Week That Was By the Numbers: New Champs Erika Kemp, Julia Rizk & Geordie Beamish, Canada vs the USA, and Mo Farah Ready for London

The Week That Was in Running, March 4 – March 10, 2019

By LetsRun.com
March 12, 2019

This week’s edition is a bit shorter than normal as we break down the week with cold hard numbers instead of thousands of words of prose. Note, we do not get into breaking down the IAAF’s new Diamond League changes or Olympic qualifying changes as those changes came out on Monday.

And we don’t recap NCAAs. If you missed our extensive pre- and post-meet coverage of the 2019 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, catch up now: LRC 2019 NCAA Indoor Track and Field coverage.

Past editions of the Week That Was can be found here.

Questions, comments, or a tip? Please call us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us, or post on our forum.

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Last Week By The Numbers

0 – number of NCAA finals that Ohio State’s Julia Rizk and NAU’s Geordie Beamish had been in before they won the NCAA mile titles last week.

LRC Ohio State’s Julia Rizk And NAU’s Geordie Beamish Pull Off Upsets To Win 2019 NCAA Indoor Mile Titles
MB: Dude with 4:06 mile PB – Geordie Beamish – just won the 2019 NCAA indoor mile title

1 – number of years that passed between races for Jordan Hasay. Hasay, who hadn’t raced since March 10, 2018, ran 71:06 on Sunday, March 10, 2019, to finish 6th at the Rome-Ostia Half Marathon. The winner of the women’s race was Israel’s Lonah Chemtai Salpeter who ran 66:40.

1 – number of indoor track workouts that NCAA indoor 5000 and 3000 champion Morgan McDonald says he’s run this year.

1 – place on the Canadian all-time marathon list for Rachel Cliff, who set a Canadian record of 2:26:56 last weekend in Nagoya, breaking Lanni Marchant‘s 2:28:00.

1 – number of times that Erika Kemp scored at NCAAs during her career at NC State that ended in 2018. Kemp made NCAAs five times on  the track but only scored once (a 5th-place showing as a sophomore in the indoor 5000 in 2016). Kemp’s profile picked up a lot last weekend as she won $10,000 and the US 15k road title at the 42nd Gate River Run 15K. In the men’s race, Shadrack Kipchirchir backed up his US XC win with another national title, earning $15,000 in the process as he also picked up the battle of the sexes bonus.

MB: Erika Kemp, Relative Unknown, wins Gate River Run 

National Champion!

Congratulations to Team B.A.A.’s Erika Kemp (@IMTINYRIK) on winning the @usatf 15K National Championship today at the @gateriverrunjax!

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— Team B.A.A. (@teambaa) March 9, 2019

2 – number of Olympic 5000 golds that Meseret Defar, 35, has won, and the number of marathons she has finished. In Nagoya on Sunday, Defar improved her marathon PB from 2:27:25 to 2:23:33 to finish fourth.

2 – also is the number of marathons that Ethiopian Guye Adola has finished in his career. Adola’s first marathon was an unmitigated huge success — a 2:03:46 in Berlin — and his second a disaster — a 2:32:35 in London. Those looking for a sign that Adola is going to return to good form in 2019 got a nice boost in confidence last week as Adola won the men’s race at the Rome-Ostia Half in 60:17.

2 – number of NCAA championship records set at the DII champs by Alaska-Anchorage’s Caroline Kurgat, who won the 3000m (9:15.45) and 5000m (16:06.37).

3:54.24 – a split you don’t want to produce in the men’s distance medley relay at the NCAA Indoor championships. That’s the split Grant Fisher produced this year for Stanford and Izaic Yorks produced in 2016 for Washington and neither man crossed the finish line first.

5 – number of mid-d/distance events at NCAAs where an athlete from Australia or New Zealand crossed the finish line first. It’s also the same number of mid-d/distance events where a US runner crossed the finish line first at NCAAs.

A few of the winners from NCAA indoors…

Men's Mile – Kiwi
Men's 3000 – Aussie
Men's 5000 – Aussie
Women's 3000m – Aussie
Women's DMR – Aussie Anchor

The absence of indoor tracks back home mustn't be hurting…

— Nick Willis (@nickwillis) March 10, 2019

6 – number of Japanese women that finished ahead of new Canadian national record holder Rachel Cliff in Nagoya last weekend.

9 – age of Ava Johnson, who won the women’s division of the Run O’ the Mill 5K in New Jersey over the weekend in 19:11. The race is a USATF-certified 5k.

MB: 9-year old girl Ava Johnson wins certified 5k road race in 19:11!!

9 – number of men that broke 2:10 in Barcelona and Lake Biwa last weekend, led by Bahrain’s Alemu Bekele, who won Barcelona in a course-record 2:06:04 (the women’s course record was also set in Barcelona as Kuftu Tahir ran 2:24:44). The Lake Biwa winner was Salah Eddine Bounasr of Morocco, who ran 2:07:52.

15 – number of women that broke 2:27 at the Nagoya Marathon last week, tying the world record set in Dubai in 2015.

MB: 15 women break 2:27 at Nagoya Women’s Marathon, 2 NR’s, 5 Japanese Olympic trials qualifiers 

23 – number of marathons that Helaria Johannes, 38, of Namibia has finished in her career. Last week, she ran the best of those 23 as she chopped 3:44 of her personal best to win Nagoya in a national record of 2:22:25.

25 – number of seconds that Mo Farah chopped of his own course record to win the Vitality Big Half Marathon in London last weekend. Farah won a three-way sprint in 61:15 and declared afterwards that he’s feeling confident heading in his final London Marathon preparations.

29 – number of seconds that Brit Laura Weightman took off of her road 10k pb last week to win the Trafford 10K in Manchester in 32:01. Weightman, 27, will undoubtedly be hoping that the improved endurance results in a slightly better 1500 this year as her PB has been stuck at 4:00.17 since 2014.

36 – number of Japanese men that broke 2:20 in Lake Biwa last weekend (49 men did it in total). For comparison, eight American men have done this so far this year and 53 Americans went sub-2:20 in all of 2018.

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Stat of the Week / Canada: 97.49% As Good As The US

In honor of Rachel Cliff’s Canadian record in the marathon last week, we thought it would be fun to compare all of the Canadian mid-d and distance records to the US records.

The stats reveal that the Canadian men are closer to the US men on average than the women. Also, Canada comes closest to the US in terms of both the men’s and women’s national records in the 800, but is really far away from the US in the marathon in both genders.

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Recommended Read

Race walkers unite to save their sport The IAAF has proposed two radical changes: 1) Changing 50k and 20k to 30k and 10k and 2) Requiring all racers to wear a chip that helps determine if they are walking or not.
*MB: Racewalkers unite in opposition to insoles in chips being mandated by IAAF that would determine it they are actually walking

To see our favorite reads from other weeks, go here.

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Quotes Of The Day And Last Week’s Home Pages

To see the quotes of the day from last week or last week’s home page or any home page, go to our archive page.

Got a tip, question or comment? Please call us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us or post in our forum.