Monday night rewind

Monday was one of those epic days in sports where everything kind of fell into place the way everyone expected. Robert Cheruiyot dominated the Boston Marathon... again.

The Flyers went from a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven series to a do-or-die Game 7... again.

And Chase Utley hit a home run and made some clutch plays to lead the Phillies to a victory... again.

You know - no big whoop.

Anyway, Cheruiyot won his fourth Boston against a weaker field than in past years. One reason for that is because the top American runners either ran in the Olympic Trials last November (or London two weeks ago) or will run in the track Trials in July. So unlike the past handful of years where the elite Americans showed up and ran with Cheruiyot for a little bit, this year there were other things going on.

Additionally, guys like Ryan Hall and the fastest runners in the world went to London where the course is much more forgiving, the competition fierce and fast times are inevitable. Boston's course beats the hell out the quads and calves with the undulating terrain. No, Boston isn't exactly a slow course - there is a net downhill, after all. There are parts of the route from Hopkinton to Boston where runners actually have to hold back to avoid going too fast.

In contrast, the uphill climbs in Newton come at a point where a runner's glycogen stores are just about gone. They don't call them Heartbreak Hill for nothing. Hell, I recall doing workouts through the Newton hills and attacked the famed (infamous?) Heartbreak Hill fresh and it gave me a little kick in the ass. Imagine spending miles 16 to 21 of a marathon trying to get over those hills.

Lance Armstrong, who mastered Alpe d'Huez (among others) during his seven Tour de France victories, ran his first Boston yesterday. From the sound of it, Armstrong got a little boot to the rear in Newton though it should be noted that he ran negative splits for a respectable 2:50:58.

According to the Associated Press:

Armstrong said there's no comparison between running a marathon and cycling, either physically or mentally.

"You can't compare the pounding or running with the efficiency of a bicycle," he said. "Nothing even comes close to comparing the pain, especially it seems like this course, with a significant amount of downhills ... that really take their toll on the muscles."

But Boston is not exactly a world-record course, either. Cheruiyot was on course-record pace yesterday, casually ripping through miles 3 to 19 in 4:53 or faster. That includes a 4:37 at mile 19 that obliterated the rest of the field. However, Cheruiyot "slowed" over the final 10k to finish in 2:07:43, well off his record 2:07:14 he set in 2006. Interestingly, Cheruiyot's fourth victory in Boston was only the fifth winning time under 2:08 in the 112 years of the race.

Compare that to the London Marathon this year where the top six in the 2008 race ran under 2:07 and it's easy to see why the best runners don't show up to Boston (or New York) any more. Why go get beat up when Chicago, London and Berlin have (relative) cakewalk courses?

Nevertheless, Boston and its sponsors might have to dig into the coffers to lure the big guns away from London in the spring. The fact that Haile Gebrselasie, Paul Tergat, Martin Lel, Khalid Khannouchi - and worse - Ryan Hall, have not lined up on Patriot's Day in Hopkinton proves that Boston is missing something.

Sure, runners like London because of the speedy course and the chance for fast times. But more than anything else runners go where the best competition is. That hasn't been Boston for a long time.

*** Elsewhere, it's Game 7 night in Washington where most folks seem to have a bad feeling about the fate of the Flyers.

There. That's the depth of my hockey analysis.

*** Had Chase Utley not broken his hand last season, Jimmy Rollins probably wouldn't have won the MVP Award. Chances are Utley would have been in the top three with Prince Fielder and Matt Holliday. So noting that it was Utley's injury that pushed Rollins into the MVP discussion in 2007, it's kind of ironic that Rollins' injury has the spotlight on Utley.

Then again, six homers in five straight games kind of gets a ballplayer noticed...

Plus, it's only April 22, too. There is a lot of baseball to go.

Nevertheless, Utley is off to one of those stop-what-your-doing-when-he-comes-up starts. So far he has reached base in all but one of the Phillies' 20 games, has posted gaudy numbers in categories that all the stat geeks love, and seems to have his hand in the outcome of every game.

Things happen whenever Utley is on the field. But then again that's not new.

Remember when Ryan Howard used to be that way?

Anyway, during his pre-game powwow with the writers prior to last night's game at Coors Field, the Wilmington News Journal's Scott Lauber reports this quote from manager Charlie Manuel:

"Chase Utley is a very, very, very tough player. I've been in the game a long time, and he's as tough as any player I've seen. I'm talking about old throwback players, guys like Pete Rose and Kirby Puckett. You could put Utley in that category. He could play with any of them."

So there's that... which is nice.

2:06:15!

OK, I was correct in predicting that Ryan Hall would be the first person born in the United States to break 2:08 in the marathon this morning in London. That much was a given based on how well Hall was training and his times in the first two marathons he ran. The fact is Hall's 2:09:02 over a difficult course in New York City for the Olympic Trials last November was worth at least two minutes on any other course.

But today in London Hall let it all out. Not only was he the first American-born runner to break 2:08 in the marathon, but he also is the first American-born runner to break 2:07 by checking in with a 2:06:15.

