Teaching runner a lesson, plush sports writing gig and card collecting

Written by Don Norcross

 10:02 p.m., March 30, 2012

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The Ethiopian runner pulled into town the night before the Rock ’n’ Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon in 2009, tracked down Matt Turnbull and asked the man who recruits elite runners, “Where do I sleep?”

To which Turnbull, in town this week for Sunday’s Carlsbad 5000, said, “Who are you and what do you want?”

The woman, Teyba Naser, pitched her running résumé. Turnbull, familiar with her background, said yes, took her to dinner and put her up in a hotel.

“Next time you want to race, please get in touch with me earlier, and I’ll do whatever I can do,” said Turnbull.

Barely four months later, Naser showed up at Rock ’n’ Roll Arizona, again at the last minute, wanting to be comped for the marathon.

“This is very unprofessional,” Turnbull said. “If you want to enter, you can pay your $150 like everybody else. There’s the expo and here’s a taxi phone number.”

The next day, Naser earned plenty to cover the hotel and taxi, winning the race.

“Made me look like a (fool),” Turnbull said. “I knew she was good, but you have to lay down the law a little bit or they’ll walk all over you.”

Naser, who had changed her name when she represented Bahrain, later went back to her Ethiopian name, Misiker Mekonnen. She has raced in other Rock ’n’ Roll series events, finishing second last June in San Diego.

Now, she gives Turnbull plenty of advance notice.

“And we pay her just to show up,” he said.

Overworked, underfed

Best tweet from the Final Four, from @StevePoliti of the (Newark, N.J.) Star-Ledger: “Rick Pitino just said sportswriters are ‘overworked.’ He elaborated, but I was eating nachos in the other room and didn’t have a pen.”

Hair today

Happiest person Antonio Garay re-signed with the Chargers? His hair stylist. Given Garay’s weekly colorful, intricate ’do, the stylist would’ve absorbed one heck of a pay cut had the nose tackle skipped town.

Burning midnight oil

Before the news conference commenced to announce the Olympic Trials triathlon coming to San Diego in May, two-time Ironman Hawaii champ Scott Tinley recalled his first stab as a race director. He was teaching sailing on Mission Bay and his instructor told him to put on a race as a fundraiser.

“So the night before, without a race permit, realizing there were going to be 60 people here in the morning, I got on the back of my Honda 60 scooter after a few beers at Saska’s,” said Tinley, now a professor at San Diego State.

Using the scooter’s odometer, Tinley marked every mile in chalk. Be it the beer or the scooter’s odometer, the mile markers weren’t precise.

“Several people, including my brother, broke the 10K record that day,” Tinley said. “It was a 9.2K instead of 10K.”

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/mar/30/teaching-runner-lesson-plush-sports-writing-gig-an/