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Elite Athletes and Coaches Unite to Create the Bay Area Track Club

February 22, 2010, 4:11pm

San Francisco, CA, February 22, 2010 — A group of elite athletes and coaches residing in the Bay Area have come together to create the Bay Area Track Club (BATC; www.bayareatrackclub.com). The group has two main goals: To provide support for Olympic athletes and emerging elites, and to promote running, health, and fitness within the community.

BATC athletes have represented Team USA 19 times, with four athletes competing at the Olympic Games. With the 2012 Olympic Games as their biggest goal, the BATC has gathered the support of world-class coaches and facilities in the Bay Area to help its athletes in their medal quest.

The BATC will also promote running and fitness within the community by taking part in events such as instructional clinics, meet appearances, group fun runs, peer mentoring, motivational seminars, and running camps. These programs will aim to educate and motivate the public, as well as supplement and enrich existing fitness-based organizations.

The BATC’s Shannon Rowbury, a USA Olympian, World Championship Bronze Medalist, and San Francisco native describes the need for such a group: “The idea of a post collegiate group in the Bay Area is something I and many other local elite runners have dreamed of for a long time. To be the best athlete I can be I need a training group. More importantly though, having grown up in the Bay Area, it is important that I give back. The BATC’s community programs will provide me with the opportunity to have a great impact on youth fitness.”

The BATC is an organization that will help achieve the goals of many local elite and emerging athletes and at the same give back to their community.  “Our vision is much greater than supporting a small group of elite runners,” says BATC President Tony Kauke. “We really want to support a health and fitness movement, a running movement, across the Bay Area for people of all ages and abilities.”

The current roster includes four Olympians: Shannon Rowburry, Blake Russell, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Bolota Asmerom. National Champions and aspiring Olympians: David Torrence, Garrett Heath, Alysia Johnson, Tim Bayley, Jon Rankin, Clara Horowitz Peterson, Tom Kloos, Peter Gilmore and Francis Gadayan.

The Bay Area Track Club was formed by a group of elite runners and coaches to provide support for aspiring Olympic athletes while also serving as an epicenter of healthy living for youth and adults pursuing an active lifestyle in the Bay Area.

For more information and to learn more about the Bay Area Track Club, its athletes, and how to support the Club please visit www.bayareatrackclub.com.

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Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 22, 2010, 4:46pm

Bayley Qualifies for UK World Indoor Team

February 20, 2010, 2:26pm

By virtue of his 2nd place finish at the UK Indoor Championship and running under the qualifying time this week, Tim Bayley qualified for the UK World Indoor Team in the 1500 meters. This is Tim's first appearance for a UK National team and an achievement he has had on his radar for years.

The IAAF World Indoor Championships will be held in Doha, Qatar from March 12-14. The men's 1500m trials are set to take place on day one of the action, with the finals taking place on day two.

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Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 20, 2010, 2:26pm

Join BATC in Virtual Run/Walk for Haiti

February 18, 2010, 12:36pm

New York road Runners, New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, and MapMyRun.com have come together to organize a virtual event to benefit the victims of the Haiti Earthquake. Please join BATC and thousands of others in support of this event on Saturday, February 20.

The virtual run supports the Run for Haiti in New York City, where nearly 8000 runners are registered and more than $300,000 is being raised! Check out the Run for Haiti website and join us in supporting this important cause. Be sure to pass the message along!

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Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 18, 2010, 12:37pm

Magda Qualifies for World Cross Country Championships

February 16, 2010, 6:08pm

SPOKANE, WA -- On Saturday, February 13, Magda Lewy Boulet finished 4th at the USA Cross Country Championships to earn a spot on the US team bound for World Cross Country Championships. She covered the 8km course in a time of 26:09.

In a race that was dominated by Shalane Flanagan of the Oregon Track Club, Magda stuck with the chase pack, trading third and fourth place with Amy Hastings until the final kick when Amy broke away for third place.

Magda en route to her 4th place finish

It was nearly ten years since Magda last raced cross country, but she showed that her road racing skill set translates well to the rougher and hillier terrain of cross country. Fortunately for her, the weather in Spokane held up and the course didn't get too torn up from the four races prior to the Senior Women's.

The World Championships hold special meaning for Magda. The race will take place only a few hours from where she grew up and the trip offers her the chance to see her 98-year-old grandmother, who she hasn't seen in person for a number of years.

Magda said that having family in Poland "was definitely an extra incentive to push hard and make the team." The race will be held on March 28 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Three weeks later, Magda will race the Rotterdam marathon.

"Trying to do both cross country training and marathon training simultaneously has been a challenge, but the cross country workouts bring a fun element to marathon training."

