LRC Exclusives

LRC Cross-Country In The Age Of COVID-19: What The 2020 NCAA XC Season Will Look Like … If There Is One Will there be a 2020 NCAA XC season? Jonathan Gault spoke to NCAA coaches, medical experts, and members of the NCAA’s coronavirus advisory panel to figure out if a cross-country season is feasible and what it might look like. And there is good news. “I think it is very feasible that there will be a cross-country season,” says Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security and a member of the NCAA’s coronavirus advisory panel.

LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched Joan Benoit Samuelson Win The 1984 Olympic Marathon After a runner that was “considerably heavier than the other marathoners” took an early lead, Benoit won the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon thanks to a daring early breakaway, clocking the #3 time ever (at the time) and demolishing a field of studs (Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen, Rosa Mota) to cement her status as a legend.
*MB: How hot was it really during the 1984 Olympic women’s marathon? The NY Times report on the race says it got up to “near 90” but the weather data doesn’t show that.

LRC’s Weekly Podcast 2020 Boston Marathon Cancelled, Brown Track And Field Cancelled + Guest Tyler Andrews Goes For Treadmill World Record At Chaski Challenge And HSer Joe Fast Joins The Show Listen to the best track and field running podcast on the planet and learn about the guy who may dominate the NCAA men’s 800 for years to come.

Distance News

• 9-Time All-American, 4-Time PAC-12 Champ Nicole Freitag (Née Blood) Is Loving Being A Distance Coach At UVA At Age 32 After her pro career didn’t amount to much as a runner, she struggled finding a new passion but loves being at UVA. “Coach Vin wants to build a nationally competitive track and field and cross-country program. We’ve got a ways to go.”
• Kipchoge Says He Was At “Peak Fitness” Prior To London Being Postponed And That He “Took two weeks to be sad, and then I went back to training. This is life.”

The Latest News That We Found Interesting

• World Athletics Headquarters Have Opened; They Immediately Release 4-Year Strategic Plan As Well As 2021 Olympic Qualifying Procedures “Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle,” said Seb Coe. As for the Olympics, nothing changes except the qualifying window has been extended into next year.
  *Olympic Qualifying Procedures
  *WA Unveils 4-Year Strategic Plan
  *World Athletics’s New Strategic Plan Includes Support Campaign After Research Shows 88 Per Cent Exercise Boom In Lockdown
• Q&A With Atlanta Track Club Head And 1997 WC Bronze Medalist Rich Kenah Kenah has doubled the ATC budget in six years but unlike Max Siegel, he’s not pulling in 7 figures a year.
• New Book Is Published On Whether Genetics Explains Certain Groups’ Dominance In Certain Sports – How To Argue With A Sport-Loving Racist People of East African descent seem to dominate distance and people of West Africans seem to dominate the sprints. Is that genetic?
• Alexa Efraimson Runs 4:27 1,600 Time Trial She had missed the full indoor season.

• World Athletics Headquarters Have Opened; They Immediately Release 4-Year Strategic Plan As Well As 2021 Olympic Qualifying Procedures “Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle,” said Seb Coe. As for the Olympics, nothing changes except the qualifying window has been extended into next year. *Olympic Qualifying Procedures *WA Unveils 4-Year Strategic Plan *World Athletics’s New Strategic Plan Includes Support Campaign After Research Shows 88 Per Cent Exercise Boom In Lockdown
• Q&A With Atlanta Track Club Head And 1997 WC Bronze Medalist Rich Kenah Kenah has doubled the ATC budget in six years but unlike Max Siegel, he’s not pulling in 7 figures a year.
• New Book Is Published On Whether Genetics Explains Certain Groups’ Dominance In Certain Sports – How To Argue With A Sport-Loving Racist People of East African descent seem to dominate distance and people of West Africans seem to dominate the sprints. Is that genetic?
• Alexa Efraimson Runs 4:27 1,600 Time Trial She had missed the full indoor season.

