What started as a report of a convenience store robbery near the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last night has sprawled into a chaotic manhunt for the perpetrators of
the recent terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon.
The deadly pursuit, involving
a policeman's murder, a carjacking, a violent chase with thrown explosives, and the death of one suspect, has resulted in
Governor Deval Patrick ordering
an unprecedented lockdown of the entire Boston metropolitan area as an army of law enforcement searches house by house for the remaining gunman.
The Associated Press has identified the duo as
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who remains at large. Both are
immigrants from wartorn
Chechnya in southwestern Russia.
The Guardian liveblog is good for quick updates, and
Reddit's updating crowdsourced timeline of events that has often outpaced mainstream media coverage of the situation. You can also get real-time reports straight from the (Java-based)
local police scanner.
posted by Rhaomi
on Apr 19, 2013 -
4937 comments
Becoming the All-Terrain Human: [New York Times] "Kilian Jornet Burgada is the most dominating endurance athlete of his generation. In just eight years, Jornet has won more than 80 races, claimed some 16 titles and set at least a dozen speed records, many of them in distances that would require the rest of us to purchase an airplane ticket. He has run across entire landmasses (Corsica) and mountain ranges (the Pyrenees), nearly without pause. He regularly runs all day eating only wild berries and drinking only from streams."
posted by Fizz
on Mar 23, 2013 -
24 comments
If you've never done the Wingate-cycle test, let me try to explain what it feels like: It feels like your legs are giving birth. It feels like you've got an eight-martini hangover in your calves. Your face contorts like a porn star in an AVN-award-winning threesome scene. You emit noises that resemble feedback at a thrash-metal concert. Maybe your eyes are closed and you're rocking your head back and forth. The upside: It's over in 30 seconds. ... I rode the Wingate cycle as part of my research on a surprising and potentially life-altering theory called high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Think of it as the Evelyn Wood of exercise. The idea is that lightning-quick intense workouts might be as good for you as — if not better than — longer medium-intensity workouts.
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Jan 20, 2013 -
79 comments
Six years ago, US Army Captain Ivan Castro was severely wounded in a mortar attack in Iraq that left him permanently and completely blinded. Today, he's one of only three blind active duty Army officers, and the very first to serve in the US Army Special Forces. Thirteen months and 36 surgeries after the attack, Castro ran the 2007 Marine Corps Marathon in 4:14 and
the Army Ten Miler in 1:25. And he's still going: In the last 15 months, he's completed 14 marathons. Why?
"Because I still can. Because people need to see what's possible." [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 13, 2012 -
17 comments
"To cajole
me through tough evening sessions like this, Arnie told and retold stories of famous Bostons. I loved listening to them--until
this night when I snapped and said, "Oh, let's quit talking about the Boston Marathon and
run the damn thing!"
"No woman can run the Boston Marathon," Arnie fired back.
"Why not? I'm running 10 miles a night!"
Arnie insisted the distance was too long for
fragile women to run and exploded when I said that
Roberta Gibb had jumped into the race and finished it the previous April."
[more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns
on Apr 7, 2012 -
29 comments
Could you run a marathon without training? [bbc.co.uk] "London Marathon entrants have a month of training left for what’s seen as one of the greatest feats of human endurance. Yet Irish twins Jedward claim they completed the Los Angeles marathon without any training. So is it possible to run one on a whim?"
posted by Fizz
on Mar 21, 2012 -
112 comments
Running a marathon is a particularly arduous task, even for the most able-bodied athlete. But for a four-year old to run a marathon is extraordinary. Especially a four-year old Indian boy who, at the age of two, was sold by his mother to a street peddler for 800 rupees. Meet Budhia, a prodigious runner and product of the slums, who is taken in and raised by a relentless trainer named Biranchi Das. After Das pushes Budhia to run a 42-mile race (which he completes), governmental agencies intervene and attempt to remove the boy from the custody of Das. Local protests erupt, a man is murdered, and Budhia returns to the care of his mother. This is the story told by the documentary
Marathon Boy. //
trailer //
review //
interview with filmmaker
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates
on Nov 12, 2011 -
18 comments
Feeling tired today? Back a little sore from that yard work? Morning run left your knees aching? Maybe you just had a lazy weekend. Well, in case you aren't frustrated enough with yourself for what you're (not) accomplishing, enjoy the story of Fauja Singh. Yesterday, the 100 year old
became the oldest person ever to complete a full marathon, finishing the 42 km Toronto Waterfront Marathon in under 9 hours (beating his personal target).
