LRC LetsRun.com $200,010 NCAA Prediction Contest Stanford or Oklahoma State or Oregon or someone else? Chelanga and then who? Villanova and then who? Who will be the women's champ? Give us your predictions for the top 10 teams and individuals and you could win $200,010. Our world-famous prediction contest is back and actually up almost a week before the meet. *Track Focus NCAA Preview Podcast
LRC The Week That Was We keep things brief as we talk about lowering expectatons for Haile's comeback and give props to Tulsa, Toledo and Richmond and Megan Venables and the great state of NJ.
US Stars Of Present And Future? In The News
- HS Star Megan Venables Pumped To Have Broken 27-Year-Old Holmdel Record Almost equally as impressive is the fact that she won by 1:40.
- Shalane Flanagan Raising The Bar For US Marathoners The article points out that sub-2:26 has happened roughly 400 times and the US only has seven of them so we have a long way to go. Our stats reveal that 153 different people (and just 3 Americans) have gone 2:25 or better.
Lance - It's Officially Time To Get Nervous
US Feds Meet With French Feds On Tuesday To Talk About Armstrong If he's guilty, we hope jail is where he ends up.
Despite Protests, Olympic Marathon Almost Certainly To End In London Mall Meanwhile, we wonder if anyone thought about trying to recreate the marathon course that gave us the 26.2 mile distance from 1908.
- World Junior XC Champ Mercy Cherono Edges World Junior Steeple Champ Purity Cherotich In Kenya XC As They Make Move To Senior Ranks
- Profile On Mercy Cherono As She Enters Senior Ranks The emergence of the Kenyan women on the track over the last 3 years has been one of the big largely unreported stories in the sport.
Recommended Read Former Kansas Great And World 1,500 Record Holder Wes Santee Dies The NY Times Frank Litsky recaps Santee's career and life in great detail. He was America's best hope to be the first sub-4 guy in history. Want to know more about Santee? He was featured in The
Perfect Mile.
*KU Release On Santee *2nd Article On Santee With Pic Of Him In Prime *3rd Article On Santee With Recent Picture
Italian Wins Turin Marathon In 2:10:58
HS Fan?
Lots Of HS State Meet Recaps Here Highlights included the F-M girls putting 15 on NY state once again and Megan Venables breaking the Holmdel course record.
News From Europe & Kenya
- 2010 World XC Silver Medallist Teklemariam Medhin Wins 2nd Straight IAAF XC Race In Portugal
- Recap Of Tegla Loroupe Peace Race In Kenya
- Juniors Step Up In Kenya: World XC Junior Champ Mercy Cherono Wins Senior Race In Kenya On the men's side, world junior 5,000 silver medallist John Chepkwony won the senior race.
Top Young Women In The News
- Lisa Koll Is Really Enjoying Her New Life With Nike Group In Portland She's upped her training and is apparently fitting in very well with her new teammates, who all decided to vacation in Hawaii.
- After 2 Disastrous Years, Olympic Champion Pamela Jelimo Ready To Start Comeback At Age Of 21 She says injuries are what have kept her down and will begin her comeback with some XC races.
More Haile News
- Recommended Read: The Telegraph: Ethiopia needs you Haile Gebrselassie, so does the London 2012 Olympics We loved this quote: "His smile makes athletics smile."
- Spikes Mag: Haile G's 10 Greatest Races
Double Jeopardy?
The NY Times Looks At The New IOC Doping Rule That Bans Anyone From The Next Olympics Who Suffered A Major Doping Suspension
News From Europe
- Yuriy Borzakovskiy Is Back In Training After Missing Most Of Summer With Injury
- Dumbest Idea Ever
All 50 European Federations Vow To Support And Send Stars To 2012 Europeans The idea to have Euros every two years is stupid but not as dumb as putting it right before the Olympics. - Many Of Top European XC Runners To Start Season On Sunday
Post-Commonwealths/NYC Marathon News
- Unbelievable Simon Bairu Collapsed At Mile 23 And Then The Ambulance He Was In Ran Into A Taxi And He Had To Get Into Another One You'd expect that to happen in a third world country, not New York. Now he'll enjoy some R&R in Hawaii.
- Hendrick Ramaala, Haile G And Paul Tergat Had Pow-Wow In NYC About Elevating Athletics To A Higher Level In Africa
- Catching Up With Commonwealth Games Bronze Medallist Lisa Weightman
- Mara Yamauchi's Confidence Is Down, But She Vows: "My best isn't behind me."
