She's back

Blake's column will resume this week in the Monterey County Herald. It will run every other Thursday, rotating with "The Running Life," the excellent column by Mike Dove and Donald Buraglio.
  This week Blake talks about new regulations that will keep women's world records from being set in coed races:
  "If you watch one of the high-level marathons on TV like Chicago or London they almost always have three or four male pacemakers for the elite men. The elite women, however, are at a distinct disadvantage now that they are hovering around that 2 hour, 20-minute finishing time. If you are a women that is good enough to pace that time, then you are too good to be a pacemaker. To put Paula Radcliffe's former 2:15 world record into perspective, she had to go through the half marathon in a 1:07:30. My New Zealand friend and fellow-Reebok runner Kim Smith just ran the fastest half-marathon on U.S. soil at the Philladelphia Half with her time of 1 hour, 7 minutes, 11 seconds or 5:08 mile pace. It’s no wonder Paula needed male pacemakers because only three or four women in the entire world could run that pace through the half! Absolutely mind-boggling.