April 30, 2015 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For April 30, 2015

Quote Of The Day

“The first thing that I noticed (about Iowa) was the weather. Kenya is like 70’s all the time. I still remember my first day when I came here it was during the winter and it was like 80 in Kenya. When I came here it was maybe like five degrees outside. On that first day I came here I called my dad and told him that I wanted to come back home. He asked me what was going wrong and I told him that I wasn’t going to stay in this kind of cold anymore.”

– NCAA 800 indoor champ Edward Kemboi of Iowa State talking about his first days in America.

Week That Was

WTWLarry Bird's Underwater Treadmill, Why The Slow 4 X Mile At Penn Rocked, Masters Dopers, Tadese's Latest Excuse, And The Annie Leblanc Train Keeps Gathering Steam

What a week it was with London, Boston, Drake and Penn. Annie LeBlanc kept rolling at Penn, we’ve got an excuse for Zersenay Tadese, we tell you why so many of you hate sit and kick races, talk Larry the Legend‘s underwater treadmill, masters doping and more.
*DailyRelay’s Penn And Drake Recap
*DailyRelay’s 26 Thoughts On The 2015 London Marathon
*10 Reasons Why The Drake Relays Are Popular

Photo Galleries: LondonBoston*BAA 5k American Records

Random News

Dude, Where’s My Car?Man Running Manchester Marathon Forgets Where He Parked And Doesn’t Find His Car For 9 Days A stranger actually found it for him after it appeared on the local news.
Epic Fail:Race Official At Glass City Marathon In Toledo Sends Race Leader The Wrong Way, Costing Her An Olympic Trials Qualifying Mark Samantha Bluske still won in 2:47:20, but ran about an extra mile, thereby missing the 2:43 standard.
Bravo: Local Restaurant Tries To Help Save UNCW Track Team Even before the restaurant fundraiser, the team had saved $150,000 of their $250,000 goal.
Wonder What He Thought Of The 4 X Mile? Reports Say Vice President Joe Biden Was At Penn Relays

More Weekend Distance Results

On The Roads:Former World XC Champ Japhet Korir Wins 10K In Würzburg In 27:47 While Caroline Chepkemoi Wins Women’s Race In 32:36James Rungara wins half in Nice, France in 60:12; Ednah Kimaiko wins women’s race in 70:45.
Japan Running News Weekend Track Round-Up: Kenyan William Malel Runs World-Leading 27:42 10,000
Elisha Barno Wins Kentucky Derby Festival Half Marathon In 1:01:44Pius Nyantika was 2nd in 1:01:46. Askale Merachi won the women’s race (72:08) while HS pro Alana Hadley ran for 3rd (1:18:43).
Yuki Kawauchi Wins Sado Toki Half Marathon In 66:14
IAAF Recap: Kenya And South Africa Impress At African Youth Championships The 3,000 titles were taken by (a different) Emily Chebet (9:10) and Davies Kiplangat (7:56).
Adam Roach And Malia Crouse Win Big Sur International Marathon

NCAA Stuff

Blogger Defends Edward Cheserek’s 4 X Mile Tactics: “The Leader’s Dilemma”
Ken Goe: “Count the Penn Relays 4 x Mile as a lesson learned for the Oregon Ducks.”
Top NCAA Marks In Each Event From The Weekend
Teams Shift Dramatically In Updated D1 Rankings:Texas A&M Men Stay #1, But Southern California Women Move To #1 As Texas A&M Drops To 9th
USTFCCCA: Clarification On Demi Payne’s Collegiate Pole Vault Record Long story short, it counts even though it broke some random rules.

London Women ResultsVideo Highlights

Women LRCForget About Kenyan “Fantastic Four;” Ethiopia And Tigist Tufa Reign Supreme In London The “Fantastic Four” and “Fabulous Five” got all the pre-race love but Tufa, a 25-1 longshot, was patient this time and got the win over Mary Keitany in 2:23:22.

Paula Radcliffe's Final Competitive Marathon Paula Radcliffe Has Emotional Goodbye To Competive Running Video of Paula’s finish, interview with her, and article. Recommended read/watch.

LRC Video Highlights Of 2015 London Marathon
*RRW: Recap *IAAF

Payton Jordan Is This Weekend But NOP Won’t Be There *Entries

MB: This 2015 Payton Jordan Entry List IS STACKED!! ~~Rupp in the 5k!!~~
MB: NOP pulls out of Payton Jordan
MB: ~~Cain~~ vs Cranny vs Efraimson Payton Jordan

Irish Opinion Piece: Martin Fagan Has Served His Time, But Rio Appearance Would Insult Clean Athletes Fagan recently ran a 2:16:09 marathon in Zurich and so far is the only Irishman with the Olympic standard. Having him on the line in 2016 doesn’t sit well with this author, though.