King Carl Seemingly Just Wants To Reminds Us He's The Only 100m Champ To Repeat
Carl Lewis Says Usain Bolt Faces "Big Challenge" In Bid To Repeat As Olympic Champ
Preview Of 2nd IAAF XC Meet World XC silver medallist Teklemariam Medhin headlines. Last week he beat Ebuya in Spain.
Latest New York News *LRC Photos *LRC Men's Recap/Analysis *Women's Recap/Analysis *LRC Haile G Retirement Coverage
Jos Hermens, Haile's Agent, Says Gebrselassie Reconsidering
Retirement Hopefully the Great One realizes his fans would love nothing more to see him compete again - New York 2011 and the Olympics in 2012. We didn't realize how much worse the sport will be without Geb until he said he was leaving.
LRC Haile Gebrselassie Retirement Update The greatest of all time may be reconsidering.
He at least is leaving open the door to coming back. We give you an update on all that we've learned since our last update on Sunday night.
More NYC : WSJ Looks At Changing The NYC Marathon Course The current course seems great to us and has a better finish than the proposed course (and pros generally choose marathons for the money, not the type of course).
*Sarah Shay Has Appendectomy Right Before NYC Marathon
*Katie McGregor Reflects On Winning USA Running Circuit Title, Her Run In NY
Post-NYC News
- Paula Radcliffe Post-NYC Video Interview On London 2012, Gebrselassie Hanging Them Up, And Mara Yamauchi In NYC
- Shalane Flanagan Looks Ahead New York Times No doubt she's happy after NYC, although we'd say she's still unproven as a marathoner. She did phenomenally well on Sunday, but it was one of the stranger women's marathons ever.
- Chris Solinsky Tours The NYC Marathon Course On The Pace Car New York Times
- Sammy Wanjiru Of Kenya And Liliya Shobukhova Pick Up $500,000 And World Marathon Major Titles
- Shalane Flanagan Is Returning To The Track For 2011 Looks like her next marathon may be the OTrials. *Post-Race Transcript
- Britain's Mara Yamauchi Promises To Move On After "Shocker" Of Performance She was only 11th.
- Japan's Arata Fujiwara Was Forced To Drop Out With Intense Abdominal Pain - He Too Wants Geb To Unretire
Non-NYC News
- Paula Radcliffe In The News: Radcliffe's Baby Boy Nearly Died While She Gave Birth He came out grey as the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and Radcliffe had to push him out quickly. Radcliffe also says she has a "really, really good feeling" about 2012.
- Paula Radcliffe Started X-Training Week After Birth But, Unlike Kara Goucher, Won't Start Running Until Christmas
- High School: Meet Last Year's Nike XC Runner-Up Elias Gedyon Originally from Ethiopia, the dude split a 48.6 after winning the 1,600 and 3,200 in a meet last spring. He'll be going for his third straight CA state title in the near future and then heading to Nike (why not Foot Locker?).
- Europe: Former Providence Star Mary Cullen Is Out Of European XC Champs With Broken Collarbone Suffered In Bike Fall
- Asia: 4 Run 2:08 As Kenya's David Kiyeng Wins JoongAng Seoul Marathon
- Ultra: Congratulations To Michael Wardian On Winning Bronze At The 100Km World Championship (2010)
2010 NYC Marathon Is In The Books
LRC Men: In Debut, Gebremariam Makes Marathon Look Easy On a day that Father Time caught up to Haile G, another Geb, Gebre Gebremariam blitzed
a 26th mile in 4:37 and took us back to an era when debutantes won and road racers won Falmouth and NYC in the same year, as a new marathon star may have emerged on the streets of NY. Meb Keflezighi finished 6th and Dathan Ritzenhein 8th.
LRC Women: Edna Kiplagat Completes Magical Year, Shalane Impresses
The women's race was perhaps the craziest one ever in New York, as it was a 20-mile jog and a 10k race. LA Marathon champ Edna Kiplagat, American star Shalane Flanagan and half marathon ace Mary Keitany battled over the final miles, with Kiplagat winning and Flanagan battling
back for second in her debut. The top 10 were separated
by an amazingly small 1:35.
*Nice Wall Street Journal Recap Of Sunday's Action
*Flanagan Impresses In Marathon Debut
More NYC News: Ritz Disappointed With Another Mediocre Marathon Finish
*American 10k Record Holder Chris Solinsky Gets Wined & Dined In Elite Truck & Says "Maybe In 3 Years"
LRC Gebrselassie And Tergat Share The Stage 10 Years After Sydney The NYRR has taken traditionally boring press conferences to a new level this year giving them Sports Center-like coverage. Friday was the best of the week, as Paul Tergat was on hand to introduce his good friend Haile Gebrselassie and they talked about their careers and Geb's chances on Sunday.
