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LRC: The Week That Was Last week was an interesting one, as the NCAA cross-country field was set, Tirunesh Dibaba set a world record and one of the top 10 US milers in history announced his retirement to the world on the world-famous LetsRun.com message board. We break it all down for you and tell you who are the biggest surprises and flops in NCAA cross-country, plus we celebrate the 10th birthday of WADA, introduce you to the future of ultra marathoning and read Ryan Hall's and Shannon Rowbury's blogs.

DII XC Champs Preview Jessica Pixler and Neely Spence are set for a great race on the women's side.

Hot Weather Slows Runners In Deep Ageo City Half Marathon Last year, if you ran 73:00, you didn't finish in the top 500 and sub-65:30 was necessary for a top 100 finish in this insanely deep Japanese half marathon. This year, unexpected hot weather took its toll on the runners.

IAAF XC Hopes For Return Of Stars Tirunesh Dibaba And Kenenisa Bekele After Season Missed Due To Injury *IAAF XC Calendar: Season Stretches From Nov - March

USATF Announces Hall Of Fame Nominees Joetta Clark Diggs won seven Millrose Games 800m championships.

Recommended Free Online Documentary: "There are no miracles in sport. You know where there are miracles? In training." - Quote from a documentary on the man behind Hungary's hammer-throwing success: Pál Németh. We found the video thanks to a hammer-throwing LetsRun reader who sent us his review of the film. LetsRun Fan Writes Review Of Rare Film About Hammer Throwing

Scandal Berlino The Bear Is Unveiled The man behind the mascot of the year is 33-year-old actor Oliver Seiffert.

Priscilla Lopes-Schliep And Coach Win Canadian Athlete/Coach Of The Year

Insane: Bill For 2014 Commonwealths In Glasgow Headed Toward$ A Billion These huge bills can't be sustainable. How about not just having "green" events but making them affordable?

Austrian Drug Cheats Could Face Up To 10-Year Prison Sentences Harsh punishments are proven to deter crime-doers, right?

Historical Article On Australian Soldier Taken From the Front Line To The Olympic Marathon Start Line

Regional Results *All NCAA Results

2009 NCAA D1 XC Selections Are Announced The screwy NCAA XC selection system didn't produce screwy results, as only 1 nationally ranked team didn't advance (#26 Butler) on the men's side. On the women's side, the 4 lowest-ranked teams (#27 Cal, #28 Arkansas, #29 Tennessee and #30 Iowa) didn't advance. More: *Oregonian Recap Of West Regional *Jordan Hasay & Trevor Dunbar Have Made Their Marks As Freshmen

Ryan Gregson Wins 3k In Australia It was a tactical affair and Gregson blasted the field to win in 8:00 to capture his first open state title. He'll have one more race as a junior before he turns his attention to making the Australian Commonwealth Games team.

Sprint News

Usain Bolt To Have 9.58 SuperParty On December 4/5 & It Looks Like Everyone Is Invited He's already invited Tiger Woods, Emmit Smith, Deion Sanders and Michael Jordan. *Official SuperParty Website
*Dwain Chambers Writes About What It's Like To Compete Against Usain Bolt And Says He Knew Bolt Was Something Special Back In 2006
*Daniel Bailey Says Move To Jamaica & Glen Mills Was Key To His Success

Steph Twell Wins XC Race & Then Looks For Funds To Pay Her Coach Her coach was sacked in a recent UK Athletics restructuring.

Japan Does Well As Asian Games Conclude And a bunch of ex-Kenyans dominated the 10km. *Day 4 Recap *Full Results

Stanford Men Crush West Regional, Going 1, 2, 3 Cardinal scores 1/4 of Oregon's points as Ducks collapse. *Men's Results Oregon loses to Portland. *Women's Results Jordan Hasay 2nd place, UW wins.
*Recap From Oregon Athletics With Athlete, Coach Quotes

Dave Smith Genius? 6 Ok St Guys Finish Tempo Together In 31:03 Hassan Mead wins in 30:21.

Wild Great Lakes Team Results Indiana falls flat - 8th at home, Indiana St. 4th. *Men's Results Miler Jeff See wins. *Women's Results 11 points separate top 4 teams.

South Central *Men's Results Dorian Ulrey (individual winner) and Arkansas qualify, so does Texas. *Women's Results Silje Fjortoft and SMU win.

Southeast 5th-Place UVA Might Be Out Of NCAAs *Men's Results Sam Chelanga wins by over 30 seconds. *Women's Results Catherine White of UVA wins.

South *Men Results Alabama 1, FSU 2, Auburn 3 *Women Results Florida/FSU advance auto, Susan Kuijken doesn't run.

