LetsRun.com

NCAA Regional Saturday!

LRC 10 Things To Watch On Regional Weekend Employee #1 gets the storylines set for a big day of action Saturday. We'll have all the results and of course all the talk heading into the greatest championships in sport: the NCAA XC Championships on Nov 23 in Terre Haute, Indiana.

LRC Results Of The Pre-Regional LetsRun.com NCAA XC Polls Stanford has almost double Oklahoma State's #1 votes on the men's side, while Washington still dominates the voting on the women's side despite barely beating Oregon at PAC-10s.

Article On Jordan Hasay And Her Positive Effect On Oregon XC Hasay is having a great cross-country season even though coach Vin Lananna says all the focus is ultimately on track.

Underappreciated: WADA Celebrates 10 Years Of Cleaning Up Sports

• USADA Chief Speaks About Doping In Sport On WADA's 10th Anniversary He says drugs in sport are now much more in the hands of "rogue" doctors, scientists and entities instead of national or above-ground programs.
• WADA Has Made A Huge Difference In 10 Years Track and field has gone from the WWE to ... well, something slightly more pure.
• Thank You, WADA: Court Of Arbitration For Sport Bans Turkish 1,500m World Silver Medalist For Life

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. *Funny Read: Try To Understand the NCAA At-Large Selection Process Without Giving Yourself A Migraine

IAAF Year-End Award Nominees

• Women Track & Field Athletes Of The Year Nominees Announced Sanya Richards and world-record setter Yelena Isinbayeva lead impressive group.
• Men Track & Field Athletes Of The Year Nominees Announced It's Usain Bolt or Kenenisa Bekele, but Bekele didn't smash any world records, so it shouldn't even be close.

Tuesday's Distance News

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

• 1 Megagram Of Salt Thaws Course For Nordic Cross-Country Championships Norway took the men's and Sweden took the women's meet held in snowy, cold Finland.
• Profile Of Australia's Best Woman Marathoner, Lisa Weightman
• World Cross-Country Will Be In Poland - An Opportunity To Learn About Polish Distance Running History

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

• The Onion: Meb Tests Positive For Performance-Enhancing Horse (Satire) Totally worth a click just for the photo.
• Science Of Sport Studies Whether Marathon Times Are Improving At Major Marathons The flat, rabbited courses keep getting faster times, but the hilly courses aren't seeing much improvement over the last 30 years.
• Article On Derartu Tulu's Road Back To Top Form
• Times London: We Should Support Radcliffe Rather Than Tear Her Down There's a great idea!

Sprints/Field Event News

• Looks Great: Blast From The Past: New Documentary On Bud Winter And Speed City Sprinters See the embedded video in our right-most column.
• Multi-Events Coach Harry Marra Replaces Dan Steele At U Oregon *LRC Thread: Dan Steele's Replacement = Harry Marra
• Emporia State Sprinter From Ivory Coast Found Dead After Motorcycle Accident He had been reported missing.

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.

Professional Races This Weekend

• Catherine Ndereba To Star In Yokohama Women's Marathon Sunday Catherine The Great will be joined by fellow veteran Constantina Dita, who has not run well since winning the 2008 Olympic Marathon gold medal. Ndereba says she plans on trying to win the 2012 Olympic Games at age 40. With the state of women's marathoning these days, she just might.
• Banned EPO Cheat And Liar Liza Hunter-Galvan Upset Not To Be Able To Race In San Antonio Rock 'n' Roll Marathon This Weekend Former San Antonio sweetheart given extensive profile on mysanantonio.com.

Pro News

• Usain Bolt Will Target Seven Diamond League Meets In 2010
• Max King USATF Athlete Of The Week King ran the NYC Marathon and USA Trail Marathon championships 6 days apart. He blew up in one and won the other.

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, tell you how to qualify for USA's 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 plane than are seats. If you do it right, get lucky, the plane is exactly full when it takes off."

