the oregon project Wired Mag has a curious piece on the Imbler Project to engineer better American marathoners. It's headed up by Alberto Salazar, the last US marathoner to hold the world record, and it's funded by Nike:

"If we could come in with another wave of champions," concedes [Nike vice president Tom] Clarke, "it'd be exciting for anything even related to running as a business."

Runners with an "already freakish genetic gift for running fast" stay in a low-oxygen house in Portland which simulates living at 12,000 feet, use a laptop computer to measure their "Omega Waves," vibration train on a neuro-mechanical stimulator, and soon will recuperate in a hyperbaric chamber. Coach Salazar and Nike have their sights set on the 2004 Olympics, where we'll find out if the Oregon Project is scientific or pseudo-scientific.