Running

JOHANNESBURG -- Former world record holder and barefoot running sensation Zola Budd will compete in South Africa's Comrades ultra marathon.

Budd still finds running "very challenging," and its the reason she entered the grueling 56-mile race in June.

"I started running seriously at the age of 14 and I've turned 45, but I still look forward to running. I still find it challenging," the farm girl turned Olympian told members of the Johannesburg Press Club on Friday.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Track great Michael Johnson wouldn't have allowed his friend Oscar Pistorius to run in able-bodied races.

But, now the decision has been made, the retired 400-meter Olympic champion wants to see the double-amputee athlete do his best.

For Pistorius, that simply means running at the best event -- the Olympics.

OGDEN -- Ashley Sepulveda, 27, was one of 952 Santas running a 5K around downtown Ogden on Saturday.

OGDEN -- Weber State University will host its second annual Nearly Naked Mile run at 11:11 p.m. on 11/11/11.

That's a little past 11 p.m. Friday.

Participants should bring two cans of food for donation to Weber Cares and gather in the Swenson Gym parking lot at the appointed time. Clothing donations will be collected for the veterans shelter.

Run participants will partially disrobe and run a mile, in temperatures predicted to be in the mid-30s. The run is free and open to all who bring the donations. For more information, visit www.weber.edu/vetaffairs.

SYRACUSE -- A fundraiser for a humanitarian effort in Guatemala is scheduled for 7 a.m. today at Jensen Park, at approximately 3176 South Bluff Road.

Labeled the "Halloween Hustle," a 5K event is being conducted in behalf of Charity Anywhere Foundation and their Project Guatemala.

OGDEN -- A mural celebrating Ogden's growing stature as a sports activities center is being painted on the side of a parking structure at 23rd Street and Washington Boulevard.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- There have been days when Kevin McDowell couldn't finish a swimming workout at the U.S. Olympic Training Center pool in the designated time. And other days, like this one in late September, when McDowell was last to finish of the athletes in USA Triathlon's new elite academy.

"Today actually was the first day I actually felt a little more like myself," McDowell said. "I wasn't going fast, but I had some rhythm in the water instead of going through the motions."

But there are moments of frustration for the two-time U.S. junior triathlon champion and 2010 world junior bronze medalist. His best friend and academy training partner, Kelly Whitley, knows McDowell tries not to show it yet she can see how badly he wants to be faster and stronger.

He wants to be the triathlete he was before the 12 sessions of chemotherapy that followed a diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic tissue, only two days after an eye-popping success in his debut on the professional circuit last March.