5 Things You Should Know About Me: Scott Bauhs

In mid-January, at the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon, Scott Bauhs ran 1:01:30 to finish third in a strong international field. It was a personal best by more than a minute, but the 25-year-old was hardly surprised. "I was hoping to run 61 flat," he said afterward. His confidence is based on a history of achieving his goals early and often: The youngest American (at age 21) ever to break the four-minute mile and run under 28:00 for 10,000 meters, Bauhs also holds the U.S. single-age record for the 5K (13:37, age 22, 2008) and until recently, he held the single-age record for the half-marathon (1:03:04, age 21, in his 2007 debut) as well. An eight-time All-American and three-time NCAA champion, Bauhs was a star at Division II powerhouse Chico State University, the only college he ever seriously considered, and he is now a member of the Mammoth Track Club, the only training group he ever wanted to join. He has represented the United States at the 2008 and 2010 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, the 2009 World Half-Marathon Championships, and the 2011 World Championships (at 10,000 meters), and he hopes to do so again at 5000 or 10,000 meters at the Olympic Games in London this summer. Bauhs, competing without a shoe-company sponsor, will make his NYC Half debut on March 18.

Actor Paul Sparks, facing his 40th birthday in 2011, was finally ready.

"I've lived in New York for 20 years," said the man who portrays gangster Mickey Doyle in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. "The marathon is such a mythic sort of race that I think anyone who runs even a little bit thinks about it. I kind of eyed it cautiously for a long, long time."

Sunday's NYC Half will feature a professional athlete field that includes 17 Olympians, plus 11 men with personal best times under 1:02:00, and 11 women with personal best times under 1:10:00. Among them are Americans Dathan Ritzenhein and Kara Goucher, who were featured on an NYC Half conference call yesterday with reporters from around the country. Both athletes will be competing in their first races since the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in mid-January. There, Goucher placed third in the women's race to secure her spot on the U.S team for London, while Ritzenhein, a 2008 Olympic marathoner, finished a disappointed fourth in the men's race to miss the team by one spot. He has since turned his attention to making the team on the track. Goucher called in from her home in Portland, OR, while Ritzenhein phoned in from the NIKE campus in Beaverton, OR. Both were contending with a late-season snowstorm.