About SiteKingofthemile.com is dedicated to Hicham El Guerrouj, the Olympic Champ in the 1500m and 5000m races. He's the Moroccan world record holder in the mile and is possibly the greatest middle distance runner in history. He is one of the best long distance runners ever and has achieved much in the way of athletics. He is an inspiration to many athletes in showing that if you work hard and never give up you can achieve monumental feats. I want to interest people in him and document his life story. I will also give you current news on him and his goals for the future. This site will show you why he is the true King Of The Mile. |
| Hicham El Guerrouj's Personal Bests | ||||
| Distance | Time | |||
| 800 Meters | 1:47.18 | |||
| 1000 Meters | 2:16.85 | |||
| 1500 Meters | 3:26.00 | |||
| One Mile | 3:43.13 | |||
| 2000 Meters | 4:44.79 | |||
| 3000 Meters | 7:23.09 | |||
| Two Miles | 8:06.61 | |||
| 5000 Meters | 12:50.24 | |||
About MeMy name is Michael Bautista and I am college student who runs the same events as Hicham. I first heard about Hicham El Guerrouj when I read that about his fall in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Mens 1500m final. In 2002 I learned even more about Hicham as I followed his race results in the world greatest meets. I made the Hicham El Guerrouj Race History section which I originally put on an old site of mine. Later my isp went out of business so I gave the file to a friend so he could put it on his site (link). In 2003 since I was very interested in El G(Hicham El Guerrouj), and the other big El G site(web archive link) has been down I thought I'd make a website on him. So I created this website on July 25th, 2003. I will continue on my quest to document his journey: past, present, and future. He will continue on his quest for perfection in athletics as The King Of The Mile. |
| My Personal Bests | ||||
| Distance | Time | |||
| 400 Meters | 59.16(?) | |||
| 800 Meters | 2:10.5 | |||
| 1500 Meters | 4:29.84 | |||
| 3200 Meters | 10:20 | |||
| 5000 Meters Road | 17:08.6 | |||
| 6400 Meters XC | 22:17 | |||
InterviewInterview with Michael Bautistaby Anguel Tolev Anguel Tolev: What made you construct a website about running? Michael Bautista: First of all thank you for interviewing me! I am a distance runner myself and have been interested in the sport since I started running in 1998. In 2002 my favorite runner was Hicham El Guerrouj. I was interested in his story so I created a race history for him and put it on a website of mine, although later I put it on my friends Ramiro "Curly" Guillen's website at the geocities.com/guillen05 url. In the summer of 2003 Hicham didn't have any current websites on him, although Amin Khan had earlier created a website at the cyberenet.net/~amink url. Hicham was also the #1 ranked runner in the world and my favorite athlete. I liked making websites so I decided to start this project since it was very interesting and fun! AT: What is the goal of your website? MB: I want everybody to know about The King Of The Mile :: Hicham El Guerrouj. I want them to know about his past, present, and future. I want them to know about his victories, his defeats, his philosophy, his plans, etc. I want them to know what is possible in distance running when you work hard and never give up. I like creating websites for myself and I am very interested in this topic. I also want Hicham El Guerrouj himself to see the website and be happy about his career. AT: What were your original intentions for making a website? MB: Hicham was my favorite athlete and I enjoyed making websites. He didn't have have a current website on him and was very popular and fast so I decided to create the website. It would benefit me, Hicham, and the fans so I decided to start the project. AT: What is the hardest/easiest thing about managing your website? MB: I'm not exactly sure about the hardest and easiest things but I do have some ideas. Sometimes when he races there is so much information and news articles that come out on him. I have to sift through all of them to find all the relevant information for my website, and that takes time. I also have to pay the bills for the website which sometimes can get out of hand. Also I have to deal with negative people that think that because I created a fantastic website on Hicham El Guerrouj that there is something wrong with me putting so much effort into it. One easy thing is that when he's not racing it's really easy to get the news and post it, since there is not too much news. I also enjoy it when people realize that I have put a lot of positive energy into the website and congratulate me. Also making a race music video isn't exactly easy, but it's definetely fun! AT: What has been the motivation behind running you website? MB: I love to make websites and Hicham's my favorite runner so the combination works. Everybody benefits since I like websites and it's an interesting topic for me. Hicham and all fans in the world can see all the information on Hicham El Guerrouj for free. AT: Do you receive any endorsements from advertising space on your website? From who? How much? MB: I don't use advertisements on my website. I feel they slow the website down, clutter it, and make it look less attractive. Any money that can be rewarded to me is too little and not worth it. AT: How many hours a day do you spend managing your website? MB: It depends on how much activity Hicham is doing and what news there is on him. If there is not much news on him at the time then I'll be working on the site maybe for five minutes. Although if I am adding a new section to the website or redesigning it then it will take longer. If there is a lot of news on Hicham, like during the Olympics, then there are dozens of articles I have to read and extract info from, so I will be on for hours. AT: Is it worth it? MB: Yes it's worth it, I am very proud of the Kingofthemile.com website! AT: What is your experience with HTML and related computer languages? MB: I taught myself html for fun in the year 2000 so that I could make a basic website. Then later I wanted to learn more advanced information so I went to the w3schools.com website and learned more information like css and xhtml. I also learned information from my friend Ramiro "Curly" Guillen of the geocities.com/guillen05 website. AT: How did you choose your website’s name? MB: Hicham's