Thursday Night Football Marathoning – 2015 Dubai Marathon Is Thursday Night – Free Stream 10pm ET

Live StreamHere On LetsRun.com: Race Starts at 10pm Eastern/7pm Pacific. You’d better be watching (at least the second half).

MB:Official 2015 Dubai Marathon Live Discussion Thread The off season is officially over as Dubai has started. Discuss it live.

Women’s Preview: LRC World Half Champ Gladys Cherono (Debut), Defending Champ Mulu Seboka & CR Holder Aselefech Mergia Headline A Ridiculously Deep Field 2011 NYC champ Firehiwot Dado and five-time World XC medalist Meselech Melkamu are also entered. In total, an incredible 12 women in the field have broken 2:24 and 22 have broken 2:28.

Men’s Preview: LRC Will Kenenisa Bekele Arrive As A Marathon Force In Dubai? Or Will Countryman Lelisa Desisa Win 2nd Title In 3 Years? Only for a man named Bekele would two marathons in the 2:05 range be viewed as a disappointment. Bekele, now working with coach and LRC message board poster Renato Canova, is targeting the course record of 2:04:23 but the favorite is Desisa, who just lost out to Wilson Kipsang in New York last year and leads a group of 20 other men who have broken 2:10, including 2:04 guys Berhanu Shiferaw and Feyisa Lilesa.
*Kenenisa Bekele talks at length with Sabrina Yohannes about how he’s learning to be a marathoner
*IAAF Preview: Hermens Says Bekele Is In Best Marathon Shape Of Life, 2:04-Low Would Be A Good Result CR holder Aselefech Mergia leads the women’s entries.
*World Half Champ Gladys Cherono Confident Ahead Of Her Marathon Debut In Dubai “I know I will be facing some of the most experienced marathoners, especially from Ethiopia, but I fear nobody because I have done enough preparations.”
*3-Time Dubai Winner Haile G In Town, Running With Locals, Making Appearance For adidas
*MB: Now that’s what we call talent – Kenenisa Bekele trained for just 7 weeks – ran 2:05 in Chicago.

Today’s Russian Doping Updates

• IAAF Issues Statement That The Number Of Russian Doping Cases Is A “Major Concern” And They Are Investigating Out of the 37 athletes sanctioned by the Biological Passport system since 2009, 23 have been Russians.
• Australia’s Double Olympic Racewalk Silver Medalist Jared Tallent Calls For A Blanket Ban On Russian Athletes Tallent was beaten by a doper at both the 2008 and 2012. He is questioning why RUSADA has said that 2012 winner Sergei Kirdyapkin was clean for the Olympics, but dirty for the World Cup in May 2012. We 100% agree … if he was dirty 3 months before the Games, he was dirty at the Games.
• 2nd Article With Good Quotes From Tallent And Ireland’s Olive Loughnane Tallent: “It’s crazy, absolutely ridiculous. You can’t cherry-pick when the athlete should get the results annulled.”
• Paula Radcliffe Wants Maker Of German Documentary On Russian Doping To Come Forward To The IAAF With List Of 225 Athletes With “Suspicious” Blood Samples She says, “This makes me so mad because he won’t give it to the IAAF. The IAAF have no idea what you’re talking about.” However, we were under the impression that the list came from an IAAF employee and they knew exactly what it is.

LetsVault

LRC2012 Olympic Gold Medalist Jenn Suhr And Husband/Coach Rick Suhr Share Thoughts On The “Year Of The Vault” Since the women’s pole vault is expected to be one of the marquee events of the 2016 Olympics with hometown favorite Fabiana Murer, it’s time for you, the LRC visitor, to learn about one of the event’s biggest stars. We sat down with Jenn Suhr on Tuesday in Boston. She’ll be back there for the NBIGP and USAs this winter.

• College Recruiting Guide For Track Athletes This is a follow-up to a good post from November. While it’s audience is throwers, the advice is relevant to all athletes. A good read for high schoolers and their parents.
• USTFCCCA NCAA DI Athletes Of The Week Are New PV Record Holder Demi Payne And OSU’s John Teeters Payne broke the record set by Sandi Morris less than 24 hours earlier, becoming the first collegiate to clear 4.63m (15-2.25) indoors or out. Teeters won his 60m race in a world-leading 6.54, winning by more than half a second.

Is Cross-Country Sexist?

• RunningTimes Asks Why Men And Women Race Different Distances In XC (Even Though They Run The Same On The Track And Road) It seems to be a leftover practice from when women were seen as “weaker and slower than men” and it just hasn’t changed. While some would like to make it equal, around half of women surveyed are fine the way it is.
• Iowa Girls High School XC Races Will Now Be As Far As Boys Previously they did 4K instead of 5K. Apparently the switch came out of fear of legal action, as some states have seen inquiries from Civil Liberties groups. However, there are still six states where girls race a shorter XC distance than boys.

European News

• Iceland’s 19-Year-Old 800 Star Anita Hinriksdóttir Opens Season With World-Leading 2:02.88 She dominated the race as second place was only 2:05.29.
• AW Weekly Round-Up:UK Heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson Makes Comeback From Injury At North Of England Champs Johnson-Thompson won the LJ in 6.63m and equaled her PR in the 60H to win with 8.40. She also was 4th in the SP (12.32m). At the same meet, Adam Hague vaulted 5.51m to break his own British junior record.
• IAAF Q&A With Stanford Alum And European PV Silver Medallist Ekaterini Stefanidi Something she mentions you might not have thought about: WR holder Renaud Lavillenie is apparently overcoming a big disadvantage with his height. (He’s only 5’9″ while Sergey Bubka is 6’0″.

Ethiopians Yebrgual Arage And Birhanu Gedefa Win 2015 Chevron Houston Marathon As American Kellyn Taylor (2:28:40) Has Nice Debut

Houston Half/Full Photo Gallery

2015 Houston Half And Full Photo Gallery

Chris Derrick Says It’s A Shame The US Or European Countries Don’t Want To Host World XC Champs And That The UK Won’t Send A Full Team “I think the athletes, myself, other top Americans and Europeans need to make a commitment to show up and do it. If we’re not going to commit to it, the fans aren’t going to commit to it.”

US Women’s Distance News

• Good Q&A With Lauren Fleshman, Who Says She Wants To Run 14:50 For 5,000 In 2016 Her PR is 14:58 from 2008. This year she just wants to try to get the World standard of 15:20.
• Recommended Read:Alexi Pappas Blogs About Meeting President Obama And Her Discussion With Him On The Hard Work Vs. Talent Debate The President was on the side of talent and the meeting forced her to analyze how much of her success comes from hard work vs. talent.
• RRW: Kim Conley Goes Long To Open 2015 Season In Houston Conley has been implementing more mileage and longer workouts in preparation for the Houston Half. Last year during the winter she focused on speed, but this year it’s strength.
• This Is Why Results Of RNR Races Are Often Irrelevant:Amy Hastings Approaching PF Chang Rock ‘N’ Roll Arizona Half Like A Tempo Workout She wants to run around marathon pace and said specifically she’ll hold back from going “to the well” in this “race” as her focus is on the Boston Marathon.
• RunnerSpace Q&A With Duke Alum Juliet Bottorff Ahead Of Her Half Marathon Debut In Houston
• Heather Kampf Wins KPMG Bermuda Front Street Mile
  *Results: Heather Kamfp Wins Bermuda Road 10K
  *Jamaican Bermuda Mile Recap: UK Man David Bishop Won The Elite Race In 4:20.15

Less Than One Month Away

LRCGet Your Butt To Boulder, Colorado For The USA XC Afterparty One Month From Today