LetsRun.com: The Home of Distance Running and Track and Field

Dubai Is Thusday Night (9 PM ET)

LRC 2019 Dubai Marathon Preview: The Return Of Guye Adola, Ibrahim Jeilan Debuts, & What Will Emmanuel Saina & Ruth Chepngetich Do For An Encore? Out of protest of the IAAF refusing to give Dubai platinum status, the prize money in Dubai is down this year but the quality of the fields certainly isn’t. The men’s field is LOADED with 8 sub-2:07 guys and it will also serve as the debut for 2011 world 10,000 champ Ibrahim Jeilan as well as 12:59 man Getaneh Molla.

LRC Dubai Marathon Slashes Prize Money And No Longer Is World’s Richest – Boston Now Claims Prize Money Crown In protest of the IAAF refusing to give Dubai “Platinum status” simply because it doesn’t have 15,000 finishers even though it’s paid out more than $11 million in prize money since 2008, Dubai has cut its elite prize money by more than half, from $816,000 in 2018 to $385,000 in 2019. Boston ($746,000) is now the richest prize money race in the world.

Podcast #2 Of 2019

Podcast Houston Recap, A New Richest Marathon, Stacked NBIGP, What Does Jim Walmsley’s 64:00 Tell Us About Ultrarunners? Bekele In Tokyo The pro track and field season is finally here with Donavan Brazier vs. Clayton Murphy to kick it off, Jenny Simpson @5k and more. The world’s richest marathon has changed and a look back at the action in Houston. Plus, a guest appearance from the Vaporfly 4% shoe, a look at Walmsley’s 64:00, and much more.

Distance Group News

Brooks Gets Two New Signees – 2016 NCAA 1,500m Champ And Portuguese Olympian Marta Pen Freitas And 2:30 Marathoner Michele Lee Freitas joins the Brooks Beasts while Lee joins Hansons-Brooks.
Swiss Running Brand On To Sponsor Newly Re-Branded Zap Endurance Earlier this month it was announced that Zap Fitness lost their Reebok sponsorship, but now have a new name and a new sponsor.

Sunday Road / XC Action

Steeplechase WR Holder Beatrice Chepkoech And Uganda Teen Star Jacob Kiplimo Win At Seville, Spain XC Race Kiplimo beat out world 10,000m silver medalist Joshua Cheptegei by 16 seconds while Chepkoech dominated over Commonwealth 10,000 champ Stella Chesang and Euro XC champ Yasemin Can.
Asian 5,000m Champ Birhanu Balew And Meskerem Mamo Win Northern Ireland XC Race Balew beat a field that included Olympic 10,000 silver medalist Paul Tanui (who ended up 4th).
Kenya’s Cosmas Lagat (2:09:15) And Ethiopia’s Worknesh Alemu (2:25:45) Win Mumbai Marathon Despite warm conditions, both marks were the second-fastest winning times in the history of the race.

98 Days Away – The 2019 London Marathon Will Be Spectacular

MB: 2019 London Marathon Fields Are Released And Are Unreal – Greatest Women’s Field In History The women’s field has to be the greatest in history as it includes 7 sub-2:20 women, including the reigning champs of Dubai, Tokyo, London, Berlin, Chicago and New York. It also includes Americans Molly Huddle, Emily Sisson and Allie Kieffer. The men’s field isn’t too shabby either as it includes the top 5 of our 2018 world rankings and is of course led by the GOAT – Eliud Kipchoge.

LRC Analysis The Greatest Women’s Marathon Field Ever, Is This Molly Huddle’s Last Chance To Run A Fast Time, & More Thoughts On The 2019 London Marathon Jonathan Gault also breaks down Chris Derrick‘s sub-2:10 and says that Eliud Kipchoge will slow down, eventually.

Doping Updates

WADA Says They “Successfully Retrieved” Doping Data From The Moscow Lab Craig Reedie defended his decision to reinstate Russia, saying this wouldn’t have happened otherwise. We just don’t get the logic there.
MB: Lucy Kabuu Had A Bunch Of Ridiculous Excuses For Why She Tested Positive For Morphine She used the normal “tainted meat” excuse, but also tried to blame some of her fellow athletes, saying they spiked her drink or that she had a sip from their drink.
WADA Executive Board To Issue RUSADA Compliance Verdict On January 22nd This would follow a two-day meeting on January 14 and 15 in Montreal.

The New Balance Indoor Grand Prix (5-7 pm ET) and Dr. Sander Invite (12 – 3 Pm ET) Are Saturday

LRC Brazier vs. Murphy! Simpson vs. Klosterhalfen! Cheserek vs. Gebrhiwet! We Run Through the Best Matchups at the 2019 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Distance fans are in for a treat as some of the most exciting runners in the sport will race at the the lone US stop on the IAAF World Indoor Tour — Clayton Murphy, Donavan Brazier, Jenny Simpson, Emma Coburn, Konstanze Klosterhalfen, Edward Cheserek, and Yomif Kejelcha, just to name a few. Sprint fans are going to be thrilled as well as the meet will serve as the New Balance pro debuts for Kendall Ellis, Gabrielle Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin but McLaughlin is sadly avoiding all serious competition in her pro debut.

Week That Was

LRC Week That Was: Is The 2019 London Marathon The Greatest Ever? And If You Don’t PR, Keep Trying 24 More Times We start off with praise for the queen of the minor leagues of marathoning, then debate which London Marathon is the best ever before getting excited because Donavan Brazier has returned to action. Updated 1/23/19 with our Ridiculous Tweet of The Week.