Recommended Read: Geoge Hirsch Remembers Fred Lebow - The Man Who Helped Make The New York City Marathon Great Thankfully, Mary Wittenberg is now in charge to carry on his legacy and make it even greater, as the race fell off in the late 1990s.
*Mara Yamauchi Not Intimidated By Mary Keitany *Brit Yamauchi Hoping For Podium
*Update On Justin Gimelstob - Andy Roddick $10,000 Bet For 4:45 Finish We find it embarrassing the the NY Times calls the Cornell grad helping Gimelstob a world record holder.
*Larry Rawson's Final Pre-Race Thoughts Rawson reveals that Haile G for the first time turned over all business dealings for the final two months to associates so he could focus on training.
*Edison Pena Checks Out The Course
Celebs: People Magazine Profiles Ethan Zohn's Marathon Attempt *Amani Toomer Is Ready For NYC
*IAAF Preview Of Race
*Recommended Read: Alberto Salazar Talks To Sports Illustrated Salazar talks a lot about the professional environment he provides his athletes, whom he wants to treat running like a full-time job.
*Behind The Scenes, The NYC Marathon Is A Miracle Of Logistics 1,694 portable toilets make the show run.
*For Elite Women Having A Bad Day, It Can Be A Very Lonely Race The rest of the field starts 30 minutes behind them. They really should have them start an hour later.
*Quiet Mary Keitany Ready To Speak With Her Feet In NY
*Interview With Ritz On His Chances In NYC
*Road Star Gebre Gebremariam Ready For Marathon Debut
*Emmanuel Mutai Ready To Vary The Pace To Beat Geb
*London Runner-Up Inga Abitova Ready For NY
*Six Years After Winning In NY, Hendrick Ramaala Thinks He Can Win Again
*Kim Smith Likes Her Speed And Chances If It Rains
*Running New York A Priority For Geb
LRC Tributes Pour In For The Great Haile Gebrselassie Last week, the world was shocked as the great Haile Gebrselassie retired. The retirement was short-lived but our inbox was flooded with tributes to the great Haile. We share some of them with you, including one from a man who calls Haile an inspiration for millions, another who admits he cried when he watched Haile retire and painted a picture of Haile in victory in Berlin, and lastly a note from a college sophomore in the US who found it easy to be inspired by Haile but hard to be inspired by US stars like Prefontaine, whom he calls an "alcoholic frat boy who refused to listen to anyone" or drug cheats like Alex Rodriguez and Marion Jones or others who have "sexually harassed women (Brett Favre, Kobe Bryant, Ben Roethlisberger)" or "abandoned his family or fans (Tiger Woods, LeBron James)."
Paul Tergat Tells Daily Nation He's Happy To See Old Rival Geb Unretire Three Great Tergat Quotes:
1. "Legends of any sport do not retire; instead, they fade off the stage graciously and continue working in the disciplines they know best."
2. "Gebrselassie has done everything in the sport except win a marathon with stiff competition."
3. "Deep down, when he is all alone sitting by the fire, Haile must realise he dropped one of the biggest clangers of his running career."
Walk Back In Time - A Brief Chat From Wes Santee In 2005
Allyson Felix And David Oliver Win Jesse Owens Award The award goes to the top US track and field athlete each year.
*Jesse Owens Gets Street Named After Him In Cleveland
*European 100H Silver Medallist Derval O'Rourke Named Ireland's Athelete Of The Year
Off-Season News
- Usain Bolt Test Driving Ferraris On Special Track In Italy
- Allyson Felix Talks About Doing A Commercial Shoot With Kobe And Her Off-Season We forgot Felix switched to Nike last year from adidas and we even forgot Kobe hasn't been with adidas for nearly a decade.
Haile G's Back!!! Everyone can relax, as the retirement lasted all of one week. Additionally, more good news was revealed as his coach thinks he can compete until he's 45. Can anyone say 2016 Rio? Video story in Armharic here (updated with translation from an LRC visitor).
*Reuters Story By Sabrina Yohannes Here
Book On 93-Year-Old WWII Hero And Former Running Star Louis Zamperini Gets Front Page Weekend Coverage In WSJ
*Full Book Review Here *Purchase Here
Bizarre: Jim Thorpe's Son Suing Jim Thorpe, PA To Get His Body Back They changed the name of their town for him and should keep it.
