October 01, 2017 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For October 01, 2017

Quote Of The Day

“You realize why people in the western world have so much difficulty competing with these guys. These guys don’t have any Facebook or Twitter. They run in the morning, eat, sleep, run more. There are dirt roads. There was an old red dirt track, which was uneven and had plants growing out of it. Here you have the fastest (distance runner) alive, and he’s using a plastic bottle to indicate where to start (a run). It had a very ‘Rocky’ vibe.”

– Dr. Philip Skiba talking to the Chicago Tribune after visiting Eliud Kipchoge‘s training camp in Kenya. For the record, Kipchoge has both a Facebook and Twitter account.

NCAA XC *All Weekend Collegiate Action

Notre Dame: Women #1 Colorado Edges #4 New Mexico At 2017 Joe Piane Invitational Weini Kelati was 6th in her first big NCAA race as UNM went 1-2-6-8-34 and Colorado went 3-7-8-10-18.
*Brie Oakley Was 12th In Her Collegiate Debut In The Race
*Anna Rohrer Redshirt
Men: #13 Southern Utah Takes Down #4 Colorado At 2017 Joe Piane Invitational The Alabama men went 1-2-3 individually.

Louisville:#1 NAU Men Crush It By Going 1-2-3-4 #12 Furman was 2nd while #7 Wisconsin was just 8th
*Allie Ostrander and Boise State Women Win

Dellinger: Men #6 BYU DOMINATES Oregon’s Dellinger Invite With 17 Points The Cougars placed 7 in the top 10. Oregon held out 1 guy while Stanford held out a ton.
Women: Katie Rainsberger And Oregon Cruise
*How Flat Is The Course At The Bill Dellinger Invitational?

Cowboy Jamboree: Ok. State Men And Ole Miss Women Win Dave Smith said the men are ahead of where he thought they’d be. In the women’s race, Karissa Schweizer won by nearly 30 seconds.

Chile Pepper: Arkansas Men And Women Win The men’s race was 10k once again. D2 power Colorado School of Mines was 2nd in men’s race.

Paul Short: Utah State Rocks It
#24 Utah State Women, Who Came In Ranked #24, Get Upset Win Over #15 Nova And Others
*Unranked Utah State Wins Men’s Race In An Upset Over Georgetown. D2 #1 Adams State was third without star Sydney Gidabuday. Had he been up front, they might have won it.

Action That You Might Be Able To Watch Live This Weekend

Young British Stars Callum Hawkins And Andy Butchart To Clash At Sunday’s Great Scottish Run The 13.1 distance is a huge advantage for Hawkins. *Watch It On TV/Online
Meet The Two Women Who Are Currently Trying To Break The Record For Fastest Run Across The USA – Is Anyone Watching Them?

Next Month 46-Year-Old Catherine Watkins Will Go For Canada’s 45+ Marathon Record Of 2:40:20 In Toronto In 3 Weeks

Interesting Non-Elite Running News

Recommended Read:The Seven Pillars Of Running Wisdom Hutchinson summarizes “seven key messages” around running science and training that can help you become a better runner.
*MB:Alex Hutchinson is leaving Runner’s World, last column released today
2018 Boston Entrants Had To Be 3 Minutes And 23 Seconds Faster Than Their Age-Group Standard To Get In This is a lot faster than the 2:09 under you needed in 2017.
*Runner’s World: Boston Marathon Hopefuls Celebrate, Bemoan Their Fortune on Social Media
*MB:BQ – 3:23 gets accepted for 2018
Woman Rolls Her Way To A BQ Time After Collapsing After a fall at 18 miles, the woman’s legs finally gave out near the finish, so she rolled her way in to 3:34:02. (Includes video.)
*Good Morning America Clip
Florida “Mermaid Race” Bashed With Complaints After A Late Start, Inaccurate Course, Inadequate Water In 90 Degree Heat, And Non-Safe Highway Crossings Apparently the race director never even obtained a permit to hold the event.

