The 118th Boston Is Monday *Full Elite Fields

LRCBreaking Down The "Fastest Ever" Boston Marathon Men's Field #1 Through 11 - Which Of These Men Will Likely Crush The Dreams Of American Fans Once Again?

• Ryan Hall “Excited And Healthy” Heading Into Boston After A Full 12-Week Buildup Hall: “I will say I have never done so many long, quality tempo runs, so I feel prepared to run fast if the conditions and competitors are willing to push to make that happen.”
• After Two Years As The 4th Placer And Top American, Jason Hartmann Is Back Again Hartmann talks about his 4th place finishes and how he prefers Boston’s “championship-style race.”
• Desiree Linden (Davila) Talks About Her Pre-Boston Training In Kenya And Says She’s “Definitely Preparing To Be In The Hunt”
• Cancer Survivor And 2:28 Woman Serena Burla Back In Boston After Having To Drop Out Last Year With A Stomach Virus
• RW Video: Marblehead Proud Of Hometown Hero Shalane Flanagan
• Hoax Update: Boston Marathon Hoax Bomber Charged With Two Felonies And Has Bail Set At $100,000 His mother says he has battled with bipolar disorder for years and he’s been sent to a mental hospital for evaluation.
• Interesting: The History of the Boston Marathon Finish Line For the first two years (1897 and 1898) the race actually finished with a lap around a 220-yard outdoor track.
• AP: Boston organizers confident of safe race Undercover officers will be working the crowds looking for suspicious packages or people.
• Officials Cracking Down On Bandit Runners This Year For Increased Security Apparently in the past Boston officials have been relaxed on banditting as there are even official groups that do it every year.
• USA Today Video: Heartbreak Hill: What’s the big deal?
• Amputee Runner Looking Forward To Finishing After Getting Stopped Last Year He says a pothole may have saved his life since he fell and it slowed him down so he wasn’t at the finish when bombs went off.
• Father Getting Second Chance To Finish Boston With His 4-Daughters Last year they ran with him as a 70th birthday present, but were stopped less than a mile from the finish.

News From The Roads

• It Definitely Hurt: Wilson Kipsang Says Bad Pace Setting Cost Him The WR In London
• Ken Goe: “They haven’t forgotten marathon star Ryan Vail at Centennial High School.” Vail’s HS coach Greg Letts recalled how, “He’s always had a clock in his head, an innate sense of exactly what pace he is running.” Sounds like the makings for a good marathoner. Vail ran 2:10:57 in London.
• Interesting: Journalist Shares Her Experience Running The Pyongyang Marathon In North Korea, Which Was Allowing Foreigners For The First Time A “poker-faced official” at the start-line told the runners no cameras, but said, ‘Don’t worry about not having photos, we have men to shoot you.’”
• Yuki Kawauchi VS Arata Fujiwara And At May 11 Sendai Half Marathon Field includes 16-men who have gone sub 1:03.
• Marine Corps 17.75K Winner Disqualified For Racing Using Someone Else’s Bib Both men were banned from MCM events for the rest of the year.

Weekly Recap

LRCChanelle And Leo Get Paid, Kara Goucher Gets Injured, Sub-4 Alert For Blake Haney, Free Marathon Tips From Kipchoge And Kipsang, And Haile G Says 18 Is Too Young

Distance News

• Diego Estrada To Compete For The USA Estrada ran for Mexico at the Olympics and Worlds, but has dual citizenship and starting this year will be competing for the US.
• Video Interview With Wilson Kipsang Talking About His London Marathon Victory And Tactics Kipsang talks about choosing the right time to make his move and his surprise when Stanley Biwott was the one to go with him when he broke away from the pack.
• Kipsang Arrives Home; Talks About Race And Says Next Up For Him Is The Bupa Great Manchester Run 10K Next Month
• Tirunesh Dibaba Says She’s Going Back To The Track But Will Run Another Marathon Eventually “I don’t want to be second or third, I’ve been first all the time on the track. I want to win the marathon as well one time.” She also admitted she was very disappointed by the water bottle dropping incident, which she felt cost her.
• Cool: Mike Wardian Wins North Pole Marathon In 4:07:40 Includes video.
• DyeStat Q&A With High School Marathoner Alana Hadley, Who Won The Charlotte Racefest Half Marathon Last Weekend, Taking Home $300 She talks about her training for Grandma’s Marathon this June, which has included 100-mile weeks and will eventually get up to a 24-mile long run.
• IAAF Inside Athletics Video Interview With Genzebe Dibaba

• Former NCAA Throwing Star Dean Crouser Now Becoming “One Of The Nation’s Outstanding Wildlife Artists” Crouser still holds the Oregon school records in the discus and shot put and ranks #8 on the NCAA all-time discus list. He was a real estate agent, but now is a full-time artist whose watercolors are sold internationally.
• Updated DI Rankings: Top 4 Women’s Teams And Top 6 Men’s Stay The Same As Florida Men And Texas A&M Stay #1 On the women’s side, Georgia had a good week moving up from #8 to #5.
• Notes From IAAF Council Meeting: IAAF Approves “Innovative Timetable” For 2015 Beijing World Champs They say it should “concentrate the most dramatic action of finals into evening sessions of approximately 3 hours” to help improve TV/media coverage.