NCAA Regional Saturday *Unofficial: *NCAA Teams/Individuals Announced *West Region Photo Galleries
- NCAA Teams/Individuals Announced
- Men:#1 Ok. State And #2 Stanford Lose
That's the headline, but the name of the game is qualifying and it looks like the only ranked teams to miss the show are #18 UNC (who totally bombed, as their top runner was only 37th and they only finished 9th in their region) and #26 Tulsa. The non-ranked teams making the show are Gtown, Texas and newcomer Richmond.
*NAU's David McNeill Wins 3rd Straight Regional Individual Title In Mountain West
*West Region Recap
Talk: *OU DEMOLISHES OSU WITH EASE *German Talks Afterwards *SE Regional - Women: Unranked Kansas St. & Rice Make It, As #29 San Francisco Is Left At Home
Pre-Race - Recomended Read: A New Beginning For Luke Puskedra It's revealed that an iron deficiency hurt him badly last year.
- Jordan Hasay Enjoying Being Back On Top In Year 2 Of College This almost was our QOD for Saturday: "It was good last year not to win everything. That could have brought on a lot of pressure this season. It wasn't like I fell back last year. I still was considered a contender in all the meets I ran. I just didn't win everything I was in. So that still gives me things to shoot for and that's exciting. It keeps me motivated."
- 3 Years After Starting Running, GW's Megan Hogan Hoping For Top 10 At NCAAs
- West Regional Preview: Duck Women Looking For PAC-10 Do-Over
- LRC Stanford Men, Villanova Women #1 Heading Into Regionals Three things have been constant all year. Stanford #1, OSU #2 (with roughly half the 1st place votes of Stanford) and Villanova #1 on the women's side. None of that changed despite OSU going 1-2-3-4 at the Big 12 meet.
- Stanford's Top 3 Say They Are Ready The guys seem confident and say a key difference is there are clearly defined roles this year - the top 3 and then everyone else - and thus 4-5-6-7 aren't burning themselves out in practice.
- A Brief Chat With OSU Coach Dave Smith: "We've got some real question marks at five." The quote is a bit misleading, as he seems very confident in the rest of the article.
- Antonio Pettigrew's Replacement Picked At UNC
Update From Ireland On Former NCAA 3rd-Placer Andrew Ledwith He's scraping by on little sponsorship and focusing on track, not XC, this year.
Ryan Hall Is Confident He'll Never Regret Deciding To Leave Mammoth TC Apparently his wife Sara wanted to stay with Terrence Mahon but she ended up having to go as well.
A Look At The Notable Names For Nov. 23 Chiba Ekiden Bobby Curtis, Craig Mottram, Ed Moran and African 10k champ Wilson Kiprop are included.
Preview Of Sunday's Turin Marathon
#1 Oregon Football Team Is Inspired By Steve Prefontaine Last year, Coach Kelly took the team to Pre's rock and this year, locals are wearing shirts that say "Stop Pre."
Drug News
- We 100% AGREE WADA Thinks It's Time For 4-Year Drug Bans Apparently it's in the rules, but no one ever gets them.
- Stephen Francis Gets Reprimand For Shelly-Ann Fraser Positive Test
- Good News Athletics Kenya To Subject All Marathoners To Doping Tests This appears to be referring to people racing domestically within Kenya.
News We Didn't Cover Because Of NYC
- 1:50 800m Runner Dale Dunn Still In Intensive Care After Being Shot, Fund Available For His Care We had thought he was doing better from the initial reports.
- Jearl Miles Clark, Dyrol Burleson, Roy Cochran, Ralph Craig And James Dunaway Elected To National Track And Field Hall Of Fame Congrats to the inductees.
- Craig Virgin Makes USATF Hall Of Fame, Will Delay Induction Until 2011
- USATF Foundation The Best Kept Secret In The Sport?
- Stefano Baldini, Ron Hill, Rosa Mota And Abel Anton All Talk About Winning The Athens Marathon On Its 2,500th Anniversary
Week In Review
LRC Week That Was: New York, New York Our week in review is the only must-read in the industry and this week it exceeds our normal high standards. We analyze the 2010 NYC Marathon, give Ritz some encouragement, look at Shalane Flanagan's career as a marathoner, give some major props to Gebre Gebre, have some book and movie reviews, and even have a funny story on Japanese-English translations.