2015 Penn RelaysSchedule / Start Lists / Results TV / Streaming

MB: Official 2015 Penn Relays Live Discussion Thread

Saturday: LRC Villanova’s Jordan Williamsz Takes Down Oregon’s Edward Cheserek In Riveting But Bizarre Men’s 4 X Mile At 2015 Penn Relays The opening legs were hot. The Penn Relays record was within striking distance. A 3:55 would equal a sub-16. The winning time was 16:18. We tell you what happened.

LRC Georgia Tech (Men) And Villanova (Women) Win 4 X 800 Titles

IAAF: USA Men Show Off Slick Baton Passes To Win Penn Relays 4 X 100 Over Jamaica

Friday: LRCVillanova’s Jordan Williamsz Made Him Work For It, But In The End, Oregon And Edward Cheserek Win The Men’s DMRWilliamsz got the stick one second down but only ran .50 faster than King Ches.
*Phillly.com: Williamsz On Ches: “He’s good, man. He’s real good.”

LRC Stanford Women Win Women’s 4 X 1,500 Title At 2015 Penn Relays After Elise Cranny Breaks Things Open On Leg #3

LRC Full Coverage

2015 IAAF World Relays Are Sat./Sun.

W4 X 800:LRCThe U.S. Has A Great Chance To Defend Its Crown The US is the most dominant 800 nation in the world. Want proof? We’ve got it.

M4 X 8: LRC Men’s 4 X 800: Can The U.S. (Or Poland) Upset Favored Kenya? Can Team USA upset Team Kenya, which nearly coughed up a huge lead last year? If you were the Team USA coach, who would you anchor? Robby Andrews or Duane Solomon?

Marathon News

2015 BOA Chicago Marathon Lottery Acceptances Announced – 2015 Chicago Marathon By The Numbers 36% of lottery entrants got in. 15% of the field were guaranteed to charities.
Athletics Weekly Editor Says London Is The Best Marathon “In my view, the race has clearly the best elite fields, the best course, the best and most enthusiastic crowds and the best organisation,” said Steve Smythe, who is a bit biased as he’s run it 34 times.
Man Runs 2:29 In London Dressed As Spider-Man
*MB: Man – i mean moron – ran 2015 London Marathon in 2:28 dressed as superman

Distance Updates

Athletics Kenya To Name Beijing World Marathon Team Next Week
Phoebe Wright Blogs About A Solid Third Place Finish In The Drake Relays 800 Wright has struggled in recent years and said she “forgot what it feels like to run well.” Here, her 2:01.65 time wasn’t super fast, but she got a lot of scalps and won a big (both in size and amount) check.
Running Times Q&A With Leah O’Connor, Who Says “I’m Just Now Falling In Love With Running” O’Connor talks about how she got her start in running, making big improvements and becoming a steepler, and goals for this year including making Worlds.
Good Read:Kyle Merber Blogs About Training In Flagstaff This Winter Reads more like a story than a blog.
Extensive Gary Cohen Q&A With US 1980 Olympic Marathon Team Member (The Year We Boycotted) Benji Durden Benji talks about finishing 3rd in 2:09:57 at the 1983 Boston Marathon behind 2 Americans, the 1980 Olympic boycott and more.

Sprint Stuff

Q&A With Carl Lewis On His Botched National Anthem Rendition In 1993, Jamaican Doping, State Of US Sprinting Lewis on the entitlement culture of student-athletes today: “We’ve got kids now who are used to getting rewards for mediocrity.”
Carl Lewis’s Son Graduates From Basic Combat Training Apparently he struggled with the physical training when it came to pushups/situps, but then blew everyone away in the run (he did 2 miles in under 13 minutes).
Fox News Profile On Top US Hurdler Aleec Harris: “From Troubled Teen To Olympic Hopeful”
Former Top Jamaican 400 Runners Fear Lack Of Training Knowledge Is Hurting The Future Of Top High Schoolers Former Jamaican Olympians say that coaches overtrain their 400m runners.
Jamaican Columnist Proclaims Sherone Simpson Is “Back” After Dealing With Career Of “Adversity” Two weeks ago she pushed Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 200, finishing only .01 behind.

