Boulder – Bill Roe pondered the mass of humanity that streamed into Folsom Field for hours during Monday’s Bolder Boulder and saw it as a river of support for USA Track & Field to tap.
“Let’s face it, the healthiest part of our sport is this stuff out here,” said the USATF president, a regular Bolder Boulder visitor who lives in Bellingham, Wash. “You don’t get 45,000 sprinters to the track on a given day. We get them here on a day like today. Road running at the grassroots level is the strongest part of our sport.”
Many stayed to watch Americans Elva Dryer, Jen Rhines and Colleen De Reuck run away with the women’s title in the International Team Challenge. Serious recreational competitors are familiar with those runners, but USATF officials want them to connect with those in the back of the pack as well.
“I don’t think we’ve done everything we can do to make raving fans out of everybody who is out there running the Bolder Boulder or the New York City Marathon,” said Jim Estes, program manager of USATF’s long-distance running division. “We have to think outside of the box and think about an even bigger fan base, but if we really connect with our best potential fans, our true grassroots fans, that’s going to start a wave of where we can move this thing.”
Estes was hired this year to bring some coordination to elite American distance running and market it. Things have improved in recent years as Team USA training enclaves sprung up in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., Minneapolis, Detroit and elsewhere. Mammoth runners Deena Kastor and Meb Keflezighi won marathon medals at the Athens Olympics, but both are in their 30s.
“We’ve got a short window of opportunity to really capitalize on the success we’ve had in the last year,” Estes said. “We’re responsible for marketing the sport and doing what we can to continue athlete development and continue to support the teams that are putting the best athletes out there.”
Estes has been charged with finding more funding for training programs. He would love to support one in Boulder, which already has a wealth of quality distance runners. Road races such as the Bolder Boulder, trade associations such as Running USA and shoe companies and other corporate entities are possible sources. The U.S. Olympic Committee is less likely.
“We know there is a wealth of opportunity in the LDR (long-distance running) community to be self-sufficient within USA Track & Field, so we don’t have to rely on the USOC or anybody else to provide our development money,” Roe said. “We can provide our own money, and then we can put it toward the projects we want.”
All agree it’s important to act quickly.
“We’ve got a lot of pressure on ourselves right now,” Estes said. “There’s a lot of success that we’ve had, but it’s really only the beginning of where we can go. It would be a shame to look back four years from now and say, ‘Man, how did we mess that up?”‘