Mid-Atlantic *Sheila Reid And Villanova Crush NCAA #5 Princeton Princeton went 1-5 at the Heps, yet today 'Nova put 4 in front of Princeton's 1st, Liz Costello. *Men's Results

Mountain Regional *We Told You So: NAU Men Fall To BYU, Colorado And New Mexico, As David McNeill Wins *Colorado Women Turn Tables On Texas Tech

Northeast Regional *Men's Individual *Team *Women's Individual *Team Syracuse wins both genders. Syracuse men have won adidas Wisconsin, Big East and Northeast Regional in '09.

Non-NCAA USA Races

• Big Sur Half Marathon Website
• Cool Races: Ragnar Relay Series
• SunTrust Richmond Marathon Set To Run Despite Hurricane Rains
• Check Out Nice Preview Of Sunday's Rock and Roll San Antonio Marathon

NCAA Regional Saturday!

LRC 10 Things To Watch On Regional Weekend Employee #1 gets the storylines set for a big day of action Saturday. We'll have all the results and of course all the talk heading into the greatest championships in sport: the NCAA XC Championships on Nov 23 in Terre Haute, Indiana.

LRC Results Of The Pre-Regional LetsRun.com NCAA XC Polls Stanford has almost double Oklahoma State's #1 votes on the men's side, while Washington still dominates the voting on the women's side despite barely beating Oregon at PAC-10s.

Article On Jordan Hasay And Her Positive Effect On Oregon XC Hasay is having a great cross-country season even though coach Vin Lananna says all the focus is ultimately on track.

Underappreciated: WADA Celebrates 10 Years Of Cleaning Up Sports

• USADA Chief Speaks About Doping In Sport On WADA's 10th Anniversary He says drugs in sport are now much more in the hands of "rogue" doctors, scientists and entities instead of national or above-ground programs.
• WADA Has Made A Huge Difference In 10 Years Track and field has gone from the WWE to ... well, something slightly more pure.
• Thank You, WADA: Court Of Arbitration For Sport Bans Turkish 1,500m World Silver Medalist For Life

South African Track & Field Big Wigs Locked Out Of Offices As Police Are Summoned To Remove Stubborn Senior Leader

International Stallions In The News

"Usain Bolt was Shergar, Sea the Stars, and Nijinsky rolled into one." - Quote from apparent thoroughbred horse handicapper Dwain Chambers, who writes about trying to convince himself he could beat Usain Bolt.

Craig Mottram On His Comeback, His New Coach And His Race Plans The Big Mazungo should make things even more interesting in the men's 5,000m with his return.

Brit Triple Jumper Phillips Idowu Is Euro And British Athlete Of The Year And Says He's Still After Jonathan Edwards Idowu loves to chat it up in the press.

Interviews With Distance Athletes And Coaches

• Recommended Read: Interview With Jordan Hasay's HS Coach Armando Siqueiros If you think Hasay's success all through high school and into college is a fluke, think again. Her coach handled her running in a very sensible way. He'll be speaking along with many other recognizeable coaches like Brad Hudson and Scott Raczko at the Super Distance Summit on January 2-3.
• Video Interview With Tirunesh Dibaba After Her 15k World Record Sub-5:00 pace for 9.32 miles for the fastest woman on the planet.
• Video Interview With Sileshi Sihine Includes Race Footage
• Interview With Meb Keflezighi Where He Discusses His Training Before NY 3 weeks over 130 miles, good health and brilliant race day running brought Meb the huge upset win in New York.
• Brief Chat With Big Name In Ultra And Mountain Running - Kami Semick

Weekend Road Action

Zevenheuvelenloop 15km
Tirunesh Dibaba Shatters 15km World Record In only the 2nd road race of her life, the double Olympic champ Dibaba ran 46:28 to chop 27 seconds off the old record. Her husband Sileshi Sihine won the men's race for the 3rd time in a sprint over Uganda's Nicholas Kiprono, who set a new national record of 42:14. *LRC MB: Tirunesh Dibaba 46:30 WR In Dutch 15km *Video Highlights Of Race *Pre-Race Press Conference Video

Inaugural Yokohama Women's Marathon
Inga Abitova Wins (2:27:18) As Catherine Ndereba And Constantina Dita Falter Ndereba ran okay and was 3rd in 2:29, but Dita was only 11th in 2:36. The race replaced the old Tokyo Women's marathon and consisted of three 13km loops. Abitova went to the lead at the start of the last loop.