[more inside]
posted by dry white toast
on Oct 17, 2011 -
30 comments
"
24 Hours of Reality will focus the world’s attention on the full truth, scope, scale and impact of the climate crisis. To remove the doubt. Reveal the deniers. And catalyze urgency around an issue that affects every one of us.” — Al Gore on the worldwide event to broadcast the reality of the climate crisis. The Climate Reality Project will live stream starting at 7pm CT on September 14.
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Sep 13, 2011 -
47 comments
24 year old Olympic marathon champion Sammy Wanjiru
died yesterday in Nyahururu, Kenya after "falling" from a balcony.
Sammy set a world record for the half marathon of 58:53 in the United Arab Emirates in 2007, only to best it again two months later in the Netherlands, with a 58:35. He won five marathons, setting an Olympic record of 2:06:32 in 2008, and a personal best of 2:05:10 in London in 2009. He might be best remembered for his
dramatic win in Chicago in 2010.
[more inside]
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on May 16, 2011 -
28 comments
Since approximately
26% of Canadian children age 2-17 are now considered obese, few would disagree that drastic measures are warranted. A dude and his wife have decided that the best way to inspire kids to get some exercise outdoors is to
run daily marathons across the country.
[more inside]
posted by sarastro
on Dec 17, 2010 -
41 comments
“Several of you told me that I was “going to die” if I drank 13 beers while running the San Francisco Half Marathon. I did not die. I puked three times, blacked out for miles 11 and 12, and needed five hours to finish.
This is my story.”
posted by sveskemus
on Aug 3, 2010 -
64 comments
Next weekend, thousands of runners will take to the streets of San Francisco to run the
SF Marathon, on a course with hills that skate a 300 ft. elevation about
six times over 26.2 miles. However, the non-corporately sponsored marathon attracts few than a third of the runners who tackle New York City and Chicago. While the organizers are trying to
re-brand the race, offering
two different half marathon courses, they have shied away from making the course any easier.
posted by roomthreeseventeen
on Jul 15, 2010 -
26 comments
"Of the four strokes swum in competition, butterfly is almost universally regarded as more exhausting than freestyle, breaststroke or backstroke. And therein lies its allure.
In an age of ultramarathons, Ironman triathlons and crowds chugging up Mount Everest,
long-distance butterfly swimming is becoming a new and less-crowded frontier for fitness fanatics."
[more inside]
posted by emilyd22222
on Jun 3, 2010 -
37 comments
"In 1968, I received an invitation to the hundred-mile run at Walton-on-Thames, England, scheduled for October 1969. I pulled out all the stops for this one, running every marathon possible and enduring unheard-of training mileage when not racing.
In July alone I ran a thousand miles, two hundred short of my goal[...]My only goal was to break the existing American record of 16:07:43." (Which he did, finishing in 13:33; still the U.S. 45 to 49 100-mile record.) Ted Corbitt, Olympian, American Record holder at 100 miles, died yesterday.
NYT obit. [more inside]
posted by OmieWise
on Dec 13, 2007 -
13 comments
The Bang on a Can Marathon is currently in progress at the
World Financial Center in Manhattan. This annual Marathon has taken various forms over the years, with a range of lengths, locations and admission prices; this year's features 26 straight hours of music from around the world, with free admission. Bang on a Can is the
20-year-old new music presenting, producing and recording group co-founded by composers Julia Wolfe, David Lang and Michael Gordon.
posted by allterrainbrain
on Jun 3, 2007 -
12 comments
Nude Marathon! Psychotherapy traveled down
a lot of strange paths in the 60s and early 70s, but perhaps none stranger than the naked group therapy sessions, some up to 48 hours long, supervised by
Paul Bindrim. Bindrim's sessions were the subject of a
documentary film and an unflattering, thinly fictionalized novel by Gwen Davis Mitchell. Bindrim sued Mitchell for libel. Can descriptions of a fictional character be libelous of a real person?
Yes.
posted by escabeche
on Mar 23, 2007 -
13 comments
72 page comic in 72 hours. Ryan Estrada has decided that for New Year's he is going to spend 72 hours creating a 72 page comic book. His site is complete with hourly updates of page count and his sanity level. And I thought the
24 Hour Comic was tough.
posted by fizz-ed
on Jan 1, 2005 -
5 comments