Anti-Doping Updates

Moscow Court Issues International Arrest Warrant For Russian Doping Whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov The criminal case against Rodchenkov was for “abuse of office” as Russian authorities have blamed him for the doping scandals and accused him of lying about the state ran operation at Sochi 2014. *InsideTheGames article
Paris 2024 President Claims Paris Anti-Doping Lab Will Be Back In Operation Within Six Months After WADA Suspended Them Yesterday Apparently the lab, famous for developing the technology to detect EPO, was suspended because they had two tests which were false positives.
Athletics Kenya Introduces “Anti-Doping Day” On November 2nd To Teach Athletes About The “Dangers Of Doping”
WADA President Craig Reedie Suggests Revamped System To Sanction Non-Compliant Governments

Fall Marathon Review

Interesting:Q&A With BMW Head Of Sports Marketing Strategy, Who Explains Why Marathon Sponsorship Beats Soccer First reason: One out of four BMW customers is an active runner.
Former WR Holder Patrick Makau Argues That Having Three All-Time Greats At Berlin Was Actually Counterproductive For The WR Makau felt that having all three in the race put too much pressure on them individually.
Eliud Kipchoge Doing A Post-Berlin Nike Promotional Tour In Asia Also, in celebration of his Berlin win, 100 pairs of Kipchoge’s Nike Air Zoom Vaporfly Elite shoes were made available in Germany.
Two-Time Boston Champ Moses Tanui Wants The IAAF To Investigate The Warsaw Marathon After Recho Kosgei Collapsing Episode*Kosgei Video

UK News

Laura Muir Welcomes 5,000m Rivalry With Eilish McColgan McColgan took the Scottish 5,000 record from Muir at the Brussels DL last month and Muir expects the record to change hands back and forth many times in the future.
October 1:Callum Hawkins To Defend His Great Scottish Run Title After Becoming The First Scot To Win Since 1983 Hawkins will face GB’s World 5,000 8th placer Andrew Butchart in his half marathon debut.
RunBlogRun:Catching Up With Chris O’Hare After A Solid 2017 O’Hare admits that his Scottish accent has become diluted since he moved to the US for college in 2009. “Oklahoma is a hard place to have an accent. It didn’t take me long to lose it.”
European Athletics:Dina Asher-Smith On Track For A Duel With Dafne Schippers At The 2018 European Champs In Berlin Asher-Smith will have her work cut out for her as Schippers’ PR is .44 faster and in the six times they’ve met over 200m, Schippers has won them all.

Justin Gatlin Won’t Take A Knee

Justin Gatlin Says He’ll Stand For National Anthem If He Wins An Exhibition In Brazil This Week Racism exists but Gatlin’s dad was in the Army for 26 years.

Interesting News From Japan

Japan’s Yuta Shitara Wants To Run Another Marathon Real Soon – Maybe Before The End Of The Year (Fukuoka?) We think that’s foolish and think Tokyo would make more sense but his twin brother (with PRs of 13:40/27:52/61:12) is doing Fukuoka. “I’m the kind of guy who likes to race a lot. I get kind of lazy if there’s too much space on my calendar.”
Japan’s 100th Ekiden Season Will Begin On October 9th – It Looks Like Tokai University Is Set To Dominate Tokai is coached by Hayashi Morozumi, Suguro Osako‘s HS coach, who focuses on XC type training.

And Elsewhere:

Meet Greg Duplantis: Pole Vault Coach, Former US Olympian And Father To Mondo He says 5.90m surprised him in 2017 and that they’ll be more “selective” in their competitions in 2018.
Man Who Runs Marathons With Palestinian Flag Is Denied A Tourist Visa For Chicago Marathon And he’d already purchased his tickets.
Which DL Meets Had The Most (Zurich) And Least (Stockholm) WC Medalists?

News Relating To Kenya

Great Headline: Kipchoge Is So Good He “Defies The Glorious Uncertainty Of The Marathon”
It’s Official: Paul Tergat Is The President Of Kenya’s Olympic Committee Not a surprise as he was unopposed. *AFP
Paul Tergat Faces Tough Task In Restoring Image Of Kenyan Olympic Committee As He Starts Day 1 Of His Reign “We must convince our youth to look at sports as a livelihood. “
Kip Keino Had Led Kenya’s Olympic Committee Since 1999
Good Read Illinois Doc Who Worked On Breaking2 For Nike Raves About Kipchoge’s Spartan Existence “You realize why people in the western world have so much difficulty competing with these guys. These guys don’t have any Facebook or Twitter. They run in the morning, eat, sleep, run more.”
Catching Up With Benjamin Limo, Who Won Kenya’s Only Gold At 2005 Worlds On Last Day In Helsinki Retired, he’s a fixture at athletics meets when he’s not working on his dairy farm.
Back With A Bang: Former World Half Silver Medalist/Rotterdam Champ Philes Ongori Returns From 2-Year Maternity Leave And Wins Half Marathon In Kenya Two years was much deserved as she had twins.
Kenya Cahnges Its 2017 Domestic Schedule As Commonwealth Games Are In April And the African champs are in August.

