More Berlin

LRC Kenenisa Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge and Wilson Kipsang Talk Big Before 2017 BMW Berlin Marathon (videos + transcript) Bekele has “complete confidence” he can compete with any athlete, Kipsang says his fitness is “far much better” than last year and wonders if Kipchoge has recovered from Breaking2, and Eliud Kipchoge says he’s “really, really looking forward” to Sunday but refused to talk about Bekele or Kipsang.

LRC History Lesson A Look Back At The Men’s Marathon World Records Set In Berlin The last six world records in the men’s marathon (and 7 of the last 9) have all been set in Berlin. We take a look back at those historic races.

LRC Women’s Preview: Which New Star Will Emerge On The Big Stage? 2015 champ Gladys Cherono (2:19 PR) is the strong favorite on paper and will be going for the course record. Her main competition is Ethiopia’s Amane Beriso (2:20 PR) and fellow Kenyan Valary Aiyabei (2:21 PR), who has won 4 straight marathons and is making her WMM debut.

RRW Ryan Vail – America’s Lone Elite Men’s Entry – Is Hoping For A PR At 2017 BMW Berlin Marathon Vail, who has been running as much as 130 miles per week on just six days of running, has been battling the injury bug of late as he hasn’t finished a marathon since November of 2014.

LRC The Craziest Guy In Berlin? Japan’s Yuta Shitara Ran 60:17 For A Half LAST Weekend And Likely Will Go Out With Leaders He’s got a 2:09 PR. We’re not sure how to say cojones in Japanese.

Full Berlin Coverage on 2017 Berlin Marathon Page

Bureaucracies at Their Worst and Best

• Unreal City of Walnut sues block construction of new stadium that would host 2020 Olympic Trial Most cities beg for events like this but the wackos in California are upset a more thorough environmental report hasn’t been done. The University President says this setback won’t impact the 2020 Trials.
• France, being France France may skip 2018 Winter Games due to security concerns
• NCAA compromises with Texas A&M xc runner with his own water bottle company He can keep his youtube channel but can’t talk about A&M.
  *MB: Best Running Youtuber getting SHUT DOWN by NCAA

Non-Berlin Distance News

• Apparently Jake Robertson’s Finish Line Proposal At The Great North Run Wasn’t Planned “It just clicked with one mile to go that she’d (Magdalyne Masai) be there waiting for me. I was thinking about how our six years together had allowed us to become who we are today. If she has any flaws, I can’t see them.”
• Pierre-Ambroise Bosse’s Attacker Claims That Bosse Threw A Beer Can At His Head First
  *MB: Bosse assaulted!!
• MB: Terrence Mahon out at BAA – to return to California at end of 2017
• Shannon Rowbury And Maggie Vessey Traveling To Morocco To To Train Young Women
• After Breaking German U23 Half Marathon Record With A 71:21, Alina Reh Looks Ahead To Going Sub-15 For 5,000 In 2018

Jamaican Sprint Stuff

• Gatorade Settles $300 Thousand Lawsuit Over “Bolt!” Mobile Game The state Attorney General filed a complaint when Gatorade’s free Bolt mobile game gave the impression that water hindered athletic performance.
• Asafa Powell Launches His Own Fitness Band Activity Tracker
• The Gleaner: Post-Bolt Jamaica Facing The Future

African News

• The Guardian: “Untold Stories: Why We Should Known More About East African Runners” The writer laments that we don’t know more about African distance stars like Worlds silver medalist Tim Cheruiyot and 10,000 5th placer Jemal Yimer. He argues why more journalists should do what we already do at LRC, and get to know the non-Asbel Kiprop/Kenenisa Bekeles of the East African distance world.
• Watch Replay Of National Geographic Documentary On Breaking2 Project
  *MB: Breaking2 – the film – aired last night on Nat. Geographic – Official Discussion Thread
• Recommended Watch: Documentary On The Hard Road Of Kenyan B-Level Runners This 42-minute program is definitely worth a watch.
• Kip Keino’s Bid To Remain Chairman Of The Kenyan National Olympic Committee (NOCK) Expected To Fail Former world marathon record holder Paul Tergat had already declared he planned to stand to replace Keino and is the favorite to take over the role.
• On United Nations International Day Of Peace, The IAAF Looks Back At The Achievements Of The Athlete Refugee Team Former marathon WR holder Tegla Loroupe lead the team to the Rio Olympics, the World Relay Champs and more.