• World Athletics Headquarters Have Opened; They Immediately Release 4-Year Strategic Plan As Well As 2021 Olympic Qualifying Procedures “Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle,” said Seb Coe. As for the Olympics, nothing changes except the qualifying window has been extended into next year. *Olympic Qualifying Procedures *WA Unveils 4-Year Strategic Plan *World Athletics’s New Strategic Plan Includes Support Campaign After Research Shows 88 Per Cent Exercise Boom In Lockdown
• Q&A With Atlanta Track Club Head And 1997 WC Bronze Medalist Rich Kenah Kenah has doubled the ATC budget in six years but unlike Max Siegel, he’s not pulling in 7 figures a year.
• New Book Is Published On Whether Genetics Explains Certain Groups’ Dominance In Certain Sports – How To Argue With A Sport-Loving Racist People of East African descent seem to dominate distance and people of West Africans seem to dominate the sprints. Is that genetic?
• Alexa Efraimson Runs 4:27 1,600 Time Trial She had missed the full indoor season.

Athletes Speak Out After George Floyd’s Murder

• Marielle Hall On Her Upbringing And Life Right Now As A Black Distance Runner Hall says that some of her high school friends said people only asked her out “because they were curious about what a ‘black girl would be like.'” She chose to attend the University of Texas because it was a more diverse, inclusive environment.
• Gwen Berry Demands The USOPC Send Her A Written Public Apology For Putting Her On Probation For Her Awards Stand Protest At Pan-Ams Last Year “I want an apology letter … mailed … just like you and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) MAILED ME WHEN YOU PUT ME ON PROBATION. Stop playing with me.”
• American Hammer Throw Record Holder Gwen Berry Says She Doesn’t Regret Her Protest At The Pan Am Games Last Year Even Though It Cost Her $50k “I just felt something. I don’t know what it was. When I was up there, I just felt something come over me. I can’t describe it,” Berry told CBC Sports from Houston. “It was like a spirit. I felt different. It was indescribable but I’ll never forget it or regret it.” *Discuss
• Welsh Sprinter Sam Gordon Says Racism Is A Daily Issue In The UK
• World Athletics And Many Track Stars Tweet Out Support For #BlackLivesMatter
• Former GB Olympian And Harvard Sprinter Chris Lamber Pens “A letter to my white friends.” “We don’t inherit our oppression from our parents, we inherit it from your silence.”
• Noah Lyles And Other US Pros Post On Social Media After George Floyd’s Death Jasmine Todd: “We put the three letters … U S A … on our chest SO PROUDLY … for a country that doesn’t even like or respect US because of OUR skin. A country that statistically sets blacks up for failure. A country that kills us because of our skin color …”
• Michael Johnson Changes His Opinion And Says Prominent Athletes Need To Speak Out After George Floyd’s Death “If you have a platform you owe it to those people, you owe it to those whose lives have been lost, you owe it to our ancestors who fought through the civil rights movement back in the sixties. You owe it to all of them. If you have this position, like I did, you have a prominent position and you’ve benefited from the hard work of all of those people to have what you have, you owe it to all of them to not be silent.”

Bizarre

• US Pole Vaulter Cole Walsh Handed 3-Month Ban For Eating A Chocolate Bar With THC In It Can we stop wasting resources on testing for recreational drugs that don’t help performance?
• Ultrarunner Alyssa Amos Clark Has Broken The Women’s Word Record For Most Consecutive Marathons She’s completed a marathon on her treadmill for 64 straight days and is aiming for 75. The world record was 60. The men’s record is 607. Yes, 607.