Tags: magda lewy boulet, bay area track club, batc
Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 18, 2010, 12:32pm

Magda & Clara go 1-2 at KP SF Half Marathon

February 8, 2010, 1:20pm

On Sunday, February 7, BATC athletes Magda Lewy Boulet and Clara Peterson competed at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Half Marathon in Golden Gate Park. Despite windy conditions on the Great Highway, the two women went 1-2 with Magda taking the title in 1:15:08 and Clara finishing 2nd in 1:17:44.

Both athletes have busy racing schedules on the horizon. Magda is setting her sights on a strong performance at the US Cross Country Championships on February 13 and her race this past weekend was a solid indication of a high fitness level. Clara will be racing at the Gate River 15k in Florida on March 13.

Results from the KP Half are available here.

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Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 8, 2010, 1:20pm

BATC Athletes Shine in Boston

February 8, 2010, 12:51pm

On February 6, four BATC athletes competed at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games. David Torrence, Garrett Heath, and Tim Bayley raced the men's mile, and Shannon Rowbury competed in the 3000m.

The three men performed superbly, taking places 3, 5, and 6, and all breaking 4 minutes in a race that was won by Beijing silver medalist Nick Willis.

Torrence finished 3rd in 3:56.69, out-kicking Olympian Leo Manzano in the last 20 meters. Heath finished 5th in 3:57.34 and Bayley closed behind him in 6th in 3:59.75.

Results from the men's mile can be found here. An interview with Torrence can be watched here and an interview with Bayley can be watched here.

In the women's 3000m, Rowbury showed why she's one of the best American runners right now. After the pacemaker dropped from the race, Rowbury stuck on the heels of Ethiopians Kalkidan Gezahegn and Genzebe Dibaba as the three separated themselves from the field. Rowbury ended up finishing 3rd in 8:47.18, less than a second behind winner Kalkidan Gezahegn.

Here are women's 3000m results and an interview with Rowbury can be viewed here.

Considering we're only in February, these early season performances bode well for these athletes' 2010 track seasons. Stay tuned for more great things from these four.

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Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 8, 2010, 12:52pm

BATC Sending Four Athletes to Reebok Boston Indoor Games

February 5, 2010, 10:18am

On Saturday, February 6, four Bay Area Track Club athletes will compete in the Reebok Boston Indoor Games. The races will be held at the Reggie Lewis Center on the campus of Roxbury Community College.

David Torrence, Garrett Heath, and Tim Bayley will be running the men's mile, and Shannon Rowbury will be running the 3000m.

Their performances will be televised on ESPN2 from 2-4pm EST the day after the event. Learn more about the meet here.

Good luck to the athletes!

Tags: david torrence, garrett heath, tim bayley, shannon rowbury, reebok boston indoor games
Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 5, 2010, 10:18am

SF Gate: More exercise better in long run, study finds

February 1, 2010, 11:12am

By Erin Allday, Chronicle Staff Writer
February 1, 2010
Source: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/01/MNFC1BID8F.DTL

Paul Williams has only run one marathon in his life, but by his own research, he could probably benefit from running a few more.

A scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Williams has put together the world's largest study on runners, and the evidence found over 20 years of research points to an important conclusion: When it comes to exercise, more is almost always better.

"When I started my study, everybody sort of knew exercise was beneficial. The government was saying you get benefits by walking three or four times a week. My data has shown the more you do, the greater the benefits," Williams said. "I've had people doing 100 miles a week of running, and you could see benefits up to that level."

To be sure, Williams is not suggesting that everyone try to run 100 miles a week, or even half of that. But for years, he's been a critic of national guidelines that recommend people get at least 150 minutes of exercise a week, or about 30 minutes a day, five days a week.

That's a fine goal for the couch potatoes, Williams says, but it's shortchanging the millions of Americans who already get the minimum amount of exercise and might not realize that doing more - maybe even doubling their workouts - would improve their health.

Williams' catalog of more than 100,000 runners has produced dozens of scientific and medical papers looking at the effect of running on everything from heart disease and stroke to vision problems and arthritis.

The more miles people run, the less likely they are to develop heart disease or have strokes, Williams has found. The health improvements continue up to about 50 miles a week of running, roughly eight hours. Williams, for the record, runs about 35 miles a week.

It's likely that health benefits keep growing above that level too - with the 100-mile-a-week runners, for example - but there aren't enough people in Williams' study running that much to provide hard data.

"Up until recently, the exercise research has pretty much focused on the couch potatoes," Williams said. "We've become fixated on how to get fat people to lose weight. But we shouldn't be pitching the weight loss and exercise thing only to the obese, sedentary people."

The health improvements don't just apply to runners - any sort of regular aerobic activity helps, and the more hours people put in, the more benefits they'll see, Williams said.