Learn All About Guye Adola – Marathon’s Newest Star

LRC Unbelievable: Guye Adola – Who Just Ran The Fastest Debut Marathon In History – Claims He Didn’t Know He Was Running Berlin Until 4 Days Before The Race Learn the back story of marathon’s newest star Guye Adola, who says he only found out he was running the Berlin Marathon last Wednesday.
*MB: Learn some of the backstory behind Guye Adola – marathon’s newest star
Update: Adola’s coach claims that Adola had known he was doing Berlin for 4 months but didn’t tell his friends until 4 days before the race.

Previous NCAA XC News

Allie Ostrander Making XC Comeback At Louisville Classic After Nearly Two Years Away Ostrander was runner-up at NCAAs her freshman year, but a sacral stress fracture kept her off the grass until now. Ostrander says she’s “had a good summer of training” and is “feeling great.”
Register-Guard: At Long Last, Oregon Opens Its XC Season The season opener is 3 weeks later than planned after the Oregon Preview was canceled due to poor air quality. Andy Powell also revealed that Kate Murphy will most likely redshirt due to injury.
*MB: Snowflakes get victory #2 of xc season: Thursday’s Oregon XC meet is cancelled due to air quality concerns
RIP Hall Of Fame Coach George Dales, 96 Dales coached Western Michigan University to two NCAA team XC titles when coaching there from 1953 to 1970.
Arkansas Women Primed For Top-10 Showdown At Notre Dame
No. 5 Arkansas Men Hosting Chile Pepper Festival On Saturday
Former NCAA Champions Melody Fairchild (3,000) And Tommy Skipper (Pole Vault) Among Latest Inductees To University Of Oregon’s Hall Of Fame

Upcoming Road Action

Sunday: Leonard Korir And Aliphine Tuliamuk Lead Fields For USATF 10 Mile Championships Hosted By The Medtronic TC 10 Mile Korir will face Shadrack Kipchirchir, Martin Hehir, Futsum Zienasellassie and Christo Landry while the women’s race also has Natosha Rogers, Sara Hall and Shalaya Kipp. *USATF Release
Sunday:Defending Champion David Kiyeng Faces Strong Opposition At The Kosice Peace Marathon In Slovakia Kiyeng got the surprise win last year in 2:08:58, but this year faces Gilbert Masai (2:09:49) and Richard Sigei (2:08:28). Janet Rono (2:26:03) and Sheila Jerotich (2:28:53) lead the women’s race.
Sunday: GB’s Dewi Griffiths Looking For Another PR At The Cardiff Half Marathon Griffiths ran 62:53 for 7th at the Great North Run and a 28:27 10K last week and will face defending champ Shadrack Kimining. Violah Jepchumba (66:06) is also back after winning the women’s race last year.
Saturday:Close Battle Expected At The Hengshui Lake Marathon In ChinaBernard Kiprotich Too (2:09:47) leads a field that includes six men in the 2:10 range while Peninah Arusei (2:27:17) and Tigist Memuye (2:27:39) are the top women.
October 29:Germany’s Arne Gabius Targeting A Fast Time At The Frankfurt Marathon Two years ago, Gabius ran a 2:08:33 NR at Frankfurt and this year is looking to go through halfway in 64:15.
October 22:Uganda’s Alex Chesakit Hoping To Upset The Kenyan And Ethiopian Favorites At The Toronto Waterfront Marathon Chesakit’s PR is 2:13:06, but is hoping to go sub-2:10 in Toronto so he can qualify for the Commonwealth Games after visa issues kept him out of London Worlds.

