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Howie Carr live thread

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the Boston Marathon canceled tomorrow - not postponed, but canceled. What poetic justice it would be: After all these years of corporate greedheads and narcissistic runners ruining a workday for us, finally nature ruins one for them. Oh sure, cancellation is a longshot, but what if the weather reports do pan out? Even with the most optimistic forecasts, there should be a lot fewer drunks along the route this year, littering and relieving themselves wherever. Let’s hope the cops can find at least a few...

ALI BASE, Iraq -- For the second time the Boston Marathon came to Iraq and more than 250 men and women ran either individually or part of four-person teams. One of those running was Air Force Capt. Casey Jackson, with the 407th Expeditionary Operations Support Squadron. Captain Jackson, who is deployed here from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, is an avid runner with three international marathons under his belt. The 5-foot-7-inch, 140-pound man placed first among all Air Force members and second place in the individual race with a time of 3 hours, 2 minutes, 17 seconds. He finished behind Navy...

I was at the start of the Boston Marathon on Monday, April 18. John Kerry was the starter for the Wheelchair athletes. When his name was announced, he was BOOED!! And in Boston, no less. It was absolutely amazing.

'Boston Marathon announces grand marshal & official starters' ..snip 'Senator John F. Kerry (D., Mass.) will be the official starter of the wheelchair division race, which begins at 11:25 a.m. Kerry has been a strong supporter of the Boston Marathon's wheelchair division since the early 1980s.'

GOING THE DISTANCE Following in her father's footsteps, Vanessa Kerry is training to run in the Boston Marathon. John Kerry's youngest daughter is studying in London on a Fulbright scholarship, but told friends in a recent e-mail that she's training for the April race. (Her father has said he competed in the late 1970s.) In the e-mail, Kerry said she's running as part of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's marathon team and invited friends to visit the Dana-Farber website and make a donation supporting cancer research. (Among those who've responded are famous friends: singer Carole King and Al Gore's middle daughter,...

As a general rule, politicians--especially the ones in the heat of a presidential election--talk as much as possible, to as many people as possible. But there are two things that John Edwards, Democratic senator from North Carolina and vice-presidential nominee, doesn't like to talk about at all. Oddly, one of them is running. The 51-year-old Edwards has been running for almost 30 years. He was a runner before he was a presidential candidate, a senator, a big-time trial lawyer, a father, or a husband. He has finished five marathons, one of them, in 1983, in just over three-and-a-half hours. So...

Wrote to BAA, this is what I got back. Dear Mr. S. It was reported (Summer 2004) to the B.A.A. by aides of the John F. Kerry campaign for President of the United States that the Democratic nominee ran the Boston Marathon in the late 1970s [1977, 1978 or 1979 most likely]. He reportedly ran as an unofficial entrant and finished the entire 26.2-mile race (i.e., without an official bib number); as an unofficial participant, his performance (name, place, time) would not appear among the official record or in any results book publication. Beginning with Kerry's role as Massachusetts Lt....

Before I take up the amusing little matter of whether John Kerry’s claim of having run the Boston Marathon is true, let me share some relevant personal background: I am married to a long-distance runner. As any similarly situated spouse or significant other will tell you, runners are statistics freaks. Over the course of our 11-year-marriage (and nearly three years of courtship beforehand), I have had to listen to the stories behind every race and notable run my hubby has undertaken--from the fun runs he ran as a kid to every college steeplechase race to every community 5k and 10k...

BOSTON - Johnny Kelley, a two-time Boston Marathon champion who became a beloved figure in the history of the race by running it a record 61 times, died at 97. He died Wednesday night at a Cape Cod nursing home, stepson Dave DeLong said. His death came just three hours after he moved from his Dennis home to the nearby Windsor Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Kelley, a former Olympian and member of the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame, won America's oldest marathon in 1935 and 1945 and finished second a record seven times. But it was his...

