Inside The Mind Of A Champion

"I never finish unless I will finish in the top 3. If I anticipate ahead of time that I will not be top 3, I quit. That is my philosophy."

- Defending Boston champ Deriba Merga, who bailed on his only 2 races in 2010.

Boston's Coming Monday *LRC Men's Preview *Women's Preview *Men Bios *Women Bios

U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Men's Marathon Latest: 36% Of LetsRun Voters Pick Hall For The Win In Boston

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Wise Meb Says He Thinks He Has A Shot Some think Meb is gonna DNF and some think he's gonna win.

*Beatable:
Deriba Merga Says Family Troubles At Home Mean He's Not Fully Fit

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Profile Of Little-Known Ethiopian Chala Dechase, Who Challenged Gebrselassie In Dubai American fans, if Dechase or Gilbert Yegon win, don't say we didn't warn you.

LRC Ryan Hall On The Boston Course
Ryan sported a full beard when he arrived in Boston, but has now shaved it off and even ran with royalty on the Boston course - Bill Rodgers. Videos of 2 of Hall's workouts on the course.
*RRW: Ryan Hall Hopes Extra Practice On Course Will Bring Boston Success

LetsRun.com's John Hancock Boston Marathon Preview - Men We pick our top 5 (although it's down to 4, as Evans Cheruiyot has pulled out) contenders and give you the lowdown on the field. Are they trying to set this thing up for Meb or Hall to win? You be the judge.
*Profile Of Little-Known Ethiopian Chala Dechase, Who Challenged Gebrselassie In Dubai American fans, if Dechase or Gilbert Yegon win, don't say we didn't warn you.

113th Boston MarathonLetsRun.com Previews The Boston Marathon - Women Elite
It's a rematch in Boston between the top two 2009 finishers. Salina Kosgei hopes to repeat her 1-second sprint margin that left 2010 co-favorite Dire Tune crumpled on the finishing mat ... but don't count on it. Throw in the 2-time defending Houston champ and a relative unknown dark horse and Boston's got a decent field in a time where there aren't very many fast women's marathoners.
*LetsRun.com Boston Marathon Women's Elite Biographies

More From Beantown
*One Male Elite Caught In Europe In Volcano Ash Delays - Moroccan Abdellah Falil
*Boston Globe On How Marathon Has Evolved

All Eyes On Ryan Hall - Media Day
*Coach Terrence Mahon Talks About New Strategy Of Ryan Hall It's interesting to see how much Team Hall have changed things up for Boston.
*Ryan Hall Describes His Big 3 x 5-Mile Workout On The Course

*Antonio Vega Talks With Running Times Leading Up To Boston Vega: "For some reason, I always had a feeling that things were going to work out exactly as I wanted them to work out - like now."
*Hear From Meb's Coach Bob Larsen Larsen is full of praise for Meb Keflezighi, saying despite a yoga knee injury that hampered training, he wouldn't be running Boston if he didn't think he could run well.
*Boston Globe Investigates Lack Of Depth In Elite US Women Marathoners Tons of women are running marathons, but not too many are training all-out to beat the East Africans.

LetsRun.com Training Talk With F-M Coach Bill Aris

LRC Learn From The Best We talked to one of the top HS coaches in the land, Bill Aris. Aris is the coach of 4-time National Champions girls Manlius XC and the original Stotans of '04, the boys team that finished 2nd at the inaugural NXN. Aris talks about magically motivating his HS runners to do magical things, his new pro team and whether or not his prodigy Alex Hatz will go sub-4:00 this spring. Plus, he discusses the runner who may be more talented than Lopez Lomong, what he thinks about people who criticize successful HS runners who struggle in college, and more. We've transcribed the 90-minute podcast into 4 parts if you don't want to listen to it all.
*Page 1: Introduction, What is the Stotan Lifestyle, Percy Cerutty, The Process is the Goal, and There is No #1 Runner
*Page 2: Getting Kids to Buy Into the Program, Logistics of Running a High School Program, What to Do With People New to Running, Weekly Mileage
*Page 3: (No Magic) Workouts, Strength Training and Doubles, Collegiate Success, and Running as a Part of Life
*Page 4: Stotan Racing Team, Lopez Lomong vs. Dominic Luca, Alex Hatz and the Sub-4 Quest