Rock N Roll San Antonio Marathon
Gilbert Koech Wins (2:14) As Kenyans Go 1-5 Russian women took 3 of the top 5. In the half marathon, Josh Cox ran 66:44 as Wesley Keating edged Shadrack Songok in 65:24.

*Tegla Loroupe Peace Race Recap

A Look At The Ridiculous Amounts That Many Of The Gulf States Are Spending On Sports Paying off Kenyans to switch nationalities is nothing compared to what it costs to have Tiger Woods design his first golf course.

Recommended Read: Chris Lukezic On Frustrating 2008 And 2009 And Why He Announced Retirement At Age 25 Chris Lukezic, who ran 3:33 as a 22 y/o, talked with Runner's World's Peter Gambaccini and spelled out why his last couple years of total dedication to running have been frustrating. He also talks about his new business called AirBnB, which sounds like it could be a big thing for travelers.

Recap Of Tegla Loroupe's Courageous Run For Peace In Kenya

Fan Voting Now Open For Bowerman Award - Best NCAA Track & Field Athlete Of 2009 Ashton Eaton, Galen Rupp and German Fernandez are your men's options while Porscha Lucas, Destinee Hooker and Jenny Barringer are the female triumvirate.

News From Literally Around The World *New Slogan? LetsRun.com - Where Your Kid Can Come To Learn Geography

Australia Aussie Ryan Gregson Hopes To Lower His 7:57 3,000m Best Today Coincidence that Gregson and German Fernandez race on the same day? No way.

Jamaica Big-Time Jamaican Sprint Coach Steve Francis Says Jamaica Loves To Take Athletes' Tax Dollars But Doesn't Give Back To The Stars Steve Francis: officially the most popular coach in Jamaica now.

Canada "Is The Deer Ok?" - Emma Ashby, A Cross-Country Runner, After Breaking Her Collarbone Getting Hit By A Deer In A Race Hunters, please get revenge for little Emma.

The Netherlands Married Tirunesh Dibaba And Sileshi Sihine Set To Race In The Netherlands Both Dibaba and Sihine, the fastest couple on the planet, were injured for many of the big races this summer.

China Liu Xiang Wows Crowd With Rain-Slowed 13.50 Hurdles Win In Asian Championships It has been a tough stretch for the Chinese, with both Yao Ming and Liu Xiang injured. Good to see one of them is back.

South Africa Semenya: "I'm Supposed To Be Famous But I Don't Think I Like It So Much." Throughout this whole ordeal, Semenya has given the most endearing quotes.

Professional Races This Weekend

• Catherine Ndereba To Star In Yokohama Women's Marathon Sunday Catherine The Great will be joined by fellow veteran Constantina Dita, who has not run well since winning the 2008 Olympic Marathon gold medal. Ndereba says she plans on trying to win the 2012 Olympic Games at age 40. With the state of women's marathoning these days, she just might.
• Banned EPO Cheat And Liar Liza Hunter-Galvan Upset Not To Be Able To Race In San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon This Weekend Former San Antonio sweetheart given extensive profile on mysanantonio.com.

Pro News

• Usain Bolt Will Target Seven Diamond League Meets In 2010
• Max King USATF Athlete Of The Week King ran the NYC Marathon and USA Trail Marathon championships 6 days apart. He blew up in one and won the other.

LRC: The Week That Was Last week was one which, in terms of actual running action, maybe should have been thought of as "The Week That Wasn't." As a result, we analyze the 2009 ING New York City marathon some more for you and take a look at the biggest blowups and best-paced performances by Americans. We also let others who are way better writers than we are give you insight into New York. Along the way, we enjoy piling on Athletics South Africa, tell you how to qualify for USA's in October and name Chad Hampton as our Performer of the Week.
LRC: Like An Airline: A Behind-The-Scenes Look Into What It Takes To Set An Elite Marathon Field We try to tell you how an elite marathon field gets set. Check out this great quote from ING NYC Marathon elite athlete coordinator David Monti: "A marathon is like an airline - it sells more spots on a plane than are seats. If you do it right, get lucky, the plane is exactly full when it takes off."

Women In Running

• Interesting Read: Shannon Rowbury Writes In Huffington Post About Winning Medal At Worlds Shannon Rowbury talks about how a series of negative events preceded her unusual medal-winning performance. She also mentions how life post-medal is simply not that much different.
• Brief Chat With Team XC National Champ Katie Follett Of Washington
• Former World Record Holder Tegla Loroupe Holding Race For Peace In Kenya Sammy Wanjiru, Paul Tergat, the Crown Prince of Morocco and other big names are supporting Tegla Loroupe's efforts to promote peace between warring people in Kenya.