Post-London News

Wilson Kipsang Says Eliud Kipchoge Beat Him Because He Has More Fat “Towards the last kilometre, Eliud was a bit stronger than me because I couldn’t resist the cold. Since I have less fat, it was not easy to resist such a pace in such conditions …”
Eliud Kipchoge: “A champion is not made when he succeeds, a champion is made when you look back at the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months he has spent preparing.”
Tigist Tufa Will Use Her $70,000 In Prize Money To Buy A Car And Help Her Family
Kipchoge Plans Low-Key Celebrations In Kenya “I’ve won races a lot over the last couple of years and I am a low-key person so there will be no big celebrations.”
Some Bizarre Events / Costumes From The London Marathon
*More Crazy Costumes From London
The Telegraph: “Why The Best Sports Stars Struggle To Retire” We’re glad Paula Radcliffe got to go out with one last run.
How Did Celebrities Do At The London Marathon
Video:Runner Stops To Propose To His Girlfriend During The London Marathon

Upcoming Mid-D Action

Non-London Road Action

Despite Fall, Annie Bersagel Wins Dusseldorf Marathon In New PR Of 2:28:29Marius Ionescu of Romania won the men’s race in 2:13:19.
Lucas Rotich (2:07:17) And Meseret Hailu (2:25:41) Win Hamburg Marathon Titles
Ethiopia’s Hayle Lemi Berhanu Takes Warsaw Marathon In 2:07:57 As Top 6 Finish Within 32 Seconds Of Each Other Ethiopian Fatuma Sado won the women’s race in 2:26:25.
Kenya’s Ezekiel Kiptoo Chebii (2:12:00) And Monica Jepkoech (2:33:42) Win Rock ‘N’ Roll Madrid Marathon
Kenyans Ernest Ngeno (2:11:47) And Helena Kiprop (2:31:36) Win Yellow River Estuary Marathon In China

2015 Drake Relays ResultsFriday Results On 1 Page*Des Moines Reg Special Section

Saturday: LRC Leo Manzano Turns The Tables On Matthew Centrowitz, Wins Men’s Mile At Drake AJ Acosta was third.

IAAF: Jasmin Stowers Highlights Non-Distance Action With 12.40 100H Win Over Dawn Harper Nelson PV WR holder Renaud Lavillenie only finished 3rd as Sam Kendricks and Shawn Barber tied for 1st. Francena McCorory ran a 50.13 WL 400, ahead of Sanya Richards-Ross by almost a full second. Will Claye got a WL in the TJ.
*Saturday Quotes

Friday: LRC Ajee Wilson Takes Down Brenda Martinez For $20,000, King James Beats Michael Johnson’s Meet Record, Loyola (Ill) Upsets Arkansas

Full Coverage

Jamaican Sprint Stuff

Usain Bolt Trying To Improve His Fitness Through Diet “I haven’t had KFC for about four months, which is killing me.”
Ato Boldon Interviews Yohan Blake, Who Says That Training Is Going Well In 2015 As He Comes Back From Injury “I love the sport. You really feel the weight when you’re watching from the stands when you know you can be out there winning a medal.”

Feature On Anthony Rotich’s Quest For 3rd Straight NCAA Crown He’d be only the 3rd man in history to win 3 straight. He wants to open at sub-8:30 next week at Stanford.

Feel-Good Post-Boston Stories

The Search For A Better Running Shoe

LRCThe Most Popular Running Shoe On LetsRun.com Is … Not Made Anymore … The Nike Pegasus+ 30Thousands of you filled out our detailed running shoe survey in the fall and more of you ran in the Nike Pegasus+30 than any other shoe. Only problem is all of you need to find a new shoe, help us out below:

LRCThe Improved LRC Running Shoe Survey Is Back – Three Minutes To A Better Running ShoeThe running shoe buying process sucks and we want to improve it with data. We took your reviews from the fall, made a running shoe beta site, and have improved our survey to ask you what shoe your previously ran in. We now need more reviews from you on the latest shoes.

US Distance News

Caroline Rotich gets feted by Santa Fe Mayor and parade, meanwhile thieves were stealing her purse!!
Meet Alexa Efraimson’s training partner McKayla FrickerFricker was a DII champ at Seattle Pacific last year in a pb of 2:06.18 but is thriving with Efraimson and just ran 2:03.
Former Harvard/New Mexico runner Sammy Silva joins Bowerman TC

Doping News

Runner’s World Calculates That Liliya Shobukhova’s Doping Cost Irina Mikitenko $530,000 And Edna Kiplagat $507,000 Of course, this assumes they themselves were/are clean (no reason to say they aren’t).
EPO Cheat Wilson Erupe’s Bid For Korean Citizenship Is Causing Controversy In Korea No one seems concerned he’s an EPO cheat – rather that he is Kenyan.
Isaiah Kiplagat Plans To Make The Fight Against Doping A Top Priority If Elected VP Of IAAF The sport is in serious trouble if this guy gets elected.