Recently, Football Fans for Truth learned that John Kerry claimed a significant achievement: qualifying and running the Boston Marathon. In an ESPN interview, he said, "I ran a marathon back in '80, something like that. Did the Boston Marathon." An ESPN analysis of his athletic achievements mentions that "[he] ran the Boston Marathon in the 1970s". In its November 2004 issue, Runner's World observes that John Kerry "[ran] the Boston Marathon in the '70s". In April 2002, John Kerry was the starter for the Boston Marathon. The Daily Free Press reports that Senator Kerry "lamented the fact that time constraints...

Not a day goes by when you don't think about running, right? How many pass this fall when the all-out media blitz doesn't lodge the presidential race in your frontal lobe? So why then were we a little surprised when the latest issue of Runner's World magazine hit the mailbox with Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards on the cover. There was an informative Edwards profile/interview inside, but the article which caught my eye was headlined "Capitol Gains: Why Runner-Politicians are Better at Running the Country.'' That's news to me. It turns out that both presidential candidates, President Bush and...

I just receive the latest issue of Runner's World today. It's bad enough that John Edwards is on the cover - but when I opened it up to read the athletic comparisons between Bush and Kerry I had to laugh. It lists John Kerry's athletic achievements, one of them being the Boston Marathon. It mentions that he ran the Boston Marathon in the 70's - but he doesn't remember his time, and no official record exists. Par for the course... Sorry, I couldn't find the story at the Runner's World website.

Call it the return of the Bambino's bambinos. Two great-grandsons of baseball legend Babe Ruth ran the Boston Marathon yesterday, passing within sight of Fenway Park, where the famous slugger once played for the Sox. ``I was extremely impressed with the crowd. They were phenomenal,'' said Brent Stevens, 26, whose dad was the grandson of Ruth and his second wife. Stevens learned through news reports that a great grandson from Ruth's first marriage was also running the race. He hoped to meet the man, Chris Herrlein, but had no luck. ``If Chris and I could meet it's possible the curse...

RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT Memo to all of you who have braved this winter's bitter cold, piles of snow, and bad roads to train for the Boston Marathon: All you needed to do to qualify for this year's Boston run was be able to deliver the South Side of Des Moines come presidential-caucus time for our very own Senator John Kerry . The March 17 issue of US News & World Report describes a phone conversation between Kerry and Des Moines state Senator Matt McCoy , who just prior to their conversation had completed the San Diego Marathon. The mag quotes...

<p>RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT Memo to all of you who have braved this winter's bitter cold, piles of snow, and bad roads to train for the Boston Marathon: All you needed to do to qualify for this year's Boston run was be able to deliver the South Side of Des Moines come presidential-caucus time for our very own Senator John Kerry . The March 17 issue of US News & World Report describes a phone conversation between Kerry and Des Moines state Senator Matt McCoy , who just prior to their conversation had completed the San Diego Marathon. The mag quotes Kerry as saying, ''I remember my first Boston Marathon ... it's a great run. You've got to come to Boston and do it.'' To which McCoy replies, ''I gotta qualify.'' And Kerry responds: ''If you want to come and do it, I can get you a number if you want to run this year.'' Later in the piece, the magazine writes that McCoy was contacted the next day and told he would be making the Hopkinton-to-Back-Bay run on April 21. ''No, I could not have qualified on my own; I am a little too slow,'' McCoy told US News. ''This was Massachusetts-style politics.'' That's not quite true, said Jack Fleming , spokesman for the Boston Athletic Association, which hosts the marathon. Kerry - who has run the Boston Marathon and been a huge supporter of the race, particularly the expansion of the wheelchair division - has never abused his relationship with the race's organizers, he says. ''It's an invitation race,'' said Fleming, pointing out that running clubs, charities, and others - including the media - are given numbers to participate. When asked if it was rare for Kerry to call to get someone in the race, Fleming said, ''It's an exceptional circumstance for him to make a request.''</p>