Good Riddance, Steroid Era. Hello, "Era Of Relaxation."

"I think Usain and the rest of the Jamaican athletes showed us that ... 'you run fast when you just have fun and relax.'"

- Sanya Richards (Jamaica-born American), known as a choker until this year, when she was unbeatable at 400m, especially on the biggest stages. Richards - working with coach Clyde Hart - won an individual World Championship, every Golden League meet, and became the most prolific sub-50 performer of all-time. 

Tuesday's Distance News

LRC NCAA D1 Regionals Are This Weekend - Vote In Our Pre-Regional Polls The regional system may be insanely complicated and most of the major coaches might hate it, but let's see if the most informed readers on the planet can figure out which teams should be in and which should be out.

Max King Wins USATF Trail Marathon Championship 6 Days After 2:19 In New York
Max doesn't give a hoot about running what or how "the man" tells him to ... and we love it. Max King LRC Video Interview After New York City Marathon Blowup

Brief Chat With Most Overlooked US Marathoner Nick Arciniaga
While most bonked, Hansons runner Nick Arciniaga PRed by over 2 minutes in finishing in the top 10 in New York. N/A also was the top American finisher in Boston in 2008.

November 22nd - Bad Boy 8k XC Information And Entry Contacts Always a fun race ...

LRC Boards: Dude wins SC State XC Championship wearing high-top Air Jordans (great picture)

Asian Track Championships Coming Up - Liu Xiang Headlines Asia - where track season never ends.

Athens Marathon Classic Made Even Tougher By Steady Downpour *LRC As Always, Beautiful Photos From PhotoRun One of track's best writers, Pat Butcher, was on the scene and writes an informative recap of one of the toughest major marathons. 23-year-old Kenyan Josephat Kipkirui Ngetich won in a stellar 2:13:44 given the hilliness and the rain, while Japanese Akemi Ozaki, 32, won in 2:39:56. Ozaki is coached by the same coach (a woman, to boot) as the unfortunate Yuri Kano, who fell in New York last weekend, so a nice consolation for their training group.

Fernando Cabada Talks After Stockade-athon Win In Schenectady Boulder, CO's Fernando Cabada ran a solid 46:35 on the tough Stockade-athon course in Schenectady, NY, where former American marathon record holder Jerry Lawson holds the course record of 44:39. Cabada ran smoothly in his first race back from injury, but the man who got the biggest rise from the local crowd was 78-year-old Ed Whitlock of Canada (the best 70+ male runner of all-time?), who again produced an age-graded whopper time with a 1:06:12 (7:14 pace). *Results *Thread

XC Returns In Europe And Kenya
*Cross-Country All Stars Clash In Spain With Dibaba Sister And World XC Champ Gebremariam Winning Not a big race to American fans, but the players were heavyweights.
*Kenyan Cross-Country Season Kicks Off & Locals Take Wins

Final Entry Of The Exclusive LetsRun.com Series
LRC
American High School Student Travels To Addis And Trains With The Ethiopians - Entry #9 - Addis Ababa University In this the final episode, Neb does a track workout on one of the three tracks in Addis.

International News

Interesting Exhibit On San Jose State University Athletics And Civil Rights Fight In America

Are Running Records Getting Near The Limits?

5,000 Beijing Olympic Condoms Left Over By Athletes To Be Auctioned To One Buyer 100,000 were made for the athletes in the Olympic village. You do the math.

Marathon News

Sprints/Field Event News

Recommended Read: LetsRun.com Compiles All The Meb Coverage Letterman, Conan, Colbert and Darren Rovell react to Meb's win. What was the last American distance performance to catch the public eye as much as Meb's NY win done in the USA jersey?

Recommended Read New Yorker Article Reminds Us 16 Months Ago Meb's Career Was On The Rocks Some great commentary and perspective in this article. More inspiration for those of you struggling and looking for lessons in perseverance.
Exclusive: Parisian Doctor Writes To LetsRun To Offer Opinions On Meb This is just one of many emails we've received from passionate readers around the world.

