Quote Of The Day

"I didn't want to know symptoms and side effects. I didn't want to mentally create reactions. I didn't want to imagine negative outcomes. The mind is a strong healing factor, if you make it one. ... I'm sure the doctors thought I was crazy at the beginning, or they'd just ignore me. But I honestly think being so focused on coming back made me better."

- WSU high jumper Shawn Swartz talking talking about his battle with leukemia and undergoing radiation treatment. While most would use something as serious as that as a very legitimate excuse to not train and give up, Swartz didn't even what to know all the possible side effects because he didn't want to give himself the option of making extra excuses. He was determined to return to high jumping and he has jumped an impressive 6 feet 7 1/2 inches this season.

SUNDAY Payton Jordan *Live Results  *Watch Live  *2011 PJordan Accepted Entries *LRC MB: Stanford Predictions

LRC Another Great Stanford Meet Is In The Books The 2011 Payton Jordan meet did not disappoint, as 22 runners got under the Olympic A standard in the men's and women's 10,000, as the "star" Americans in Matt Tegenkamp and Shalane Flanagan got beaten. In the men's 10k, the winner was 20-year-old Bedan Karoki, whose breathtaking move with more than seven laps to go instantly ended the race, which was the first one in American history where three Americans broke 27:30 (led by Bobby Curtis). In the men's 1,500, German Fernandez's struggles continued in the B heat (is it officially time to panic?), while Lopez Lomong and Evan Jager returned to action in the A heat that was won by Ben Blankenship. In the ladies' 1,500, Jordan Hasay got a PR and collegiate leader but only finished 5th. The story of the steeple was that Mark Wetmore-coached athletes shined and got the Olympic A standards, as Emma Coburn impressed from the opening moment of the race while Billy Nelson waited until late to unleash an incredibly impressive kick. In the men's 5k, Elliott Heath's unreal kick wasn't quite enough to get him the win, as seven broke 13:30. Read all about as we recap the top action for you.
*MB: Teg, Nelson 27:28, 13 under 'A' standard!
*Bobby Curtis 27:24, you all saw that right?
*Jordan Hasay 4:10
PreRace: *LRC Wejo's Thoughts On Stanford 10,000m Fields Shalane Flanagan, Sally Kipyego, Molly Huddle and Lineth Chepkurui on the women's side and the debut of Matt Tegenkamp on the men's side. The main goal for the men is Olympic and Worlds qualifiers.
*Profile On UK's Chris Thompson, Who Finished 4th In The 10k With 27:27

Upcoming Action

*Bernard Lagat Says He Wants To Run 12:49 "In my head, I have just put all eggs into that one basket. Monaco. 5,000 meters. If I don't get it there, I don't know when I will get it. It's good to aim high because to me 12:49 is the highest I can put it now."
*IAAF Daegu World Challenge Preview: Recent Drake Relays Mile Champ Boaz Lalang Vs. World 1,500m Champ Yusuf Saad Kamel In The 800 David Oliver in 110 hurdles and Carmelita Jeter in 100m also headline field.

Saturday At Penn *Penn Results *Official Site *Photos

Saturday At Penn (Reuters Recap) The carnival that is Penn is always crazy (and hard to recap). Saturday saw Jamaica's Kenia Sinclair run a 1:57.06 split to nearly set the world record in the sprint medley relay, Robby Andrews getting revenge for his loss to Casimir Loxsom at World Juniors by outkicking him to win the 4 x 800, Princeton gets its first Championship of America title in 71 years by winning the 4 x mile, a great pro DMR where Bernard Lagat (2:48.30) and Ryan Gregson (Aussie who turned 21 this week, in his first race back from a navicular stress fracture) had great first legs, and things came down to a 4-way battle on the anchor and Amine Laalou came from behind for the winplus not to mention Allyson Felix winning 2 relays, Asafa Powell leading Jamaica, and even the return of Justin Gatlin. Individual coverage of these stories below:

Several Interesting Stories Worth Reading

News From Europe

Upcoming Action On The Road And Track

Payton Jordan *2011 PJordan Accepted Entries *LRC MB: Stanford Predictions

Other Random News

Meb Running New York 69 Days Before Olympic Trials

LRC: Meb Attempting New York / Olympic Trials Double Meb Keflezighi joined the live NYRR 2011 ING New York City Marathon "Opening Day" show from Columbus Circle to announce he was running this year's marathon, 69 days before the US Olympic Trials in Houston (in 2004, Meb did the Olympic and New York double 70 days apart). Meb will take on defending champ Gebre Gebremariam, while defending women's champ Edna Kiplagat will face Jen Rhines. Athletes Apolo Anton Ohno and Curtis Granderson were on hand for the marathon kickoff along with celebrities Al Roker and Ed Norton.
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NYRR Article
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USA Today Article Meb also reveals that he is recovered from knee injury he sustained right before NYC Half that occurred during an "altercation with a dog in Central Park."
*IAAF Article

Drake Earlier In The Week

Düsseldorf Marathon Is This Weekend

US/NCAA Track Action - Results: *Jesse Owens Classic *ACC Results *Oregon Relays *Princeton Larry Ellis *Arkansas McDonnell Invy

Craziness At The ACC Meet: Florida State NCAA Long Jump Champion Ngoni Makusha Runs Legal 9.97 In His First 100m In 4 Years, Florida State Storms Back For 7th Straight Title Makashua had never run a 100m in college until the ACC meet, and he ran 9.97 for the win. Simply amazing. Florida State pulled out all the stops to storm back from 40 points down to win the title. Makusha wasn't even the meet MVP, as Maurice Mitchell got it after his 20.17 in the 200m and runner-up in the 100m. *Thread here. However, distance fans will be most impressed by Irishman Ciaran O'Lionaird (see below).

10k Man Ciaran O'Lionaird Beats Robby Andrews In 1,500m, Gets ACC Records In 1,500 And 5k To Lead FSU To ACC Title There was one way O'Lionaird was going to beat Andrews, and that was by running away from him - and that's what he did (barely). Ciaran built up a 5-second lead at the bell and held on barely against Andrews' patented kick for an ACC record (3:40) win (video on right of homepage or here). 2+ hours later he was back for a meet record in the 5,000m. *Thread Here

2011 London & Boston Were So Good They Continue To Dominate The News Cycle

LRC John Kellogg Explains How He "Predicted" The Unpredictable - A Sub-2:03:59 In Boston LetsRun.com's coaching guru explains the rationale behind his non-prediction that is making waves around the globe. Years of timed out-and-back and straight-shot tempos with the wind in Waco, Texas (and other windy Texas venues) proved invaluable to his understanding the effects of the wind. JK took a stab at converting the Boston performances by Mutai and Hall to London and Berlin and even reveals what would happen if the Boston Mutai raced the London Mutai.

LRC Week In Review: 13 Thoughts About The 2011 Virgin London And Boston Marathons We try to give out some thoughts about a glorious two days of marathoning. From it not being a good two days for North American-based debutants or US Olympic women, to Ryan Hall never runs a bad marathon, to stats showing how the wind helped the mid-packers, to you couldn't find two more deserving winners than the Mutais. All of that plus we give out our top contenders for the 2012 Olympic medals and praise Caroline Kilel while talking about kissing Dave Bedford's ***.

LRC
Rojo Speaks: Boston - Please Stop This World Record Nonsense "(Boston), you are the most historic of all the major marathons and don't need publicity stunts ... You don't need a record to validate what happened. In fact, you shouldn't want it. Your race course has character and tradition behind it - all most of the others can do is get in a contest amongst themselves for time."Sad

Alvin Harrison, Former Olympic 400m Silver Medallist (And Drug Cheat), Getting Second Chance Coaching High School Team, Drunk Drives A High School Van At Arcadia, Flips Another Car, Jailed On $50,000 Bond Less than 10 years, ago he was on Oprah. Now he could be in prison for a while (we also were surprised to read he competed for the Dominican Republic last year and ran 47 seconds).