Women In Running

• Interesting Read: Shannon Rowbury Writes In Huffington Post About Winning Medal At Worlds Shannon Rowbury talks about how a series of negative events preceded her unusual medal-winning performance. She also mentions how life post-medal is simply not that much different.
• Brief Chat With Team XC National Champ Katie Follett Of Washington
• Former World Record Holder Tegla Loroupe Holding Race For Peace In Kenya Sammy Wanjiru, Paul Tergat, the Crown Prince of Morrocco and other big names are supporting Tegla Loroupe's efforts to promote peace between warring people in Kenya.

Non-Running Sports News

• Michael Phelps Can't Even Make The Finals Wearing Old Style Suit Michael Phelps is admittedly out of shape, but it shows how much influence the new hi-tech suits that will be banned starting in 2010 have when the most dominant swimmer in history can't make the final without the technology.
• Jamaican Bobsledders Still Battling For Olympic Spots According to the article they asked Usain Bolt to give it a try and help them out but he declined.

Update On The New Facilities Built Among Original Foundation Of Historic Franklin Field In Philadelphia Franklin Field hosts America's most famous track meet, Penn Relays.

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

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

• Brief Chat With Princeton's 3-Time Heps XC Champ Liz Costello Princeton finished 5th at NCAAs last year and could make the podium this year. They scored 15 points at Heps.
• Flotrack Talks With Binghamton 4:01 Miler (And Conference XC Champ) Junior Erik Van Ingen I Heart NY: Binghamton (America East), Syracuse (Big East), Columbia (Heps) and Iona (MAAC) all won D1 team XC conference championships in '09.

Hot Marathon News

• New L.A. Marathon Point-To-Point Video Via YouTube LA's course is now described as "Stadium to the sea," as it runs from Dodger Stadium to the Pacific. Just pray there's not a headwind.
• Josh Cox Running Rock 'n' Roll San Antonio Marathon
• Ryan Hall Writes About The Marathon Stanford did a good job teaching Hall how to write.

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

• Bolt Pushes His Training Back A Bit To Accomodate Off-The-Track Obligations
• Stephen Francis Not Interested In Coaching Jamaican Team - Content With His MVP Sprint Group Interesting quote from Francis, where he says he'd rather see his Bahamian or T&T athletes beat Jamaican athletes he doesn't coach. Sounds like a good decision not to coach the national team!

New York City Marathon, Meb K Coverage

• LRC Recommended Read: Naval Serviceman Watches Meb's Moving Win From Baghdad Navy serviceman and LRC reader Chad Faber watched with excitement as Meb won the race and was so inspired he sent us an email that we share with you. We were stunned to read that the US Navy won't provide troops with internet service to keep in touch with their families.
• LRC: No Easy Task: Getting To The Starting Line Of The ING New York City Marathon (But Once You Start, Finishing Is No Longer Much Of A Challenge) We take a look at how hard or easy it is to get into NYC and how it has changed over the years.
• Meb Says He Almost Hung 'Em Up And He Would Have Been Happy With 5th San Diego media continue to cover Meb.
• Sports Illustrated Article On Meb Keflezighi And Foreign-Born Athletes "Professional" journalists and editors at Sports Illustrated use a LetsRun.com quote without citing LetsRun.com.

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

• Glen Mills Steps Down As Jamaican National Head Coach Mills will continue to coach his biggest charge, Bolt, but he's leaving the challenging national duties to a younger coach.
• Kenyan Editorial Asks Why Bolt Gets A Heroes' Reception While Some Kenyans Get No Reception Is Bolt the most popular athlete in the world?
• Linford Christie's Miss Great Britain Heptathlete Niece Punches Fellow Beauty 5 Times In The Face Now she has been banned from competing to become Miss Universe. She was apparently fighting over her Gladiator boyfriend.
• Jamaica's 200m World Youth Champion Ramone "Batman" Mackenzie Goes Pro At 19 He'll be training with Lance Brauman in Orlando.

Semenya Headlines - Official Apology And Finally A Suspension

• ASA Officially Apologizes To Semenya
• South African Olympic Governing Body Steps Up To Suspend "Lying Leonard" Chuene