Sprint News

Usain Bolt’s Buildup To The Rio 2016 Olympic Games And His Planned Retirement In 2017 Is Set To Be Made Into A Feature-Length Documentary
Adam Gemili Says It’s Absurd To Think That An Arsenal Footballer Is Faster Than Richard Kilty, Let Alone Usain Bolt “If they were to actually have a race then Kilty would breeze it. The Arsenal guys would have no chance.”
After “Rest Year” In 2014, Christine Ohuruogu Relishes Return To Hard Graft As Briton Prepares To Defend 400m World Title In Beijing She purposely didn’t take the whole year off but was only at “half” of her normal fitness by design: “With the 400m you can’t have complete time off. Too much rest is a bad thing.”
Sanya Richards-Ross And Allyson Felix Will Clash In 400 At Pre Classic
Usain Bolt Will Race 200m In Ostrava On May 26th

Doping News

Liliya Shobukhova Doping Hearing Cancelled By CAS The IAAF was appealing to make her 2-year ban a 4-year ban, but reports are saying that the IAAF and Russian athletics federation reached an out-of-court settlement.
Jamaican Opinion Piece Arguing For Lifetime Drug Bans In The Wake Of Usain Bolt’s Comments Against Ban Reductions “… I do also believe that every mentally competent individual works out the cost or benefit of whatever action he or she contemplates …”
WADA Has Set Up Online Site For Whistleblowers To Report Information About Doping In Russia
WADA To Monitor Russian Lab Work During World Swimming Championships

The 2nd Annual World Relay Championships Are This Weekend *Entries

$1.4 Million In Prize Money Up For Grabs At World Relays In The Bahamas
Provisional Entry Lists
St. Kitts And Nevis Names World Relays Squad Former world champ Kim Collins was offered a spot on the team, but turned it down.
Blessing Okagbare Leads Nigeria Team
669 Athletes, 43 Countries For 2nd World Relays

Training Talk

Interesting Look At The Difference In Training Between Sprint- And Endurance-Based 800 Runners Includes quotes and example workouts from Phoebe Wright (sprint/speed) and Heather Kampf (endurance/strength).
Running Form Analysis Of The Elites At The Boston Marathon Could have some small arm swing changes have changed the outcome of the race?

IAAF Personal Bests Q&A With TJ World Champ Caterine Ibarguen In this interview series, she’s probably the 100th athlete to name “herself” for the question about her “greatest rival.” However, in this case we think it was the right answer since she hasn’t been beaten since 2012.

2015 Virgin Money London MarathonResults Video Highlights

Men LRC London Lives Up To The Hype As Eliud Kipchoge Takes Down Wilson Kipsang In Final Mile To Win In 2:04:42 (updated with QTs) This one was packed with drama as with 5 miles to go, it was down to the Big Three of Kipchoge, Kipsang and WR holder Dennis Kimetto plus ’14 runner-up Stanley Biwott. After a 4:33 25th mile, it was Kipchoge vs. Kipsang and after a 4:33 26th mile, Kipchoge was the winner – Kipsang finally breaking with 800 to go.

LRC Did You Miss The Break In The Men’s Race At The 2015 London Marathon? The Mystery Behind The One Minute Of Missing TV Coverage Explained

London On The Boards:

Bruce Jenner Sex Change

Bruce Jenner Says His “Brain Is More Female Than It Is Male” Jenner talks about reaction from his family, not being gay, and sexual reassignment surgery. “I’m not this bad person. I’m just doing what I have to do.”
Bruce Jenner: “For all intents and purposes, I’m a woman.”
Bruce Jenner Interview Gets “Mixed Bag” Of Reactions
Billie Jean King To Bruce Jenner: “We learn from you to be courageous.”

Sprint Drama: Bolt Calls Out Gay

Usain Bolt Has Harsh Words For Tyson Gay; Says He Thinks Gay Should Be “Kicked Out Of The Sport” “It really bothers me. … I think it’s because I respected him so much over the years. He was a competitor, kept me on my toes … Then to find out that he was on drugs – it’s a bit like I think parents must feel when they have a kid who does something bad and lets them down.”
Justin Gatlin Says Tyson Gay Deserves Second Chance After Doping Ban “Everyone should give a second chance, but everyone is also entitled to their opinion.” Gatlin also has some good quotes about retirement/getting the most out of his career.
Usain Bolt And Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Lead Jamaican Team For World Relay Champs