There hasn't been an American winner -- male or female -- of the Boston Marathon in almost 30 years. Kenyan and Ethiopian runners now dominate the sport. But this year an American woman named Shalane Flanagan has a very real chance of winning the 26-mile race.She's only 5-foot-4 and 102 pounds.But don't be fooled -- she's been called a pony-tailed assassin in knee socks. She also happens to have grown up in Boston which makes her next week's hometown favorite.ou could say, 'Here, Shalane, you have an Olympic medal, or you could win the Boston Marathon.' A no-brainer to me would be winning the Boston Marathon.. Tom Grilk: The people who line the road know -- certainly know any local runner who is there.
I'm surprised that more people who talk a lot about it haven't looked carefully at where we find ourselves, he says. The federal deficit is shrinking rather quickly â both in absolute dollars and as a share of the overall economy. The Congressional Budget Office projects the deficit will drop below 4 percent of GDP next year and below 2.5 percent in 2015.
When Mr. Obama talks about fiscal matters, he usually takes credit for cutting the deficit by two-thirds. He also is correct that annual budget deficits have fallen from $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009, in the depths of the recession, to $439 billion in fiscal 2015.