LRC: Listen To A Replay (Or Download An MP3) Of Our Thursday Night Live ING NYC Marathon Preview Internet Radio Show Featuring 2004 Olympic Silver Medalist Meb Keflezighi "Meb" was the featured guest on our 2009 ING NYC Marathon preview show. Meb talked about his chances on Sunday and his resurgent 2009, during which he has won a US half marathon title, a US XC title, set half marathon and marathon PRs and broke the US 20k record.

LRC: MEB WINS ING NYC MARATHON The 27 years of waiting are over, as Meb Keflezighi broke Robert Cheruiyot just prior to mile 24 and gave America it's first men's victor since 1982. Overall, it was a great day for the American men, as there were 6 American men in the top 10, the most ever since the race moved to Central Park in 1976. We break down the men's race for you and along the way try to cheer up a terribly disappointed Ryan Hall in the process.
LRC: Absorbing The Post-Race Elite Vibe: Injuries And Wind Challenge Humbled, Grateful Pros We try to give you a behind-the-scenes look at how the elites reacted after the vast majority of them were humbled in New York City.

Non-Meb News Highlights

Interesting Read: Ryan Hall's Pre-NYC Blog An 18-mile tempo run went extremely well for Hall about 15 days out from the marathon.

Tulu's 2nd Comeback Gets Her Another Big Win - 17 Years After Barcelona Gold
IAAF article on the life of Derartu Tulu, who tried to help Paula keep up with the lead pack on Sunday before winning.

Injured Paula Radcliffe And Fired-Up Haile Gebrselassie - Pat Butcher Reports
Butcher gives us access to some good quotes from Haile on his career and future marathoning plans.

ING NYC Marathon Men's Race *Top Men's Results *Top USA Finishers
*
LRC NYC Preview Radioshow/Podcast With Race Winner Meb Keflezighi *LRC Interviews:

Meb Hints At Running Boston Marathon Meb Keflezighi joined Derartu Tulu and World Marathon Major champions Irina Mikitenko and Sammy Wanjiru at a press conference Monday in New York. Meb's next marathon will be 2010 London or Boston and it sounds like he's leaning towards another race on American soil. The last American to win Boston was Greg Meyer in 1983.

LRC: The Week That Was Last week was one which, in terms of actual running action, maybe should have been thought of as "The Week That Wasn't." As a result, we analyze the 2009 ING New York City marathon some more for you and take a look at the biggest blowups and best-paced performances by Americans. We also let others who are way better writers than we are give you insight into New York. Along the way, we enjoy piling on Athletics South Africa and tell you how to qualify for USA in October and name Chad Hampton as our Performer of the Week.
LRC: Like An Airline: A Behind-The-Scenes Look Into What It Takes To Set An Elite Marathon Field We try to tell you how an elite marathon field gets set. Check out this great quote from ING NYC Marathon elite athlete coordinator David Monti: "A marathon is like an airline - it sells more spots on a plan than are seats. If you do it right, get lucky, the plane is exactly full when it takes off."

Sprint News And Other Insanity

*Sanya Richards Says Usain Bolt Helped Her Relax And Run Faster In Pressurized Moments
*Antigua's Daniel Bailey Looking To Follow Up Big Year Daniel Bailey trains with superman Usain Bolt and super-coach Glen Mills.

British Athletes Urged To Learn From Military Experience
Dear British athletes, whomever you choose to listen to, don't listen to your media.

100% Guaranteed To Generate Hate Mail:
2004 Greek Gods Of Sprint Turned Drug Cheats Have Trials Postponed Again
The trial was postponed for the 5th time until September of 2010. How hard is it to say: "You're out of the sport"? Oh, this is the same country that allows their drug cheats to carry the Olympic torch (not that America hasn't forgiven and forgotten its share of cheats).

Conference XC Champs Speak

Hot Marathon News

Sh*t H*ts The Fan For Athletics South Africa

Athletics South Africa Suspended By Powerful SA Olympic Committee This is like Doug Logan and USATF getting removed by the USOC.
Pile ON! Elite Athletes Slam ASA And we mean SLAM.
Korruption Karma - ASA Has Electricity Cut And Owes Millions ASA are deep in the hole after years of cheating, lying and treating their athletes like sh*t ... not too many will be shedding tears over this one.

