I've Always Loved the Decathlon

Can't do it, but I do enjoy watching it.  It's also the greatest event for geeks and statistic junkies, which is exactly how Frank Zarnowski originally got interested in it.  I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Zarnowski while in high school and visiting his Cross Country Camp he ran with Navy's Al Cantello at Mount Saint Mary's College in Maryland.  It turns out he grew up just a stone's throw away from my homestead in Weiglestown, PA. He is from Shiloh, PA just across the raging Little Conawago Creek from the town of Weigle. He invited a very good runner from Massachusetts to the camp after watching him annihilate the Soviets in a Junior race in 1975, which is how I got to take a few runs with Alberto Salazar, well before anyone else had heard much about him.

Professor Zarnowski is a professor of economics at Mount Saint Marys and now Dartmouth, so his geek status was well entrenched before he ever contemplated the decathlon.  The rest is history, and is best learned from sources other than my own!  Here is his Decathlon Blog, which I'll also add the the right sidebar.