Non-Distance News: Bolt Retires Again

Usain Bolt Says His Pro Soccer Dream Is Over “It was a good experience. I really enjoyed just being in a team and it was different from track and field and it was fun while it lasted.”
Belgium’s Olympic Heptathlon Champ Nafissatou Thiam To Miss Indoor Season With Injury She tore a muscle in her left leg.

Weekend Indoor Results *All NCAA Results

World And Olympic Champ Katerina Stefanidi Opens Her Season With 4.74m Win At The Pole Vault Summit In Reno, Nevada She beat out US indoor champ Katie Nageotte on countback. 2017 NCAA champ Matt Ludwig won the men’s in 5.71m. Mondo Duplantis finished a ways back with 5.51m.
Grant Holloway Runs World-Leading 7.49 60H At The Clemson Invy In Florida In the 60m, Japan’s Abdul Hakim Sani Brown beat out teammate his Florida teammate Ryan Clark as both timed 6.62.
MB: Claudia Lane DNF and DNS in her comeback double after a fall

A Big Loss For The Running World

RunBlogRun: Run In Peace, Tommy Leonard – Thoughts On Tommy From Some Of The Sport’s Legends Quotes from Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Rod Dixon, Craig Virgin, Kathrine Switzer and Bobby Hodge.
RIP: Falmouth Road Race Founder Tommy Leonard Dies At 85 Bill Rodgers remembers Leonard, saying, “Tommy had the biggest heart of all runners. … Tommy was a rarity – a big giver, a big laugher. I think he was a Leprechaun. I’m so glad to have known him, and felt he was a friend.”
*MB: Tommy Leonard RIP- appreciation thread
Toni Reavis’ Tribute To Tommy Leonard “Tommy was the patron saint of running to thousands of people around the globe.”

Russian Doping Updates

Anyone Surprised? Russia Avoids Further WADA Sanctions Despite Missing Data Deadline WADA president Craig Reedie was quite pleased with himself and said, “We are now … authenticating the data retrieved from the Moscow laboratory so that ultimately we can use it to catch more athletes who cheated and to exonerate others.”
WADA Says Russia Could Be Banned From Tokyo 2020 And Prohibited From Hosting Events If Lab Data Is Found To Been Tampered With
IAAF Clears 42 Russian Athletes To Compete As Neutrals In 2019
UK Anti-Doping Calls For Independent Review Into WADA’s Handling Of Russian Doping Scandal UKAD called for “robust changes” to WADA.

2019 Houston Half And Full Free Stream Tracking & Results

LRC Shura Kitata (60:11) And Brigid Kosgei (65:50) Win At 2019 Houston Half As Emily Sisson (67:30) Just Misses AR! The winners of the marathon were Kenya’s Albert Korir (2:10:02) and Ethiopia’s Biruktayit Degefa (2:23:38) as Tyler Jermann (9th in 2:13:29) and Kelsey Bruce (6th, 2:31:53) took top American honors. *Results *IAAF Recap

RRW Women Lead The Way In Houston With Fast Times In Half Marathon And Marathon Emily Sisson had mixed feelings about just missing the AR. “I think I was a little disappointed at first because I was so close to Molly’s record. I think I made some mistakes that cost me a bit, but tomorrow I’ll be pretty happy with it.”

Houston On The Fan Forum / Message Board

Looking Ahead To The 2019 Indoor Season

January 26: Sydney McLaughlin Making Her Professional Debut At The New Balance Indoor Grand Prix In Boston It’ll be her first race since 2018 NCAAs.
2019 IAAF World Indoor Tour Kicks Of Next Weekend In Boston A rundown of the six-meet series and how the points system works.
February 2: Dafne Schippers Will Lead The 60m At The Karlsruhe Indoor Meet
*World Indoor LJ Champ Juan Miguel Echevarria Will Be One Of The Headliners At The Karslruhe Indoor Meet
February 6: Trio Of World Pole Vault Champions Highlight At The Orlen Copernicus Cup In Torun Sam Kendricks, Shawn Barber and Pawel Wojciechowski will go head-to-head.
February 8: Two-Time World 200m Champ Dafne Schippers Will Make Her Spanish Racing Debut At The Madrid Indoor Meet
*Spain’s Oscar Husillos Will Renew His Rivalry With Luguelin Santos In Madrid These two clashed several times last year including World Indoors where Husillos beat out Santos, but both were DQed for lane infringements.
February 16: China’s World Indoor Silver Medalist Su Bingtian Will Take On GB’s Top 60m Sprinters At The Muller Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix He’ll face GB’s Euro 100m silver medalist Reece Prescod, world 4 x 100 champ CJ Ujah and Euro indoor champ Richard Kilty.
February 20: Jakob, Filip And Henrik Ingebrigsten All Racing The 1,500m At The Dusseldorf Indoor Meet It’ll be a stacked race with former World Indoor medalists Ayanleh Souleiman, Marcin Lewandowski and Jakub Holusa also in the field.

US Distance News

Molly Huddle Says She’d “Love To Run In The 2:22 To 2:23 Range” In London Talking about getting more marathon experience, Huddle said, “There definitely is a comfort level the more of these you do. You question yourself less. I’m getting a little braver and doing less calculating about how much farther I have to run.”
Asics Sponsors Allie Kieffer And Emma Bates At the same time, they’ve ended their 25-year run as a sponsor of the NYC Marathon, saying, “We’d rather focus on being associated with some of the best athletes in the world.”
*MB: Asics Signs Bates and Kieffer
Meb Keflezighi Does 30+ Minute Podcast Interview With Carrie Tollefson Meb talks about his upcoming book, life after retiring and his thoughts on Eliud Kipchoge trying to run a sub-2 hour marathon.