One of my daily favorites are the facebook posts by Mike Fanelli. Mike, a fine runner for over fifty years, is also someone I count as a friend. In 1981, we ran the NorCal 10,000m together, where we both ran our lifetime PBs for the 25 lapper, won that day by Hugh Stahl.
Ben True, with Marc Davis, April 2015, BAA 5K, photo by PhotoRun.net
Mike Fanelli, and his garage of track (actually a sanctuary to our sport of athletics) pulls different things out of the cobwebs each and every day and provides them to his friends in the digital world. Yesterday, he wrote about Marc Davis, who held the US 2 mile record for several years.
Marc Davis was a fine runner. Today, he is husband, father and Boston Marathon’s Manager of Communications. His baso profundo voice is what can be heard on the busiest media day of the year in Beantown, the Boston Marathon, each and every year.
We thank Mike Fanelli for his love of the sport and his thoughtful commentary.
Marc Davis, photo courtesy Getty Images.co.uk
ON YOUR MARC…in my opinion, one of the more underrated of America’s recent distance runners…maybe best known for his Footlocker win or the 8:14.26 steeple PB (Zurich 1993), but did you know that Davis broke the longest standing 2 mile American record set in the past 100 years? That’s right, Liquori (who broke Pre’s AR) held the mark for more than 19 years until Marc Davis knocked out an 8:12.74 in Sweden (where Marty and Steve both ran their deuce records too…must be something in the water)
…oh, and did you know that Davis and Meb went to the same San Diego high school? I didn’t think so…now you do ;}
8:07.07 Matthew Tegenkamp 10 Jun 2007 Eugene, OR Prefontaine Classic Hayward Field
8:11.48 Alan Webb 04 Jun 2005 Eugene, OR Prefontaine Classic Hayward Field
8:11.59 Bob Kennedy 19 Jul 1997 Hechtel, BEL
8:12.74 Marc Davis 24 Aug 1994 Goteborg, SWE iDAG Galan
8:17.12[.2] Marty Liquori 17 Jul 1975 Stockholm, SWE
8:18.29[.4] Steve Prefontaine 18 Jul 1974 Stockholm, SWE
8:19.4 Steve Prefontaine 24 Aug 1972 Munich, GER
8:22.0 George Young 01 Jun 1968 San Diego, CA
8:25.2(.1) Jim Ryun 13 May 1966 Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles Coliseum Relays
8:26.4 w Robert Schul 29 Aug 1964 Los Angeles, CA
8:29.8 w Jim Beatty 08 Jun 1962 Los Angeles, CA Southern Pacific AAU meet
8:42.5 Dyrol Burleson 07 Apr 1962 Eugene, OR Oregon-Brigham Young dual meet
8:43.8 William Dellinger 14 Sep 1960 London, GBR USA-British Commonwealth meet
8:48.0[.6] Phil Coleman 14 Nov 1956 Geelong, AUS
8:49.6 Horace Ashenfelter 03 Jun 1955 Compton, CA Compton Invitational
8:54.5 Fred Wilt 30 May 1951 Providence, RI
8:58.4[.3]w Donald Lash 13 Jun 1936 Princeton, NJ Princeton Invitational Palmer Stadium
9:13.2 Norman Bright 09 Jul 1935 New York, NY Ohio Field (NYU)
9:15.4 Joseph Mangan 15 Jul 1933 Princeton, NJ Princeton-Cornell-Oxford-Cambridge