The Sport Loses A Legend *Grete Waitz's NYC Marathon Results

Grete Waitz Loses Battle With Cancer Waitz is best known for being a 9-time New York City Marathon champion, a class act, and a pioneer in the sport, but she also was a 4:00 1,500m runner and an 8:31 3,000m runner. As a kid, watching her on ABC win NYC every year was one of the site founders' earliest running memories. She will be missed. Thanks to Leo Kulinski for the photo. Another one here.
*Pay Your Respects In This Thread
*
Grete Waitz: In The Long Run, A Legacy Of Triumph For Women And Sport
*IAAF: Grete Waitz, Distance Running Legend, Passes Away
*The Independent: Norwegian Marathon Legend Grete Waitz Dies Of Cancer At Age 57
*Runner's World: Remembering Grete Waitz
*Runner's World: 2005: When We First Learned Of Grete Waitz's Battle With Cancer

Virgin London Marathon *Watch Full Race On Demand *Photos

LRC Emmanuel Mutai Runs The Best 10km Ever In A Marathon To Destroy The Field & Arrive As One Of The World's Best A lead pack that was a who's who of marathoning went through 30km together, but soon the race would be nothing but a coronation for Emmanuel Mutai, who destroyed the field with a 28:44 4th 10k and ended up with a 2:04:40 course record. Almost as big of a story as Mutai's incredible run was the fact that the 2nd placer ended up being one of the all-time greats - Martin Lel - who shocked even himself in his first marathon since Beijing 2008. American Jason Lehmkuhle was the only elite American finisher as the three rookie American marathoners went out too fast and blew up - none worse than Mo Trafeh, who ran with the lead pack for 15 km.

LRC
Women's Marathoning Has A New Star Named Mary Keitany Keitany knocked nearly 10 minutes off her personal best and knocked Liliya Shobukhova off her pedestal as the best in the world, as Keitany ran the first sub-2:20 since 2008 and made mincemeat of "undoubtedly" of the strongest women's field in London history. All together, a record 22 women broke 2:30 - but that didn't include US Olympian Magdalena Lewy-Boulet.

Haile G's Back & A Winner In Vienna Only Haile G could be upset with a solo 60:18 at age of 37 years and 364 days. Happy B-Day Haile!!!

 

Doping News

April Fools News

LetsRun's 2011 April Fools Edition

The Only Required Reading In The Industry

LRC: Week That Was: Flanagan Gets Bronze, Rupp Makes An Impressive Debut, An American Runs 2:27 At LA, And The US XC Dream Team Sure, we bet you know about Shalane Flanagan's bronze at World XC and Galen Rupp's half marathon in NYC. But we help put these in perspective and tell you about the American who ran 2:27 in LA (Amy Hastings) and wonder how well the US dream team of Lagat, Rupp, Solinsky, Tegenkamp and Ritz would do at World XC. And of course the most important news of the week, the fight at World XC.

Sad News

Sad News: Sally Meyerhoff Killed In Cycling Accident The two-time All-American and US Olympic Trials qualifier as well former US champion at 25km was killed on Tuesday in a cycling accident at the young age of 27 while she trained for the Ironman World Championship. *LRC MB: Sad News: Sally Meyerhoff Killed in Accident
*Abc15.com Article With Video On Meyerhoff's Death
*Ahwatukee.com Article On Meyerhoff's Death
*AZcentral.com Article
*USATF Article
*New York Road Runners Article
*More Sad News: Florida High School Track Athlete Sarah Landauer Dies After Collapsing At Practice

The Secret Is ... There Is No Secret

Coaching: There Are No Secrets, Substitutes Or Shortcuts For Success ... Do The Work

Bloomsday

Men: Kenya's Simon Ndirangu Outkicks Countryman Allan Kiprono For $7000 Title

Women: Misiker Mekonnin Upsets Fellow Ethiopian Wude Ayalew Over 56,000 runners ran this year making Bloomsday a tremendous success. We should do a series on America's great road races.