Track Season Isn’t Over For Everyone

• Germany Takes team Title At Fly Europe Meet In Rome The unique street meet puts team from France, Germany, GB, Italy and Spain against each other over three events: the 30m sprint, PV and LJ.
• Majd Eddin Ghazal Sets Meet Record (2.26m) To Win Asian Indoor Games High Jump Gold Qatar’s Jamal Hairane won the 800 in 1:49.33 and India’s Ajay Kumar Saroj took the 1,500 in 3:48.67.
  *Worlds Bronze Medalist Olga Rypakova Wins Asian Games Triple Jump To Complete Horizontal Jumps Double India had more distance gold with Lakshmanan Govindan taking the men’s 3,000 (8:02) and Chitra Palakeezh the women’s 1,500 (4:27).
• Germany’s Rico Freimuth And Carolin Schafer Pick Up $30,000 For Winning 2017 Combined Events Challenge Series Winner is the athlete with the most total multi-event points (from their three best meets) throughout the series.

Previous Berlin Marathon News

• Mario Fraioli Looking Forward To Watching The Best In The World Actually Compete Rather Than The Solo Time Trial That Was Breaking2 “Will they get [the WR]? I don’t know, and I almost don’t care. I just want to see what happens …”
• How Good Do You Have To Be To Be A Pacer In Berlin? The team for Sunday includes Tokyo 3rd placer Gideon Kipketer (2:05:51), 2015 London 5th placer Sammy Kitwara (2:04:28), and Geoffrey Rono (sub-60 half).
• Toni Reavis: Berlin’s Dream Race Reavis compares 2017’s three-way clash to London 2002 when there was a showdown between Haile Gebrselassie, Khalid Khannouchi and Paul Tergat.
• AK Region Head Barnabas Korir: “I’m 100 Percent Convinced That The [World Record] Will Not Survive”

Chicago Adds Some Much Needed Depth

MB 2017 BOA Chicago Marathon Adds 4 Sub-2:07 Guys, Including Olympic Silver Medalist Feyisa Lelisa, To Challenge Galen Rupp Chicago will now feature a clash between the Olympic silver and bronze medallists as Feyisa Lelisa (2:04:52), Stanley Biwott (2:03:51), Ezekiel Chebii (2:06:07) and Bernard Kipyego (2:06:19) have been added to the field. *Organizer Press Release

US Distance News

• Recommended Read: Ryan Hall Is Now A High School Coach At His Daughter’s School In Redding, CA Imagine being a high schooler and getting a summer email from Ryan Hall introducing himself as your new coach. Read how Hall ended up as the last minute coach at University Prep and how the start of his coaching career has gone so far.
  *MB: Open letter to Ryan Hall on coaching
  *MB: Ryan Hall should not be a head high school coach.
• Donn Cabral (29:24) And Natosha Rogers (33:23) Get Big Paydays With Victories At The Cow Harbor 10K Cabral beat out Craig Lutz by 4 seconds for the $3,500 first place prize (2nd got $2,000) while Rogers dominated the women’s race by over a minute. *Results
• Saucony Announces Launch Of Freedom Track Club The Boston-based group is coached by 2004 US Olympian Tim Broe and includes multi-time NCAA champ Molly Seidel.
  *MB: Molly Seidel with Tim Broe/FTC and Saucony
• Extensive Q&A With Emma Coburn Coburn goes into detail about Worlds, elaborating on things like Beatrice Chepkoech‘s missed water jump, talks about her future goals and shares some other inside info.
• Long Q&A With Joe “Stringbean” McConaughy After Setting The Appalachian Trail Record Last Month

Sprints And Jumps

• Interesting Read: 1996 Olympic And Four-Time World Hurdling Champ Allen Johnson Talks About His Struggles With Jet Lag He says to combat it he would just stay on East Coast time even while in Europe and go to bed between 4PM and 6AM, wake up in the afternoon and run at 8-10PM.
• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce To Resume Training In October After Giving Birth To Her Daughter In August
  *From Last Month: SAFP Announces Birth Of Her Daughter, Zyon
• Video: Apparently Wayde Van Niekerk’s Off-Season Training Involves Boxing
• BBC: How Diamond League Victory And London Low Can Take CJ Ujah To The Top Ujah bounced back from not making the 100 final in London to winning the Diamond League in Zurich. Ujah talks about the 10-second barrier, state of GB sprinting and training with Andre De Grasse.
• Latvia’s 2015 World Heptathlon Bronze Medalist Laura Ikauniece-Admidina Shares How She Overcame An Injury Plagued 2016 To Finish 4th In Rio Ikauniece-Admidina was proud of the dreaded 4th place considering she had to deal with obstacles like switching her take-off leg in the HJ.
• With Three Gold Medals And Two Meet Records, Kazakhstan Off To A Good Start At The Asian Indoor And Martial Arts Games World triple jump bronze medalist Olga Rypakova began her quest for double gold by winning the long jump in 6.43m.