Free Training Tips

• 2:30 Marathoner Becky Wade: 5 Things I’ve Learned Going Through My Old Training Logs
• Free Training Tip: 2:28 Marathoner Allie Kieffer Shares Her 4,000-800 At 10k/1 Mile At Marathon Pace Workout
• The Dos And Dont’s Of Stretching

Interesting Reads From Outside The US

• 4 Years Ago, Brett Larner Predicted Japanese Marathoners Would Start Running Really Fast Soon And He Was Right, But Was It Because They Were Developed In College Or Was It Simply The New Shoes?
• Interesting Idea: Since No One Is Competing In Track, Kenyan Journalist Proposes WADA Starts Testing Random Kenyans On Street To Make Sure ABP Works In Kenya Is it possible the ABP misses unique aspects of Kenyan physiology? Or might the local food supply be tainted with drugs?

Sprint / Field News

• Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Says She Isn’t Ready To Retire Yet She said that she isn’t ruling out going through 2022. She shares some other interesting thoughts like her favorite Kenyan athlete is Ezekiel Kemboi because of his dancing.
• World LJ Champ Malaika Mihambo To Be Coached By Carl Lewis And Leroy Burrell If travel restrictions allow it, she plans to move from Germany to Houston in August.
• Karsten Warholm Eyeing 300m Hurdles WR At The Impossible Games Next Week The 18-year-old record is 34.48 and Warholm has run 34.26 indoors.
• Olympic Shot Put Champ Michelle Carter To Join Dad In Texas Sports HOF Her father Michael Carter won shot put Olympic silver in 1984.

GB News

• Mo Farah Remembers How He Took The Subway With His Two Olympic Gold Medals In His Pocket The Day After “Super Saturday” At London 2012 Farah said he wanted to see his family the next day so left the Olympic Village and hoped on a normal train with a hoodie. He said one guy kept looking at him and gave him a thumbs up.
• GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson Says Euro Champs Cancellation Was Harder To Deal With Than Olympic Postponement “With the Olympics …  had weeks to expect that. But the thing I struggled with the most was the Europeans getting cancelled in Paris. Not even postponed, but outright cancelled. That was tough for me because then I didn’t have any sort of focus to train for.”

The Latest Distance News

• Andy Young Thinks Olympic Delay Will Help His Two Stars In Laura Muir And Jemma Reekie Muir didn’t have much of a base as she had an Achilles issue at the end of last year and Reekie is so young an extra year can only help.
• HSer EJ Holland Writes About Helping To Create The Quarantine Clasico Where Leo Daschbach Broke 4 Holland ended up getting hurt but he and Matt Stangio deserve major props for worrying about the sport, not just themselves like so many pros.
• Penn Relays Mile Record Holder Tori Starcher Of West Virginia Is Ready To Start Her College Career At Stanford After Initially Comitting To Notre Dame She ran 4:38 at Penn last year but missed XC with a stress fracture.
• Kipchoge, Bekele, Cheptegei, Kamworor Are Going To Team Up To Run A Virtual Marathon Together On June 6th Each will run a 10.5 km leg and the public can form their own 4-person teams.
• 8:42 Steepler Stephen Jones To Finish Eligibility At Colorado As Grad Transfer
• Timothy Cheruiyot Talks About His Friendship/Rivalry With Training Partner Elijah Manangoi
• A Look At The Super-Successful Kibet Sisters All five were pretty good at running, led by Sylvia, who won 2 WC silvers and an Olympic bronze.

For The First Time Ever

LRC 2020 Boston Marathon Canceled; Will Be Staged Instead As Virtual Race Through 123 years and two world wars, the Boston Marathon had always been staged as an in-person event. That streak ends in 2020, another victim of the coronavirus pandemic. *MB: BOSTON MARATHON CANCELED 

• The Stawell Gift, Australia’s Oldest And Richest Handicap Footrace, Has Been Canceled For The First Time Since 1945 Because Of The COVID-19 Pandemic
• Toni Reavis: Many Races And Running Organizations, Including Ironman And Running USA, Have Banded Together To Beg The Govt. For A Bailout “Without specifically targeted help from the federal government,” said the Endurance Sports Coalition, “the endurance sports may not survive the COVID-19 pandemic.”