Drake Saturday *Drake Results *Photos *Newspaper Special Section

LRC 2011 Drake Relays Recap: Boaz Lalang Wins 2011 Drake Relays Mile Over Alan Webb, Who Is Fourth Webb, the American record holder, got the short end of the stick in the final sprint between Kenyan Olympian Lalang, NCAA breakout star Chris O'Hare and World Champs semi-finalist Peter Van Der Westhuizen. In other action, Jenny Barringer went wire-to-wire in the 1,500, Jeremy Wariner won the 400m and Adam Nelson went over 70 feet for the first time in 3 years to show he could be a factor in 2011.
On The Boards:
Alan Webb Gets 4th At Drake, Boaz Lalang Wins

*Lolo Jones Upstaged For 3rd Straight Year At Drake
*IAAF: Adam Nelson's 21.39 Heave One Of The Highlights Of Drake Relays
*University Of Mississippi's Ellis Moore Wins Drake Relays 400m Hurdles Title For 2nd Year In A Row
More Drake From Des Moines Register:
Men's Recap: Jeremy Wariner Cruises, Boaz Lalang Defeats Alan Webb
*Lolo Jones Gets Support From Home Crowd But Comes Up Short
*50 Years Ago, Wilma Rudolph And Others Were First Women To Compete At Drake

Some Inspirational Stories

Other Assorted News

S. Africa

Previous Penn/Drake  Action: *Penn Results *Drake Results

More On Carl Lewis
*USA Today: Judge Upholds Ruling To Keep Carl Lewis Off NJ Ballot
*Federal Judge Rules Against Carl Lewis' Claim That NJ Residency Requirement Is Unconstitutional
*Carl Lewis Confident That Court's Decision To Stop Him From Running For NJ State Senate Will Be Overturned; Still Continuing To Campaign He says, "It's a shame because the focus should be on the 8th District and the difficulties we face. Instead were doing politics as usual."
*Carl Lewis Sues Over Ruling He Can't Run For N.J. Senate

Impressive Youths In The News

Politically-Themed Track News

Boston Marathon *Live Boston Thread *Women's Reaction *Men's Reaction
*Video Highlights *Weather *Photos

One For The Ages In Boston: Desiree And The Fastest Marathon Ever Run "Unbelievable" is probably the best way to describe the 2011 Boston Marathon. First, American Desiree Davila, off the back of the lead pack multiple times, was gutsy as hell, battling for the win with Caroline Kilel down the final straight. There were 4 lead changes on the final straight before Kilel came out on top. In the men's race, American Ryan Hall ran 2:04:57 and lost by nearly 2 minutes. Yes, ladies and gentleman, Geoffrey Mutai and Moses Mosop ran faster than anyone else ever before the in the marathon, 2:03:02 and 2:03:06 respectively, thanks in part to 20 mph tailwinds. Mutai cemented his status as the strongest runner on the planet with the win. We give you some post-race comments below but purposely are holding off discussing the wind.
LRC: Wejo Speaks: Desiree Davila Inspires Us All At The 2011 Boston Marathon She had the entire press room and Alberto Salazar yelling for her.
LRC: Men's Post-Race Reaction The top 4 were all pleased with their blazing fast times. Ryan Hall summed up the magical day: "I am running 2:04 pace and I can't even see the leaders."
LRC: 2011 Boston Marathon Post-Race Reaction From Desiree, Caroline And Kara

*Video Highlights *Men's Post-Race Reaction/Interviews *Women's Post-Race Comments/Interviews
*Photos