Long Profile Of Brown Grad And Mainer Anna Willard Distance fans hate to go more than 24 hours without reading a long, glowing piece about a current or former running star, so don't worry - we have your fix right here.

Take It Easy, Usain

New York City Marathon, Meb K Coverage

Recommended By LRC Reader - Trailer For Documentary Called "Il Corredor" We can't embed the video, but you can click and watch the trailer we found interesting.

Sprinting News

Semenya Headlines - Official Apology And Finally A Suspension

Fernando Cabada Running Schenectady, NY Stockade-athon 15km On Sunday US 25k record holder and 2:12 marathoner Fernando Cabada is coming back from an Achilles injury.

"Academics First" - Big Debate Underway In Berkeley Whether To Cut Funding For Sports At Cash-Strapped Cal U The entire state of California is in extreme financial crisis, which means their state university system has a big problem, too. Some are asking the U to cut their funding of athletics rather than firing professors and cutting back academic budgets.

2010 Hosts

Kenyan News - Now That America Is The World Marathoning Superpower, We At LetsRun.com Promise To Not Forget The Little Guy

LRC: We Might Not Be Talking About Meb If James Kwambai Hadn't Dropped Out - On-The-Scene Photos From A LetsRun Reader We're still wondering what ailed James Kwambai so much that he dropped out with 15 minutes to run in the race.

Wanjiru Calls On Kenya To Help Protect Him Or He's Heading To Japan
Sammy Wanjiru, probably one of the richest sportsmen in Kenya and still only 22, is afraid for his safety, as his rural home has been raided twice by thugs. Despite a warm homecoming from his latest conquest, Wanjiru is asking Kenyan authorities to step up protection or else he's moving to Japan.

Recommended Read:
Coach Rosa Gives NY Times Full Access To Cheruiyot, Lel, Kwambai's Preparations An amazingly interesting read. Rosa can not believe how 2:04:27 man Kwambai didn't win. He was rushed to the hospital after the NY Marathon, possibly with appendicitis.

More On Deriba Merga And Mary Keitany's Fast Wins In Delhi Half Marathon Merga is Ethiopian but Keitany is Kenyan and perhaps the next dominant woman marathoner.

Article On Peter Rono's Son Making Waves As A Runner

NCAA News
Brief Chat With Oklahoma State's Ryan Vail
Ryan Vail has developed into one of the best American cross-country runners since becoming one of the early commits to Dave Smith and the Oklahoma State program.
*Latest D1 Men's Rankings Stanford #1, Ok State #2.
*Women's Rankings 2009's dominant team - Villanova - almost surpass previously unbeatable Washington Huskies.

If You Can't Say Something Nice ...

"Nothing against Keflezighi, but he's like a ringer who you hire to work a couple hours at your office so that you can win the executive softball league." - CNBC Writer Darren Rovell on Sunday, writing about why we shouldn't be excited about Meb's NYC victory. You can email him at SportsBiz@cnbc.com. Read Rovell's Monday apology blog here.

Meb On Letterman

Meb Wins It

NYC Stats Of The Day

13: Number Of NYC Marathons American Men Won In A Row Starting With The First One
7: Number Of NYC Marathons American Women Won In A Row Starting With The 2nd One
0 1: Number Of NYC Marathons American Men Or Women Have Won Since
1: Number of Men Who Appeared on the LetsRun.com NYC Marathon Preview Show
1: Number of Men On the Show Who Won the 2009 ING NYC Marathon (listen to Meb talk about his chances here)

Meb On The Win

Meb Entering Columbus Circle


Usain Bolt Arrives, Dances Like A Masai Warrior In Kenya

Latest Relevant Links

*NCAA XC Coaches Polls
*Read Any 2009 LRC Week That Was *Latest WTW
*LRC's Pre-Nats Coverage

New LRC Readers' Book Reviews

From Last To First,  A Race Like No Other, And See Dane Run From Last To First is the autobiography on English marathon record holder Charlie Spedding, A Race Like No Other is NY Times Writer Liz Robbins' take on the NYC Marathon, and See Dane Run recounts a guy who ran a marathon a week for a year.

Latest Photo Albums From PhotoRun.net

Recommended Reads - You Can Buy The Books Online

One for the Mind: Running Within
One for the Soul: Best Efforts

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