NCAA / HS News

Good Read:DyeStat Profile On The Progression Of Returning NCAA XC Champ Karissa Schweizer Last year Schweizer become just the 4th athlete to complete the NCAA triple crown (XC, indoor and outdoor 5K titles) and has bumped her mileage up to 80 miles a week looking to do it again.
Notre Dame’s Anna Rohrer To Miss 2017 XC Season With Hamstring Injury Rohrer had a procedure to “stimulate the repair of her hamstring” and that will keep her out for a couple weeks, but she’ll be back for track.
*MB:Anna Rohrer redshirt
19-Year-Old India National HJ Record Holder (2.26m) Gets Scholarship At Kansas State Apparently he’s only the third athlete from India to compete in the NCAA.
MB:Stanford only racing 3 times before regionals?
MB:2017 Paul Short XC Run Entries
DyeStat:HS Sophomore Brynn Siles Enjoying A Breakthrough Season In Colorado Last year Siles could have had a chance to make NXN as a freshman, but was accidentally put in (and won) the open race instead of the championship.
DyeStat:Sisters Olivia And Jaden Theis Pushing Each Other At Lansing Catholic High School In Michigan

9-1-1 Call Placed After Condo Resident Realized David Torrence Was Dead At Bottom Of Pool Is Released A resident saw Torrence in the pool when she went out to walk her dog at 6:30 am and assumed he was swimming but realized he was dead when she came back. He was staying at a cousin’s place while she was out of town.

What’s Next For The Great Kenenisa Bekele?

LRC Jos Hermens: Kenenisa Bekele Must Become More “Professional” If He Is To Realize Marathon Potential Agent Jos Hermens thinks Kenenisa Bekele is capable of much more in the marathon if he can focus on training and not be distracted by his business empire. “Eight marathons, two wins, that’s not Kenenisa Bekele. … What do you want to be, businessman or professional runner?”
*MB:Great insight from Jos Hermens on Kenenisa Bekele

More Post-Berlin:

Toni Reavis:“Mother Nature Says Nein In Berlin” Reavis says rather than focus on the missed WR, enjoy the great duel that emerged between Kipchoge and Guye Adola.
Former Boston Winner Amby Burfoot Questions How Slow The Conditions Were In Berlin Burfoot points out how many of the elites still ran PRs even in the conditions and argues that 2:02:57, when it is broken, won’t be “busted by a big margin.”
2017 Berlin Marathon Stat Blitz Kipchoge’s top 5 marathon average is now 2:03:47, but that is still slower than Wilson Kipsang‘s, which is 2:03:45.
Kenyan Op-Ed:“Kipchoge Helped Save Face For Kenyan Sport” Kipchoge’s run is a lone positive while Kenyan sport admins and politicians keep dropping the ball.
MB:So are we gonna talk about Kipsang’s drop or what???

$$$ News

Recommended Read:Outside:Is It Worth It For Shoe Companies To Sponsor Runners? Brooks brand manager Steve DeKoker: “You need people to authenticate your brand. By that, I mean you need the best people in the world validating that your product is legitimate and that your products can perform at the highest level.”
Usain Bolt Is One Of The Highest-Paid Celebrities Of The Year He’s 88th on the Forbes list, ahead of some actors/singers like Kevin Hart, Britney Spears and Katy Perry. Remember, Bolt was 23rd on the list of highest-paid athletes.

Sport Politics

Good Read:NY Times:NFL Protests Draw Attention And Comparisons To 1968 Olympic Black Power Salute The article actually focuses not on Tommie Smith or John Carlos, but white Australian Peter Norman, who was ostracized for years for standing with the two Americans during their protest. When Norman died in 2006, Smith and Carlos flew to Melbourne to be his pallbearers.
Reuters:US House Republican Speaker Paul Ryan Opposes Protests During National Anthem “People are clearly within their rights to express themselves how they see fit. My own view though is that we shouldn’t do it on the anthem.”

Upcoming Marathon Action

Good Read:Competitor: Meb Keflezighi Prepares For His Final Race At The NYC Marathon “Honestly, it can’t come fast enough. People know it’s my last one. I want it to be over. They don’t. It’s been a lot of pressure over the last 27 years – a lot of weight on the shoulders internally and externally.”