LetsRun.com - Getting Kids Through Grad School 1 At A Time

Attention RDs: Survey On Trends In Event Sponsorship

A Little Love For Ultras

*Ultra Marathon Amputee Wins Sullivan Award For America's Top Amateur Athlete
*Photos From Marathon Des Sables Across Sahara In Morocco

London Loses Lel - Still Has Major Star Power

Flora London Marathon Abel Kirui Aims For Virgin London Marathon Course Record With this year's field, it's hard to imagine the record won't go down.

Martin Lel Pulls Out Of 2nd Straight London
Injury problems continue to hamper the man who won London 3 times and dominated the major marathoning world for years.

London Talk On The Boards: Tadesse will destroy Geb's Marathon WR Can the man who a few weeks ago ran a 58:22 WR for the half marathon break Sammy Wanjiru's marathon stranglehold?

International News

HS News ...

*Sisson Will Run Drake 5,000.
Boards React: *Sisson barred...who does the MHSAA think they are? The AAU?
*HS Star Emily Sisson Barred From Senior Season By Missouri Athletic Assoc For Running Nike Indoors Since Nike Nationals isn't a USATF sanctioned meet and Sisson chose to run anyway, the World Junior XC team member and 4-time Foot Locker finalist lost her senior spring ineligibility.

Video: 16 HSers Break 9 At Arcadia 3,200
*Boards: 17 boys under 9 in the 3,200!

Kids Running Laps To Save Their School In Chicago The century-old school needs $1.8 million or else it's shutting its doors next year.

Update: Letter From "The Standard"

*Update: "The Standard" writer/editor wrote to apologize and say the paper accidentally edited out a credit to LetsRun.com.
*Nairobi, Kenya's "The Standard" Blatantly Plagiarizes LetsRun.com's Rotterdam Recap The last 2/3 of the piece was written by us and used by them with no mention of LetsRun.

Spanning The Globe - South America, Europe And Africa

Photo: Alene Reta Wins Santiago Marathon With Stray Dog Running Alongside
*Message Boards: Alene Reta at it again

Kenyan Official: South Africa Misses African Athletics Championships Entry Deadline
*ASA Says Relax, Entries Are Not Due Until July

IAAF Mourns Losses In Polish Air Tragedy

Recent Photo Galleries

*LRC Photos From the Carlsbad 5,000
*LRC Rotterdam Marathon Photo Gallery
*"Classic" Usain Bolt Photo Gallery From Jamaica In 2006 

Sanya Richards(-Ross) 800m Debut

2:10.74 According to this thread, that is what she ran in high school on 4 x 800s.

Vienna City Marathon Live Stream 2:40am Eastern

LRC Eddy Lee Does It! Becomes Most Famous Sub-4 1,500m Male Of All Time

Update On The Other Pros

College Results

Mt. SAC *Results *Guide/How To Watch

Saturday: Results: Maggie Vessey only ran 2:06 in the 800m, as Canada's Diane Cummins got the win. Former NCAA champ Tyler Mulder won the men's 800 (meet still going at time of writing).

Friday Results:
American junior record holder Molly Huddle runs PR 15:05 to get 2nd behind Sally Kipyego in the women's invitational 5,000 and steepler Daniel Huling won the men's 5k in 13:24. The Puma Mile setup was exciting, as Derek Scott won over Liam Boylan-Pett, both in 4:00.xx, as the men caught women's leader Barbara Parker with 150m to go (Puma coverage with video).

