a point-to-point 5 mile course (8.0467 km) in Galway, Ireland in 1999

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