Flotrack's Saucony Kinvara 3 contest

So Flotrack is having a Kinvara 3 design contest. So if you like playing with Photoshop, get on that! And if you don't like playing with Photoshop, you should vote for my design! (Actually you should go look at all the entries and vote for the one you like rather than just voting for me without looking at the others, but if you do think mine is cool, I'd certainly appreciate you giving mine a Like or a Tweet!)

Women's Olympic 1500

Women's 2012 Olympic 1500m final Source

Oh boy, here we go again. I hate to be the person who rants all the time, but those of you who know me know that I love watching mid-distance just as much as I love watching distance. Can't run MD for crap, but watching it is fun. You don't have as much time to get into it the way you do a distance race, but they have all the tactics and strategy that distance races have, and they can take on different personalities the same was as distance races. A 100m dash is always fast. That's not to say it's any less exciting, but you know it's going to be fast. A mid-distance race, like a distance race, can involve a furious pace from the gun (a la the men's 2012 Olympic 800 that we just saw, courtesy of David Rudisha), or it can start slow and tactical and end with the kind of dead sprint to the finish that every kicker hopes for (a la the women's 2012 Olympic 1500...more on that later). Plus male mid-distance runners are beautiful and female mid-distance runners have the body I wish I had, but I digress. So, needless to say, I was watching the women's 1500. For those of you who missed it, the 1500 opened in a pedestrian (for them) 75 second jog. The race itself didn't start until the bell lap...which is when Morgan Uceny fell. At the end of the race, former doper Asli Çakır Alptekin emerged as the winner. Fail. Fail fail fail.

Support your athletes, guys!

Lolo Jones finished fourth in the 100m hurdles Source

A few days ago, the New York Times published a scathing article on Lolo Jones. Jones was torn apart for being all style, no substance. Then, when she finished fourth in the 100m hurdles finals, the haters jumped on the opportunity to say "I told you so," pointing to her disappointing finish as proof she was overhyped and overrated. It's really shameful to lose to favorite Sally Pearson, who won in an Olympic record time, you know.

But wait. Can we step back for a second? Jones' "failure" meant that she finished fourth at the Olympics. For now, she is fourth in the world. Sure, this is a sport where there is really only one winner, and where the top three get hardware and glory while fourth gets to pee in a cup, but let me repeat that for you. Fourth in the world. Allow me to quote Allie Kieffer here:

GALEN RUPP TAKES SILVER MEDAL!

Galen Rupp (silver) and his training partner Mo Farah of Great Britain (gold) Source

RUPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!

Full results after the jump.