Webb Coaching Search

Not So Fast: LRC Julia Webb: Alan Webb HAS NOT FINALIZED PLANS To Head Back To Virginia To Be Coached By Jason Vigilante
Steve Nearman Stands Behind His Story
Steve Nearman
, the former Washington Times reporter who first broke the story about Webb's pro contract in 2002, reported Wednesday night that sources (plural) close to Webb confirmed that Alan was going to be coached by UVA's Jason Vigilante and we said, "Nearman can be trusted." Well, Nearman is trusted in the industry, but Alan's wife Julia Webb has written and said, "Just wanted to give you a heads up that the story is definitely not true ... we are still looking at the options. No decisions made although Vig (is) still a good option." We contacted Nearman and relayed him Julia's comments and he said, "I stand by my story and I stand by my sources."
*RRW: Alan Webb's Agent Ray Flynn Calls Webb Story "Totally Bogus" In reality, Flynn said the story is "at this stage totally bogus."
*LRC MB: *Julia Webb (Alan's wife) Has Written and Said Webb to UVA Story is Not Accurate *Thread On Webb-Vig

  • LRC: Desiree Davila Looking For Respect In Boston Davila finished one spot behind Kara Goucher at the last World Championships in the marathon, and she's hoping to finally get out of Kara's shadow at Monday's Boston Marathon. LetsRun.com has spent the last six years getting a mole into the Hansons-Brooks team, and now thanks to him we have this inside look at Desiree's preparations for Boston, which has included a 123-mile week. Article and video interview plus some video of the Hansons-Brooks training runs.

South African Champs *Results (Scroll Down)

2011 World XC *Results *New Women's Race Photos *New Men's Race Photos

LRC: Shalane Flanagan Gets Bronze The Olympic bronze medallist and ING NYC Marathon runner-up ran a stellar race to snatch the bronze versus a star-studded field. Flanagan appeared to be dropped with 2km to go, but dug deep to stay in contention and battle back for the bronze. World 5,000m champ Vivian Cheruiyot pulled away from World 10,000m champ Linet Masai for gold. The American women did very well to get a repeat bronze medal.

Men: Imane Merga Blasts Away From Four Kenyans In Sprint To Win The Kenyan men dominated the team competition and had 4 of the top 5 guys in the pack for the sprint the final 400m. However, the lone Ethiopian - Imane Merga, the Diamond League 5,000m champion - got the win the Kenyan nation wants most every year. Ben True was the first American in 36th, as he and fellow Ivy Leaguer Max King were America's two best.
*Merga: "Before I used to think of myself as a track runner but this winter I have got to like cross-country races more."
*Craig Mottram Finishes As Top Non-Afrrican Born Male In 21st As Two Guys Ahead Of Him Are DQed For Fighting In Race To Line Eritrea's Samuel Tsegay and Ethiopia's Abera Kuma were given the DQ.

Junior Boys: Geoffrey Kipsang Leads Kenya To 13th Straight Title Kipsang was only 4th at the Kenyan Trials but dominated. High schooler Craig Lutz was the first American in 29th.

Junior Girls: Faith Kipyegon Of Kenya Wins, But Ethiopia Edges Them For Team Title High schooler Aisling Cuffe was the first American in 17th.

Other Nationals *NCAA D3 Champs *NCAA D2 Champs *HS Nationals Results *Photos

HS: Lukas V. Runs Away From The Top Milers To Complete Historic High School Nationals Triple His double on Sunday was super-impressive, but we had completely forgotten about German Fernandez's 4:00, 8:34 double at the California state meet.
*IAAF Article On Verzbicas

We Wrote This Article Too Soon:
Gerry Lindgren's Legendary 47-Year-Old High School National Record Survives Scare From Lukas Verzbicas And Edward Cheserek Verzbicas hammered home over the final lap to pull away from Cheserek, but in the end, Lindgren's 8:40.0 lived to see another day, as Verzbicas ran 8:40.70 and Cheserek shattered the indoor and overall sophomore class records with his 8:42.66. More: Gerry Lindgren 8:40 Indoors *LRC MB Lukas V. 8:40.7!! *LRC MB So close *Running Times Q&A With Lindgren About His 8:40.0 Note: This article incorrectly implies the record was set in a 16-lap race.
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Lucas Verzbicas (14:06.78) & (Waverly Neer) 16:35.15 Set National HS 5,000 Records

