Airline Travel Sponsorship Contacts

A little background first.

We have a few runners on the blog that are knocking on the door of an Olympic Trials Qualifier in 2012. Last time (2008) we had Paul, Sean, Nick, and Logan at the Trials. This time (2012) it will be more difficult. The standard has been tightened - 2:19 instead of 2:22 for men, and no St. George freebie for either men or women. The elevation drop cannot exceed 450 feet. But I would still like to see the blog represented at the Trials.

Due to the nature of Utah marathons (at least 600 feet of drop in all certified courses) there is no course where the standard can be achieved. Even if we made a course that is OTQ-legal it would be very difficult to run 2:19:00 or faster on it due to the altitude. Thus our aspiring runners would have to race at sea level.

Two problems:

a) Most will most likely need more than one shot to make it. As you know marathons are odd beasts. You can come well-prepared, but that preparation can be ruined with stomach flu the week of the key race, or bad weather, or something else that is mostly outside of your control.

b) If you train and race only at altitude you do not quite know how to race at sea-level. You need practice racing at sea-level to really be able to max it out in your key race.

Solution to those is expensive. Some of our runners have some money to travel, while others are barely able to make ends meet. Even those who do have some money cannot travel as much as they will need to maximize their chances of OTQ. So we need to find a sponsor. An airline, a travel agency, or somebody else with the ability to sponsor us by providing free or low-cost air travel.

If you have any promising contacts at such an institution, please e-mail me to sasha at asksasha dot com.