Thursday Results: Bernard Lagat's brother and former NCAA stud Robert Cheseret could only manage 6th in his comeback, as William & Mary's Jon Grey won the 10k. Cheseret did break 29 minutes. Give him 6 weeks and we bet he's sub-28. Olympian Billy Nelson only ran 8:52 in the steeple. A current CU buff - Emma Coburn - won the women's steeple.

2010 Mt. SAC Race Video: Here (announcers, can't scroll) and Here (no announcers, can scroll to end of races).

Golden Diamond League

Bekele Not Done - Signs On For Rome Golden League
*Boards: IS KENENISA BEKELE FINISHED?

More Boston

Latest Boston Elite Press Coverage:
*Interview With Meb Keflezighi's Nutrition And Performance Coach Dr. Krista Austin Boston Globe
*Interview With Japan's Boston Entrant Yurika Nakamura
*Hall Has Our U Maine Writer Friend Convinced That A Breakthrough Is Coming And apparently the LetsRun voters!

Americans Look To Win Boston On Patriot's Day

LetsRun Favorite Günther Weidlinger Returns This Weekend

Günther Weidlinger Looking To Become First Austrian Sub-2:10 In Vienna Marathon Sunday Weidlinger (left) ran 2:10 last year at Frankfurt and now holds every Austrian record from 1,500-marathon.

Boards: Sanya Richards running 800 this weekend - predictions?

Mathathi And Mogusu To Go For Wanjiru's Japanese All-Comers Half Marathon Record In Sendai

Drug News
China Bans National Champ Sprinter And Coach For Life Over Drugs Positive It's a 4-year ban from all competition plus life ban from the national team.

Next Weekend

*NYRR, Cal Brutus Hamilton Announce Rupp, Begley, Other Top Names For Next Weekend's Races
*Bolt Will Anchor Jamaican 4 x 100 At Penn

Worlds And Olympics News

2011 Daegu Mascot Announced Daegu mascot faced with perhaps the toughest-ever mascot shoes to fill.
Only 500 Days To Go - Daegu Poster Unveiled

From Sydney - Ryan Gregson Has Sights Set On Aussie Champs, Commonwealths, Olympic 1,500 Gregson points out that Nick Willis won Olympic silver with the same PR as Aussie Jeff Riseley. Author Mike Hurst wrote us to say that Youcef Abdi should have been included in the article as a Commonwealth 1,500 medalist (bronze in 2002).

Pat Butcher Writes - Remarkable History of The Man Behind The Modern Olympic Games A good read for those interested in the history of the sport.

Obamas To Greet, Celebrate US Olympians At White House Taxpayer bill: $6.2 million (just kidding).

News From Africa

Kenyan Coaches Say Foreign Coaches Coming To Coach Kenyans Must Be Stopped
"It is high time something was done to halt this trend to enable grassroots coaches have time to grow with local runners. We cannot entrust the future of our sports men in the hands of foreigners." - John Mwangi, schools.

Jelimo And Keitany To Race Thursday In Kenya

South Africa:
*World 800m Champ Mulaudzi Gets A New Coach, Draws Praise From Hendrick Ramaala
*Semenya Can Still Run In Kenya - May Release Test Results Herself The latest news says Semenya may release her medical test results herself, which makes sense considering they are her property.

LRC's The Week That Was In Running

LRC The Week That Was This week, we break down arguably the fastest marathon in history and wonder why it's not considered a World Marathon Major, let you know how the 2010 Boston Marathon is rapidly getting weaker in quality, get free coaching advice from British great Ron Hill, take a look at the best road 5k in the world as well as the greatest 3,200 in HS history, praise Magdaleny Lewy Boulet, and much more. Along the way, our momentum in breaking down the hot spring action is interrupted as we are forced to talk about the fall marathons a bit too early.

Improving The Sport - NYRR's Lottery And Watching World XC

LRC Improving The Sport - NYC Marathon Lottery And World XC Ideas This is hopefully the first in a series of articles on what we can do to make our sport better off. Instead of just being critical, we're proposing ways to improve our sport. If you have any suggestions for our sport, please email us.