"Top 25. I'm pleased, I think the depth every year is getting stronger and stronger ... I wasn't far behind Derrick and he's been running great over 5k."
Julie Culley's Post-Worlds Comments
"I'm very happy ... I liked the course as it played to my strengths. It's a grinder's course and it went well."
Kim Smith's Post-Worlds Comments
"I was going for a medal ... It wasn't really my kind of course. That was defiitely the hardest cross-country course I've ever run on ... Cross-country is painful."
Ethiopians Celebrating Sr. Men's Individual Title
Proof positive that the world is still male-dominated.
Below are LRC videos with some of America's top stars leading up to Saturday's World XC Champs. Videos by day.
Friday: Videos are also embedded in this recap of the days activities. World record holder Saif Shaheen was super impressed with German Fernandez.
German Fernandez Press Conference
This is really 3 interviews combined together as it's very hard to upload video here.
The first 2:43 is German's opening statement.
From 2:43 to 3:53 German responds to a question about whether he had any idols in the sport growing up as Stephen Cherono had just said he thought the key to African success was that they had role models in the sport. The response was also in relation to a question as to whether non-Africans can ever truly compete.
From 3:53 to 4:47, German responds to LetsRun.com's question about his race tactics and whether he would still go out even paced like he did at NCAAs.
The final part of the interview German talks about his injury and whether he ever considered not running this meet.
Neely Spence - Pre-Racee US junior champ Neely Spence talks about her first race for the USA and her recent indoor campaign - which coincidentally was her first indoor season.
Wednesday:
The videos below within article #3 but if you just want to watch videos with some of America's up and coming stars click below.
Ed Moran I talked to Ed about his rise from a 4:19/9:30+ guy in HS to
13:20 and 27:43. The guy is the ultimate dream come true story as he
only ran over 25 minutes in his first HS 5k. I asked him if he felt
underappreciated as a decade ago he would have been America's #3 star -
just a step behind Bob Kennedy/Todd Williams 1-2 domination up front.
Many people probably don't realize in this day and age of German,
Galen, Ryan, etc that Todd Williams prs (13:19.50 (1995) 10000 27:31.34) are very close to that of Ed's
- 13:20.35 and 27:43.13).
I also asked Ed about finishing 4th at last year's 10k trials and his
goals for 2009.
Julie Culley I talked to Julie Culley about her rise to the top of
US women's team after having only run 16:29 in college and having given
up competition to coach when she first got of college. Reinvigorated
thanks to Matt Centrowitz's coaching and harassment (Centro
would see her at meets and ask, "Why are you coaching now? You have the
rest of your life to coach. Give me a call and I'll work with you"),
Culley also talked about her plans for the rest of 2009.