• UK’s Commonwealth Games 200m Champion Cydonie Mothersill Won’t Defend Her Title After Becoming A Mother Last Year “I think when you become a mum, it changes your outlook … It has changed how I look at life. I haven’t been at the place where I think I need to come back yet.” She’s 36 so this is essentially retirement.
• Donations Pour In For Charity Of 42-Year-Old Robert Berry, Who Died After Running The London Marathon More than $77,000 has been raised for the National Osteoporosis Society.
• Peter Stanley Head Field And Combined Events Coach For UK Athletics

• Prosecutor Wraps Up 5 Days Of Cross Examination By Asking Pistorius To Take Blame For Girlfriend’s Death
• New Zealand Herald: Lawyers In Pistorius Case Become Accidental Celebrities In Twitterverse The lawyers have inspired satirical Twitter accounts, caricatured cartoons, internet memes and apparently even spoof rap songs.
• Oscar Pistorius Trial Day 22: Blade Runner’s Strategies Crumbling Under Intense Interrogation “Oscar Pistorius appears to have two legal defense strategies. And both seem to be failing.”

2014 London *Results *Video Highlights *TV & Replay Info *Lots Of Great Video Interviews *Full Coverage: 2014 London Marathon Special Section

LRC Analysis: 7 Thoughts About The Men’s Race – The Great Wilson Kipsang, The Awful Haile G, Kenenisa Bekele’s Big Day And Props To Mo Farah? After recovering from some awful pacing by Haile G, world record holder Wilson Kipsang was truly special after 30km. He was the big winner today on the streets in London but it also was a great day for Kenenisa Bekele … and we think surprisingly in some way for Mo Farah as well. Plus is it time for London to get rid of rabbits? *Video Highlights

RRW American Ryan Vail Cracked The Top Ten And PRed But He Wants More: “I had to do a lot more leading than I was hoping.”

LRC  Wilson Kipsang Wins 2014 London Marathon In New Course Record Of 2:04:29 – Mo Farah 8th In 2:08:21 American Ryan Vail had a good day and PRed to get 10th in 2:10:57. *Video Highlights
*RRW: Wilson Kipsang Wins His Second London Marathon, Sets New 2:04:29 Course Record

2014 Rotterdam/Non-London Road Results

• Rotterdam: Eliud Kipchoge Does It Again – Clocks Impressive 2:05:00 In Rotterdam Despite Windy Conditions The former 5,000 champ is a marathon star as he’s run 2:05:30, 2:04:05, and 2:05:00 in his 3 career marathons.
• Getu Feleke Smashes Course Record With 2:05:41 Win At Vienna City Marathon Feleke was the runner-up in Rotterdam last year.
• Pak Chol (2:12) And Kim Hye Gyong (2:27) Win Pyongyang Marathon In North Korea
• Shegumo And Jarzynska Provide Popular Wins In Lodz
• Olympic Trials Qualifier Mike Cassidy Wins Bill Welsh 5K In Staten Island The race honors Staten Island road racing legend Bill Welsh. The 84-year-old ran the race and finished in 53:09.
  *Trailer For Film On Bill Welsh, A Masters Runner Trying To Win 10 Events At His State Masters Track And Field Championships
  *LRC Archive: Cassidy Shares His Experience Finishing The NYC Marathon Hand-In-Hand With His Hero Meb Keflezighi
• Weekend Japanese Road Results: Collegian Yoshiki Koizumi Wins Yaizu Minato Half Marathon In 1:03:26 Yuki Kawauchi was 9th (1:04:19).
• Sligo AC Men And Leevale Women Win Woodie’s DIY Irish National Road Relay Championships In Dublin

US / NCAA Weekend Action *All Weekend NCAA Results

• Cal Sweeps Stanford At 120th “Big Meet” Dual  Stanford’s Luke Lefebure won the 800 in 1:48.79.
  *Full Results
• MB: Maggie Vessey 53.32 at UCLA
• The Stanford Of Central PA - Bucknell Results
• George Mason Full Results
• Jessica Ramsey Puts Up #1 NCAA Shot Put Mark 57’4.75″
• Tim Glover Puts Up World Lead In Javelin At Sea Ray (275-7/84.01m)
• Recap Of ASU Sun Angel Classic Some highlights: Hector Hernandez – 800 (1:48.66), Shelby Houlihan – 1,500 (4:13.56),  Deon Lendore – 400 (44.90), Shavez Hart – 100 (10.18). *Full Results
• Mississippi Men And Alabama Women Win At Inaugural Alabama-Mississippi Border Clash Alabama’s Diondre Batson won the 100 in a wind-aided 10.01.
  *Results *Ole Miss Recap
• Harvard Men Win 4th Straight Title And Harvard Women Get Their 7th At Historic Harvard-Yale Dual Meet *Results