Tokyo Marathon: A Legend Is Born *Photos

Hailu Mekonnen Wins, Japanese Amateur Yuki Kawauchi Runs Amazing 2:08:37 For 3rd And Faints At Finish Yuki Kawauchi's story is amazing. A 13:59 5ker and 29:02 10ker, he has a full-time job and has stayed away from the Japanese collegiate and professional system, yet he stunned all of Japan with a 2:08:37 run. Dreams do become reality.
*On The Boards: 13:59 5k, 29:02 10k Japanese AMATEUR Runs 2:08:37 at Tokyo Marathon and Passes Out

Records For Rupp And Farah *Video Of Rupp's And Farah's Race

Galen Rupp & Mo Farah Set National 5k Records! (13:11.44 and 13:10.60) The two Alberto Salazar-coached athletes put on a brave battle, with Farah coming out on top on the last lap, as Rupp regained his American record from Bernard Lagat by .06. Rupp and Farah will be training together through 2012 and their partnership is off to a strong start. Rupp is scheduled to go for the American 10k record next week in New Zealand. The meet also saw a cool 400m hurdles race (video here or on the right), an 8:30 3k and American Morgan Uceny going sub-2:00 in the 800.
*Mo Farah Breaks British 5,000m Record With His New Coach Alberto Salazar One Of The 8,000 In Attendance Telegraph.co.uk
*Farah Credits Salazar's Coaching
*Rupp/Farah 5k Video

The 10 Best High School XC Runners Ever

LRC Week That Was: The 10 Best High School XC Runners Of All Time, Verzbicas, Tribute To Gary Reed, The NY Times & The NE Patriots And More We've got the entire running world covered from San Diego to Japan, from the high school ranks to the pros, and even talk about the NE Patriots and the NY Times.

Final 200m Of Men's Mile At Drake (More Coverage Of Mile Here)

Robby Andrews Outkicks Casimir Loxsom At Penn

Week In Review

LRC Week That Was: Praise For Kara And Desiree, Dirt Tracks In America, German Fernandez And Mental Barriers As you recover from Boston and London and get ready for Penn, Drake, and Stanford, we have some praise for Kara Goucher and Desiree Davila's sportsmanship, look at some young American milers struggling, and much more.

Better Late Than Never - London 2011 Photos

XC Running Goes Mainstream

Recommended Read

Andrew Bumbalough Thriving In 1st Year As Pro One Year After Getting Mono And Nearly Being Left Out Of Nike's Plans This is an unbelievably good piece of writing for a college newspaper. It also reveals he's gotten his mileage up to 90 per week from 65 to 70 in college.

Boston (Updated Photo Gallery Below) *Recap Analysis: *JK On The Wind *Wejo On Desiree *Rojo *London And Boston *Video Highlights

2:03:02 In Boston: Men's Highlights From Boston (More Here)

Desiree Davila Pure Guts

Emmanual Mutai Becomes A Star, Legend Martin Lel Outkicks Makau (You Can Watch The Full Race Here)

Mary Keitany Crushes London (Highlights And Post Race Comments)

Desiree Davila Ready For Boston (More In-Depth Here)

Question Of The Day?

Can Blanka Vlasic dunk??

Train Smarter (More In The Training Forum)

Women's World XC In Photos

Men's World XC In Photos

Train Smarter (More In The Training Forum)

Training Talk Is Back

Training Talk With New Marathon Star Stephanie Rothstein And Ben Bruce Stephanie lowered her marathon PR by over 10 minutes, skipping the 2:30s entirely, running 2:29:35 in Houston. And she's still got her sights on lowering it another 10 minutes. Textual recap coming later, but you can listen above or download the podcast here (1:30).

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Relive Men's NCAAs: *Recap *Results *Photos *New (2nd Photo Album Added Here)

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