The Week That Was In Running: February 1 - February 7, 2010

2nd-placer Will Leer also deserves props as he ran a PR of 3:55.66. Leer, a top-5 finisher at USAs the last two years, will have to step up his game if he is going to compete with the Lagats, Lomongs and Manzanos of the world, but this early season showing has to give him confidence.

Thumbs Down to whomever decided to hype the women's 1k as an American record attempt. In David Monti's preview of the race, Anna Pierce said, "I think for me it's important to focus on just racing. That's what I love to do. I love to compete. If I think of it as a time trial and try to go for a record, I think I get lost a little bit."

Well, Pierce stayed true to her word and no one in the field went with the rabbit and Pierce's 2nd place time of 2:38.76 was well off Jen Toomey's American record (AR) of 2:34.19.

Thumbs Up to Bernard Lagat and Galen Rupp for putting on a race to be remembered in the men's 5k. Lagat obviously deserves the biggest praise for a) getting the win and the American record (13:11) and b) for doing the vast majority of the pace work after the rabbits left the scene.

But the Boy Wonder deserves major props for finishing 4th in 13:14.21. As one message board poster said it, Rupp "pushed the pace, made the race" by taking the lead at 4k. It certainly was exciting and in return for thrilling the fans, Rupp was rewarded with a time much better than his 13:18 AR from the year before.

It certainly showed that his disastrous 800 a few weeks ago was just the result of illness. Of course, if we'd been paying attention (and trust us, we weren't, as the oversized time trials at UW are boring the hell out of us - and if the IAAF doesn't recognize it, why should we?), we would have realized Rupp was in great shape as he ran a 3:56/7:51 double the weekend before Reebok Boston.

Our thoughts after watching Rupp and Lagat are simple. 1) Ritz (Dathan Ritzenhein), enjoy your 5k AR while it lasts, as Lagat is about to put that baby out of reach this summer. 2) Meb (Meb Keflezighi), enjoy your 10k AR as Rupp or Ritz will put that puppy out of reach as well this summer.

We also want to give Thumbs Up to the second and third placers in the men's 5k, Dejen Gebremeskel and Bekana Daba of Ethiopia. "For what?," you say. For running their butts off through the line. In the past, we've ripped runners for not racing for anything but first in the pro meets, but it was clear something was on the line (was it prize money or pride? either one is fine with us) as the two lunged for the tape.

And lastly a Thumbs Up to the crowd (particularly the kid without his shirt on) for providing a great atmosphere with raucous cheers throughout the night including chants of "USA, USA, USA" in the final laps of the men's 5k.

More: *Official Reebok Mens 5,000M Thread *Rupp Ran 13:14 While Sick *Solinsky 3:55/Rupp 3:56 *Official Will Leer Bandwagon *Reebok Games - Men's Masters Mile - Does Anyone Care?

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Non-Reebok Pro Action
25 * 200 = 5,000
In case you haven't been in a math class recently, let this serve as a friendly reminder that there are 25 laps in an indoor 5k, not 24. At the PSD Bank Meeting in Düsseldorf, Germany last Wednesday, Daniel Kipchirchir Komen was involved in a sprint with Paul Kipsiele Koech but stopped a lap short in the men's 5k. That's the bad news. The good news is that he was able to quickly start up again and still run a 13:06.27, 2nd to Koech's world-leading 13:02.95 win. So before we feel too good about Lagat's 13:11 AR, we need to realize that a Kenyan running the wrong number of laps can still run 13:06, although we aren't sure if we believe the IAAF recap that says that even after stopping a lap short, Koech was able to run the final 200 in 28.

Editor's Addition: On Feb. 10th, an LRC reader emailed us the following about the 5,000 finish:
Hi Letsrun!

Here is a link to a video summary of the PSD Bank Meeting 5000m event I found on the website of the German T&F association:

http://www.leichtathletik.tvindex/view/id/700

As you guessed the IAAF report wasn´t, uhm, very accurate.
What you can see in the video is that the last lap was covered in 30.29 seconds (so 12:32.66 with one lap to go instead of "approximately 12:38").
Also contrary to the report Komen was leading Koech when he stopped at that point (how would he possibly have thought the race was over if he had seen someone ahead of him carry on?).
So Komen`s last lap was a 33.61 (Koech`s possibly a deep 29).

Josef

In the same meet, Kenyan Augstine Choge set a world leader in the 1,500, as he won in 3:36.75. Russia's Yuriy Borzakovskiy had a nice world-leading 1:45.77 clocking in the men's 800 and, more importantly, he dispatched Olympic silver medallist Ahmad Ismail of Sudan, who ran 1:45.99. One name you might want to remember is 3rd-placer Adam Kszczot of Poland, who ran 1:46.00. In June, at the age of 19, Kszczot ran 1:45.72.

It was quite a week for Borzakovskiy, as over the weekend at the Russian Winter meeting, he picked up another win - this time at 600 meters, defeating both the Beijing gold and silver medallists in the process. And oh yeah, he also got the Russian national record in the process as he ran 1:16.02 to Ismail's 1:16.12 and Wilfred Bungei's 1:17.36. Thumbs Up to Bungei for showing that he's back from his injury problems.

The crazy thing is that Borzakovskiy wasn't satisfied, as he told the IAAF, "If we had a rabbit, a new world record would have been set. We should have started the first lap in 24 seconds."

Also coming back from injury was Cuban hurdler Dayron Robles, who showed no ill effects from his World Championships injury, as he won the hurdles in 7.50.