Non-Marathon News
IAAF Male Athlete Of Year List Narrowed Down To 5 Tyson Gay, David Oliver, David Rudisha, Zersenay Tadese and Andreas Thorkildsen.
European Athletics Bosses Say Stars Will Compete In Euros 2012 Of course they're going to say that. Moving the Euros to the same year as the Olympics is a mistake. The stars without much of a chance in London will show up and take it seriously.
21-Year-Old Pamela Jelimo Hopes To Get Back On Track The 2008 800m Olympic champ is only 21 and has been forgotten by many since the emergence of Caster Semenya.
Previous Geb's Retirement News
- NY Times: Gebrselassie's Countrymen Hope He Reconsiders Retirement And His Manager Thinks He Might
- Sammy Wanjiru Saddened By Geb's Retirement
- Brendan Foster Among Those Hoping For Haile U-Turn "I was sad really because there's always been Haile Gebrselassie, he's been winning world championships since 1993."
- Steve Cram Surprised By Haile's Retirement He was full of enthusiasm for London 2012 when they talked in September.
- Coe Calls Geb "The Greatest" "The greatest athlete of the last 50 years and arguably the best of all time."
- IAAF Head Diack Praises "Genius" Haile G
- LRC Haile G's Retirement: Analysis Hearsay: Is He Really Done? We look at what led to Haile's retirement announcement, his prepartions for NYC and whether the Emperor could change his mind. Either way, just one week ago Haile was saying if you even talk about retiring in 3-4 years, you are done. Now he's saying he's done.
- LRC Haile G Shocks The World And Retires After Dropping Out Haile G stunned the running world with his announcement. Immediate recap, reaction, video and transcript.
- LRC Meb, Shalane, Gebremariam And Mary Wittenberg React To Haile's Retirement Gebremariam: "I think in Ethiopia he has to change his plans. He has to continue to race." While many are holding out hope this really isn't it for Geb, his fellow runners shared how important he was to them. Mary Wittenberg doesn't want him to be 100% done.
Recommended Reads On Geb - Sports Illustrated: Gebrselassie Ends Storied Career In Stunning Style How about this writing!!! "Like Babe Ruth, who invented the homerun, Gebrselassie invented the modern distance world record."
- NY Times: At Mile 16, Gebrselassie Ends His Race, And Career The article is full of great info, including the fact that Gebremariam says Geb must change his mind.
More NYC
Charity/Amateur Roundup: LRC Edison Peña Steals Show The Chilean miner may have lost to Jared of Subway, but not in the hearts and minds of us or America. Plus, learn how Amani Toomer and Justin Gimelstob did.
HS Action: Illinois: Craig Virgin Is Still The Best - But Barely Lukas Verzbicas misses his hallowed record by 3 seconds.
Chicago Tribune: Verzbicas Says Divine Headwind Cost Him Record Apparently a gust of wind came up in the last 200 meters, as he was on pace to do it at 2 miles. *Mboard Talk
Oregon: Oregon Signee Flashes The "O" After Winning State
Caster Semenya's Agent Says She's Far From Broke - Apparently She's Well Taken Care Of By Nike The last stories were all wrong.
LRC Men's Preview: Will Geb Win It? The one knock on Haile Gebrselassie is he has not defeated a top-notch marathon field or won one of the top 5 marathons (London, Chicago, Boston, WC/Olympics) in the world.
He gets his chance Sunday in New York
as he faces a star-studded field that features, among others, World Champ
Abel Kirui and defending champ American Meb Keflezighi, who could be challenged by the resurgent Dathan Ritzenhein. We break down the field and give your our
picks.
LRC 2010 ING NYC Marathon Women's Preview: Can A Debutante Beat This Crowded Field? The women's field is wide open and hard to predict. The defending champ Derartu Tulu is back and we give props to her amazing career and then guarantee she won't win. Picking the winner, however, is very hard. Boston champ Teyba Erkesso is going for her
third marathon win of 2010. And then there are the debutantes - Mary Keitany, the half marathon ace who hasn't lost a half in 3 years, and American Olympic bronze medallist at 10k, Shalane Flanagan.
Drug News
- A Warning For Banned Drug Methylhexaneamine, Which Is Found In Many Supplements
- Lance Armstrong's Teammate's House Raided By Doping Officials It's the least of Lance's concerns.
Random News
- Comrades (Ultra)Marathon To Give Special Access To Charity Runners
- Two Aussies - Peter Crombie And Marie Kay - Are World Masters Athletes Of Year