Q: What do beer and the Olympic Trials have in common?

Km: For Track and Field at least, a craft brewery and two beers- Triple Jump Pale Ale (review) and 200 Meter Ale (review). While not usually a fan of pale ales, I'd be willing to try something with the name Triple Jump in the title (I used to be a triple jumper... that's why I say everything 3x and jump around... jk), and the 200 Meter Ale received good reviews as a post-run choice. I think they should extend their line... maybe a Shot Put Stout, Long Jump Larger, Prefontaine Porter, and Weight Throw Wheat? Ok, that's all I got, the trials start on June 21st and...

BIG BOSS RUN TONIGHT!

False Starting

In the spirit of the trials (not that false starting is a major issue for a 26.2-mile race), did anyone else notice how the majority of last summer's ridiculousness was incurred during the men's races? As it turns out, this is not just happenstance... there is actually a problem with the reaction time criteria. The rule currently considers that an athlete has false started if he/she applies about a 25kg force to the starting blocks within 100msec of the gun. The selection of 100msec as the "fastest possible reaction time" was based off of data from a small study involving 8 sprinters. However, none of these athletes were Olympians, and none of them were female, so another group decided to analyze a much larger number of elite athletes from both genders. They analyzed data from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and concluded that it was statistically very unlikely that men can react faster than 109msec and women faster than 121msec. Why the discrepancy? Well, the researchers believe that it's not because men can actually react faster than women, but rather that men can develop the needed force quicker than women due to more powerful leg muscles. So, instead of having two different allowable reaction times, the researchers recommend reducing the "trigger force" to ~19kg for women.

5 Golden Rings

Ok... well, they're multi-colored rings... but hopefully the USA Track and Field athletes will be bringing home lots of gold medals at the 2012 Summer Olympics. The track and field Olympic team trials will be held in late June / early July at the University of Oregon (schedule). However, the marathon trials are a lot sooner, with both the men's and women's races being held on the same day (January 14, 2012) at the same site (Houston). NBC will broadcast the event from 3-5PM on the very same day. The course was designed to mimic "London conditions", with a 2.2-mile inner loop and an 8-mile outer loop (run 3 times). A list of athletes meeting the qualification standards can be found here... not sure if this will have been updated to reflect anyone qualifying on the last possible day. So, who are the top athletes? On the men's side: Ryan Hall (2:04:58), Meb Keflezighi (2:09:13), and Dathan Ritzenhein (2:10:00) have the fastest times. On the women's side: Desiree Davila (2:22:38), Kara Goucher (2:24:52), and Magdalena Lewy Boulet (2:26:22) are at the top of the field.