Running gives friends a chance to plan Relay
digg it!
Facebook
del.icio.us
Seed Newsvine
Fark It
Reddit
BY JEFF KORBELIK / Lincoln Journal Star
Best friends Ben Cohoon and Jason Bakewell hope their bladders won’t stand in the way of their qualifying for the Boston Marathon.
The 26-year-olds are training for the May 4 Lincoln Marathon with goal of running the race in the required 3 hours and 10 minutes needed for Boston.
They are running 7:15 miles, which, so far, provide them no wiggle room.
Related Media
Runner hopes Lincoln will get him to Boston
Ben Cohoon, 26, talks about his goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon. (Hilary Kindschuh / Lincoln Journal Star)...
Related Link(s):
This is part of a series of stories appearing this winter and spring in The (402) about runners training for the May 4 Lincoln Marathon and Half-Marathon.
“So if we have to stop and pee during the race, we might not make it,” Bakewell said.
“It will become a real decision on the day of the race,” Cohoon echoed. “To go or not go, we just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Those 7:15 miles have been done while the pair talk to each other. Their topic of conversation: the inaugural Market to Market Relay, an 86-mile race from Omaha to Lincoln. Cohoon is the relay’s race director, and Bakewell is assistant race director.
“Everyone we’ve talked to has been excited about the event,” Cohoon said. “They ask, ‘How can we help?’”
The first Market to Market Relay is set for Oct. 11, with registration beginning March 15 at www.markettomarketrelay.com.
Each team of six to eight runners will run a scenic course stretching from The Old Market in Omaha to the historic Haymarket in Lincoln.
The course is designed so that each runner on a team runs three or four legs, ranging from 2.45 to 5.5 miles for a total of 10 to 13 miles.
Cohoon and Bakewell created the relay after seeing similar races succeed in Oregon, Illinois and, more recently, in Kansas/Missouri. Last year’s “Brew to Brew,” which runs from the Boulevard Brewing Co. in Kansas City, Mo., to Free State Brewing Co. in Lawrence, Kan., attracted more than 600 teams.
Cohoon said he put a lot of thought into the relay while training for last year’s Lincoln Marathon.
“When you run for three and a half hours, you have a lot of time to think,” he said.
He’s most proud of plans to make the race one of the most environmentally friendly in the country.
Organizers will encourage runners to pick up trash as they go. They also will print race materials on recycled paper, recycle running shoes and give 10 percent of sponsor donations to maintaining local trail systems.
“This is a cool and different event that we hope Nebraska runners are ready for,” Bakewell said.
It’s only natural Cohoon and Bakewell would plan the relay together, not to mention train and run the marathon together.
They’ve been friends since the first grade, graduating together from Millard South High School. Both earned bachelor’s degrees from University of Nebraska-Lincoln and even lived together in college.
The marathon will be the second 26.2-mile race for both. Bakewell ran Lincoln in 2005 in 3:38, while Cohoon finished last year’s race here in 3:43.
Training has been going well this winter, they said. They’ve been putting in 30 to 50 miles per week.
The trick has been maintaining the 7:15 miles, which they’ve done while planning the relay race.
“No telling how fast we would run if we didn’t talk,” Cohoon said.
If they’re lucky, it’ll be fast enough to allow for a bathroom break.
Reach Jeff Korbelik at 473-7213 or jkorbelik@journalstar.com.
Post Your Comment
Standards and RulesYour posted comment will appear after it has been approved.
Frequently asked questions about story commenting.
I wish these two runners injury free luck. "