But Williams' findings haven't exactly caught on with the mainstream public health gurus.

It's not that they disagree with Williams' findings. But doctors and public health officials worry that with half the country not meeting the current guidelines, even talking about running 50 miles a week will intimidate folks who aren't doing anything.

"The overwhelming majority of patients that I see really need the motivation to start, and seeing a 150-minute goal gives them something to work toward," said Dr. MaryAlice Ambrose, chief of patient education at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Clara. "Most often, once patients start exercising on a regular basis, they feel so much better that they try to exceed that level on their own."

Williams started his research project in 1991, when he set out to study how much physical activity people needed to improve their health. He decided to focus on runners because they're an easy group to follow - they usually know exactly how much exercise they get, in terms of miles run, and they can gauge their fitness based on race times.

He started by buying the Runner's World subscription list, which yielded about 55,000 runners to study. Since then, he's doubled that group, often by recruiting people at races. He's also started studying walkers, about 45,000 of them, to compare their health to runners.

The major benefit of his research cohort is its size - it's unusual to have so many subjects to study. A downside is that most of the information he's gathered is self-reported - it's up to the individual runners to be honest about their health data and how much they run.

Studying the same people for nearly 20 years has allowed Williams to look at the effects of exercise over time. Exercise, he said, seems to help prevent heart disease and stroke as well as vision problems like glaucoma and cataracts. He hasn't found a relationship between running and cancer prevention, he said - but that may just be a matter of time, since most of his runners were relatively young when the study began.

The running community has changed since 1991 and since Williams ran his own marathon in 1988. More people have picked up the sport, and endurance events have become more popular. That's just fine by Williams, of course.

Doctors may be reluctant to start encouraging all of their patients to go out and run marathons - especially if they're starting an exercise regimen from scratch. But at the same time, doctors say they're increasingly viewing exercise as a critical health tool, equivalent to tracking a patient's weight or blood pressure, or prescribing a drug.

"I tell my patients, however much exercise you're getting, it would probably be even better to do a little more," said Dr. Todd Weitzenberg, a sports medicine physician with Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa. "I hope that patients, when they've done the minimum requirements, when they see that they've lost five pounds, that their blood pressure came down a couple of points, maybe they'll up the ante."

E-mail Erin Allday at eallday@sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/01/MNFC1BID8F.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 1, 2010, 11:13am

Boulet & Gilmore Compete in US Half Marathon Championships in Houston

January 20, 2010, 3:29pm

Magda Lewy Boulet and Peter Gilmore of the Bay Area Track Club competed in the Aramco Houston Half Marathon on Saturday, which doubled as the US Championship at that distance. Boulet finished a strong 5th overall in a time of 1:12:22 and Gilmore finished 11th in 1:03:52.

(Magda en route to her 5th place finish)

Magda is looking ahead to the US Cross Country Championships on February 13 where she hopes to qualify for a spot on the US National Team and a trip to the World Cross Country Championships.

Tags: magda lewy boulet, peter gilmore, houston half marathon
Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on January 20, 2010, 5:52pm

Shannon, Magda, Alysia, & Bolota rank in Top 10 Nationally for 2009

January 12, 2010, 1:10pm

We are proud to report that three members of the Bay Area Track Club -- Shannon Rowbury, Magda Lewy Boulet, and Bolota Asmerom -- ranked in the top 10 nationally in their respective events in 2009.

Rowbury ranked #1 in the US in the 1500m, thanks in part to her bronze medal at the World Championships. She was also the US 1500m Champion, the 5th Avenue Mile Champion, and the winner of the US Road Mile. She posted a 2009 best of 4:00.81.

Madga earned two top-ten spots in the 2009 US rankings, finishing as the #5 best 10k runner and the #6 best marathoner. She posted a 2009 best of 2:32 at the New York City Marathon, where she finished 6th overall. She also ran two half marathons in 1:11:46 and 1:11:47, earning a US Championship at the Houston Half Marathon.

Despite an ongoing struggle with injuries, Alysia broke 2:02 four times in her first year as a professional runner. She was 7th at the US Championships and posted a personal 2009 best of 2:01.09.

Bolota finished 4th at the US 5k Championships in a time of 13:24.00, just barely missing a qualifying spot to represent the US at the World Championships. Bolota took 2nd at the CVS Downtown 5k in Providence, which served as the US Road 5k Championships.

Read more about their successes in the LetsRun.com 2009 Distance Rankings.

Congratulations to all three and here's to a successful 2010!

Tags: shannon rowbury, magda lewy boulet, bolota asmerom
Read more | Comments (0) | Updated on February 6, 2010, 3:54pm

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