Yeah... 2:06.

Pennsylvanian Brian Sell is heading to the Olympics for the United States this August and he hasn't gone under 2:10. Sell is as tough and gritty a runner in the world, but, geez... 2:06!

Get this -- he finished fifth in the race. Fifth! He went out on world-record pace through the first half, set an American record for 25k during the race, faded to sixth place for a stretch before re-grouping to dive back into the lead pack with less than 5 miles to go in the race.

Martin Lel, the defending champ of the New York City Marathon, won the London race in a course-record 2:05:15.

Nevertheless, before the race defending Olympian champion Stefano Baldini said of Hall: "He is the future."

He's just 25, still hasn't reached his prime years for an endurance athlete and has the Olympics coming up in August in dirty Beijing...

What's next?

P.S. Hall's coach is local dude, Terrence Mahon, an all-American from Villanova.

The Lost London column

Note: This was originally supposed to appear on CSN's weekly "Email Blast," but it was decided something about hockey would be better for the subscribers of the mailing. Since I don't really follow hockey other than to listen to Keith Jones tell me about it, hockey guy Al Morganti was chosen to pen this week's offering. I say it's a good choice. I do nuance, emotion, culture and baseball. Al has more hockey knowledge in the nail of his pinky than I will ever hope to obtain in my entire life. I can tell some stories, though. Just ask Keith. Anyway, here it is:

Knowledge, as they say, is power. It starts revolutions, movements and empowers lives. Here at Comcast SportsNet, a little bit of knowledge is an amusing thing, because it starts good-natured arguments – some which even find the way to television.

And that’s one of the best things about working for Comcast SportsNet. Within our office on the south side of the Wachovia Center, there is someone who is an expert on something. Need to know if Fred McGriff is a Hall of Famer? Someone can break it down for you. How about the latest on the ATP tour or the European soccer leagues? Find Matt Howley and he’ll get scientific.

The intricacies of the salary cap or anything related to the NFL? Ron Burke, Lance Crawford, Derrick Gunn and Rob Kuestner are the go-to guys.

International marathon racing? Well... I guess that’s me.

See, we have it all covered.

Anyway, with the NHL playoffs and NFL draft looming, as well as the baseball season in full swing, it’s not to difficult to be unaware of what’s shaping up to be a historic (in a sports sense) day at next Sunday’s London Marathon. That’s too bad, because for as “boring” as running can seem watching on television or the Internet, this race could be full of drama from the very first stride.

Why? The runners in this year’s race are the greatest collection of athletes in one event. Of the seven men who own the top 10 fastest marathon times in history, four of them are set to go in London. Two of the runners – Kenyan Paul Tergat and American Khalid Khannouchi – have run four of the top five fastest races ever.

In addition to Tergat, the greatest cross-country runner ever and the world record holder (a mind-numbing 2:05:55 at the Berlin Marathon in 2003), and Khannouchi, the naturalized New Yorker with all of the top American records, including a claim to the title of the greatest marathoner ever based on his times (three races in the top seven), the race features Stefano Baldini, the 2004 Olympic champion, as well as Moroccan Jaouad Gharib, the World Champion in 2003 and 2005.

Kenyan Evans Rutto, who ran a 2:05:50 in Chicago in 2003, and Felix Limo, a 2:06 runner, join the field with defending London champ Martin Lel.

If this race were a boxing match, it would be like putting Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Joe Frazier, Rocky Marciano, Mike Tyson, Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson and Gene Tunney in the ring at the same time.

That’s a pretty impressive field right there, but it wasn’t enough for the directors of the London race. Oh no. They pulled out all the stops and passed out appearance money like those guys in Vegas who hand out those leaflets on the sidewalk. The real coup de gras is Haile Gebrselassie, the two-time Olympic champion and four-time World Champion, who Disney has made movie about, and is Africa’s Michael Jordan. He's going to show up in London next Sunday.

Regarded by some as the greatest distance runner ever, Gebrselassie has run two marathons, but started 2006 by demolishing – not shattering – three world records in distances and times that predict that it will likely take another record time to beat him on the pancake-flat London course.

Home for the summer In past years, it always seemed as if all the local teams found a way to get into the playoffs. Winning the playoffs? Well, that’s another story, but from the Flyers to the Sixers, to the Kixx, Phantoms, and Wings, the post-season was a given.

But this season, it appears as if the Phillies won’t be the only local club left out of the mix. Now that the 76ers have officially been eliminated from post-season action for the second time in the past three seasons, they join the Phantoms, Kixx, and Wings at home.

Piquing the interest away from pre-season football and the baseball season are the Flyers, who head to a probable first-round matchup against the Rangers next week.

Meanwhile, the next few weeks should be interesting for the 76ers as they decide on a plan of attack to get back the glory days. The biggest question, of course, is whether or not Allen Iverson’s future in the NBA will be in Philadelphia or somewhere else. That’s the story to keep everyone talking.