Later in the week in Stuttgart, Robles would pick up another win - this time in a world-leading 7.48 seconds. At that meet, the man who was supposed to challenge Bernard Lagat at Millrose but was a late scratch due to his inability to secure a visa, Deresse Mekonnen, looked fantastic as he crushed the field by 2.76 seconds to win in a world-leading 3:34.17.

We know that there are a few people conspiracy theorists who feel that Millrose was set up for Lagat to get the record-breaking 8th win in the Wanamaker mile. That domination by Mekonnen, who was the world champion in the 1,500 in 2008 indoors, will certainly only increase their conspiracy beliefs.

Also in Stuttgart, Meseret Defar came up just short in her attempt to break her own 3k world record, as she ran 8:24.46 (the record is 8:23.72). Other world leaders came from 4-time world or Olympic medallist at 5k, Eliud Kipchoge, in the 3k (7:32.99), 2008 world indoor champ Geleta Burka in the women's 1,500 (4:03.44), Priscilla Lopes-Schliep in the women's hurdles (7.82), and Brazil’s Fabiana Murer in the women's pole vault (4.81m).

Also it's worth noting that the reigning world indoor champion at 800, Sudan's Abubaker Kaki, opened his season successfully in Stuttgart with a 1:46.47 win.

However, the story of the night according to the IAAF was the ridiculous 6.97 time that was put up in the women's 60 by Laverne Jones-Ferrette. It was the fastest time in the 60m in over a decade and makes Jones-Ferrett the 6th-fastest woman in history. You probably are thinking, "Who the hell is Laverne Jones-Ferrette?" That's exactly what we were thinking.

She competes for the US Virgin Islands and coming into 2009, the now-28-year-old Jones-Ferrette had PRs of 11.24 in the 100 and 7.16 in the 60m. All we can say is, we bet she is target #1 for the drug testers - well at least we hope she is.

In this day and age, big improvements late in life have to be met with huge scrutiny from the anti-doping people.

More: Full Results From PSD Bank Meeting in Düsseldorf *IAAF Recap Of Düsseldorf *LRC Boards: Paul Koech 13:02 despite runner stopping in front of him with 1 lap to go *36-Year-Old GBR Helen Clitheroe Wins 1,500 In 4:10
*Russia: IAAF Recap
*IAAF Recap of Stuttgart *Stuttgart Full Results

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Moving on to non-pro-related news, our Biggest Thumbs Up of the Week goes to Yoshihisa Osaka. If you are feeling too old to run or train seriously anymore, let Mr. Osaka inspire you. The 61-year-old ran a 2:38 marathon. Yes, 6-minute pace for a marathon at age 61. Studly!!! Of course, he did run 2:34 at 59 and 2:36 at 60, so it's not like it came from nowhere.

The crazy thing is 2:38:18 only broke the existing world record by 20 seconds (Wil van der Lee of the Netherlands).

And one more thing that should inspire you. Mr. Osaka also ran a marathon in December, but in that race he went out crazy fast (1:15) and died a bit at the end (2:40). So that's two marathons in 3 months over the age of 60 and both were 2:40 or better.

Another master that deserve props is 40-year-old Vyacheslav Shabunin of Russia, who ran 3:44.39 in the 1,500 to set a new masters indoor world record. Earlier this year, Shabunin, who also is the real Russian national record holder at 1,500 both indoors and out (3:36.68 and 3:32.28 respectively), got the world indoor master record for 3k thanks to a 8:04.34 clocking. The old records belonged to Irishmen Eamonn Coghlan (3:45.3 - 1993) and Marcus O'Sullivan (8:09.13 - 2002).
*More: 61-Year-Old Yoshihisa Osaka Runs 2:38 Marathon *COGHLAN SURRENDERS ANOTHER RECORD

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FSU Loses 2007 Track Title
Last week, the NCAA stripped Florida State of its 2007 NCAA outdoor track and field title. We here at LetsRun.com are known for hating cheats of all kind and thus you'd expect us to rip the Seminoles. Not so much. The Seminoles lost the 2007 title because one of their student athletes, who had over a 3.0 GPA, was one of more than 60 student athletes and 3 administrators implicated in a cheating scandal that related primarily to an on-line music class.

In our minds, academic dishonesty isn't treated seriously enough and we applaud the NCAA for coming down hard on everyone implicated. But we think that other programs or coaches that are celebrating FSU's punishment had better watch out, as we guarantee that nearly every single track and field program in the country has at least one student-athlete on it that is involved in academic fraud in some shape or form - whether it is something blatant like cheating on test or something that many sadly deem as acceptable, like copying homework.

But we want to give a Thumbs Up to Braman for not hiding from the scandal and for the following quote which Braman gave to the Tallahassee Democrat which we'll call our Quote of the Week #1:

"There's a real strong lesson here. Integrity is integrity. You either have it or you don't. I think they'll learn that when you get in this position, you've got to make the right decisions."

Clearly, lots of people didn't make the right decisions at Florida State but the fact of the matter is that the athlete who cheated didn't need the course to be eligible for the Seminoles. According to Braman, the Seminole track and field program has had more academic All-Americans than anyone over the last five years.

And oh yeah, despite what we wrote on the home page at the time, we're pretty sure that 2nd-place LSU doesn't move up and claim the title. Rather, we just think the title is vacated and goes to no one.
More: *Florida State Coch Bob Braman's Statement On Loss Of The Title *Braman Opens Up About FSU's NCAA Punishment *FSU's "Tomahawk Nation" Reports Track Stripped Of 2007 NCAA Track Title *YouTube Recap Of 2007 Championship

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Jenny Barringer Leaves Mark Wetmore