most popular nickname was "The King Of The Mile". I believe it might have come from an article of the same name by Jere Longman although I've also seen it on internet articles and on tv. I was also interested in registering names such as hicham.com, elguerrouj.com, and hichamelguerrouj.com but they were already taken. I liked the Kingofthemile.com domain name and it was available so I decided to take it. My website's name is "The King Of The Mile" and I think that it's an ultimate styles name! AT: How many “hits” do you receive per day on average? MB: I created the Kingofthemile.com website on July 25th 2003 and it started out with roughly a thousand hits per day. The # of hits gradually grew larger and on March 2004 I finally averaged 3000 hits a day for that month. Ever since then I usually average between 3000 and 4000 hits a day. Although during the Olympic month of August I got 7343 hits a day that month and 26849 hits on August 25th 2004. AT: What advise would you give to a person starting a new website? MB: Find something that you are passionate about and go after it. Never stop learning new ideas for your website and find positive people that can help you learn. Find more people who already have established websites and ask them for assistance and tips. Always try to make a website that will grab people's interest and make them want to come back each day, like daily news or forum. Have something special and unique also on your website that people will like, for example I have Hicham El Guerrouj race videos with music. Also remember the four points of a website. In order of importance they are: Content, Speed, Graphics, and Navigation. Having a website with lots of content and information is the most important thing. But remember that the site should have speed and load fast so people can easily get to the content, which means there should not be too many pictures or unnecessary items. The site should have good appealing basic graphics but it shouldn't have so many pictures that the website will load slowly and people will be distracted from the main content. Also the site should be very easy to navigate, I recommend using a navigation menu and a sitemap. If you want to learn more information on website languages you can visit W3schools.com website. AT: What is your history as a runner? MB: I started running distance in the fall of my junior year of high school and during high school running(1998-2000) I had times when I was lazy and unmotivated but I also had times where I was focused and worked hard. I ended up with high school times of: 59.16 400m, 2:21 800m, 4:59.76 1600m, 10:46 3200m, and 18:27 5000m xc. In college I also had times of laziness and unmotivation but there also were times where I focused and worked hard. When I was racing for my college team(2000-2001) I ran times of: 1:35 600m, 2:10.5 800m, 4:33 1500m, 10:20 3200m, 17:48 5000m, and 22:17 4 miles xc. In 2002 I didn't train or race much but in track 2003 I returned to serious training/racing. In the spring of 2003 I ran times of: 4:29.84 1500m, 4:52.26 1600m, 10:34.4 3200m, and 17:08 5000m. I've had some setbacks since then like injuries, sickness, and business that have prevented me from training and racing properly all the time but I did run 17:18 for 5000m in 2004. I have had a busy life recently so I haven't chosen to focus on training/racing as much. But I hope to have full track season in 2005 with fast times in distance events from 800m to 5000m. AT: May I link to your website, even though I will likely not publish my website on the internet? MB: Yes, please link to my Kingofthemile.com website and share the website with anybody you know! Thank you for interviewing me! I'd also like to add that I'm very proud of Hicham El Guerrouj for not giving up! :) Interview conducted on January 9th, 2005. Interview posted on January 9th, 2005. |
Plans for Kingofthemile.comThese plans for the website will take weeks, months, and years to complete. I also may add and delete sections from this list of plans at any time. I'm working on this website in my spare time right now. Although I am extremely interested in finishing this website, I don't currently have as much time to work on it as I did before. I will try to work on The King Of The Mile frequently though. Thanks for visiting this website and keep checking back to see what updates I have done on The King Of The Mile! :-)!!!Initial stuff: (Done for the re-activation of the website on April 30th, 2008) DONE-1. Update news DONE-2. Upload the race videos, their mp3's, and edit their webpages DONE-3. Put up a new guestbook DONE-4. Put up a new forum DONE-5. Add a plans section to the bottom of the about.html page Edit these sections: 1. Index(put 2006 news into it's own page) 2. Statistics: -Add top 20-25 1500m times for Hicham -Add top 20-25 Mile times for Hicham -Add top 20-25 1500m performances in history -Add top 20-25 Mile performances in history -Possibly add more rivals for duals against top rivals -Top 1500 times year by year(Add older years) -Top Mile times year by year(Add older years) -World Ranks in 1500m year by year(Add 2005-2007 and older years, add T&F News rankings) 3. Rivals(Possibly add more rivals) 4. Photos(Add more photos, put up captions by fans, update links) 5. Videos(Create/Publish BitTorrent torrent?, Add new videos and special versions of Olympics 1500m 2004, update links) 6. Music(Create/Publish BitTorrent torrent?, Add new songs for future new videos) 7. Links(Re-organize and add new links) 8. Forum(Add Winter Ice PhpBB3 style when it's available) 9. Bio(Get more information in general) 10. Race History(Get more older races) 11. Training(Get new 3000m/5000m training) Add these sections: 1. 2006 News - Contains a list of all Hicham's 2006 news articles 2. Robots.txt - This file will help Web crawlers index the site 3. The Mile - History of mens mile racing, also 1500m 4. Morocco - Information on Hicham's country Morocco 5. Poll - Various polls about Hicham 6. Fan Art - Fans will upload their own Hicham pictures 7. Fan Videos - Fans will upload their own Hicham videos 8. Interview - Get interview with Hicham 9. Olympics - Detailed information on Hicham's Olympic races 10. Quotes - Quotes by Hicham and others involving Hicham 11. Quiz - Quiz(zes) about Hicham 12. Mailing List - Suscribers will get various emails *Last Update 5-8-2008 |