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LetsRun.com: The Week That Was In Running: November 2 - November 8, 2009


By LetsRun.com
To read last week's LRC Week That Was, click Here.
To read any 2009
LRC Week That Was, click Here.

November 10, 2009 - 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.

Last Week's Homepages
*Mon (Nov. 9) *Sun (Nov. 8) *Sat (Nov. 7) *Fri (Nov. 6) *Thu (Nov. 5) *Wed (Nov. 4) *Tue (Nov. 3)

Photo Of The Week/Performer Of The Week/Message Board Post Of The Week
We just told you there wasn't a lot of top-notch pro distance running action last week. So we'll give out our Performer of the Week Award to Chad Hampton for capturing the South Carolina Class A XC Title. As our Performer of the Week, we were going to award Chad a pair of Air Jordans, but decided not to as Chad already has a pair, as proven by this picture. Yes, Chad won the state cross-country meet wearing a pair of Air Jordans.

The picture started our Message Board Thread Of The Week as the thread on Chad's win is over 100 posts long.

In terms of top-notch high school action, Illinois sophomore wonder kid Lukas Verzbicas'  much-hyped attempt to break Craig Virgin's legendary Detweiler Park course record of 13:50 came up way short, as Lukas ran 14:07. In the team battle, the #1 team in the country on the boys side lost, as Loyola Academy was beaten by Neuqua Valley.

More:  LRC: Dude wins SC State XC Championship wearing high-top Air Jordan's (great picture) *SC State Meet Results
*Craig Virgin Lives*
IL State Meet Results


*****
2009 ING NYC Revisited
Last week was mainly a week where Americans celebrated Meb Keflezighi's historic win in New York. We tried to take note of a lot of the publicity Meb received and put it in one place. To watch Meb on a slew of TV appearances, please click here. To read many of the print pieces on Meb, we give you a ton of options below. The Sports Illustrated piece is definitely worth reading as it shows you how Meb's entire family has totally taken advantage of the American dream.

More: *LetsRun.com Compiles All The Meb Coverage *Sports Illustrated Article On Meb Keflezighi And Foreign-Born Athletes *New Yorker Article Reminds Us 16 Months Ago Meb's Career Was On The Rocks *Meb Says He Almost Hung 'Em Up And He Would Have Been Happy With 5th *LRC: Parisian Doctor Writes To LetsRun To Offer Opinions On Meb *LRC: Naval Serviceman Watches Meb's Moving Win From Baghdad

*****
Instead of just talking about Meb, we decided to take a look back at the actual race and analyze how the Americans did. Thirteen Americans ran under the old Olympic Trials qualifying time of 2:22:00 and we have analyzed their performance by looking at their first half split/2nd half splits and final 2.2 km splits, as sometimes the final time doesn't tell the whole story.

Of the 13, only four of them ran remotely close to even splits. Everyone else went out too hard and struggled on the way home. Meb Keflezighi (negative split), Ryan Hall (almost dead even), Nick Arciniaga (almost dead even) and Mike Reneau (67:54/68:51) were the only four Americans under 2:22 that had splits where the 2nd half was within one minute of the 1st half.

The other 9 all ran second halves that were at best 2:38 slower than the 1st half.

The biggest blowups? We'll give out props to them. Former Ivy Leaguers Max King and Pat Tarpy went out hard and paid a big price for it. Both of them ran their second halves in over 73 minutes and their final 2.2 km in over 9 minutes. If you are going to go for it and blow up, we gotta give you props for really going for it, as both of those guys were totally gone at the end.

Runner Time - 1st Half/2nd Half - Last 2.2k
Meb Keflezighi 2:09:15 - 65:11/64:04 - 6:46
Ryan Hall 2:10:36 - 65:12/65:24 - 6:49
Jorge Torres 2:13:00 - 65:11/67:49 - 7:19
Nick Arciniaga 2:13:46 - 66:41/67:05- 7:03
Abdi Abdirahman 2:14:00 - 65:11/68:49 - 7:57
Jason Lehmkuhle 2:14:39 - 65:55/68:44 - 7:30
Peter Gilmore 2:15:22 - 66:19/69:03 - 7:17
Mike Sayenko 2:16:38 - 66:46/69:52 - 7:18
Mike Reneau 2:16:45 - 67:54/68:51 - 7:05
Allen Wagner 2:17:49 - 66:47/71:02 - 7:25
Max King 2:19:11 - 65:56/73:15 - 9:04
Christopher Raabe 2:19:49 - 68:14/71:35 - 7:18
Pat Tarpy 2:20:43 - 66:44/73:59 - 9:23

If you look at other Americans in the field, Tarpy and King didn't have the worst blowups, but we are giving them props as they didn't save face in the final 2.2km. Fasil Bizuneh ran a 2:30:28 after a 66:48 1st half (83:40 2nd half) but his last 2.2km wasn't too bad at only 8:15. 2004 US Olympian Brian Sell's last race certainly was one to forget as he ran a 2:24:59 (66:46/78:13) with his final 2.2km in 8:41.

For the rest of our post-New York analysis, we'll let writers who are far better than us do it as there are a lot of great excerpts that we want to share with you.

Quote Of The Week #1
"But to be honest, I'm a bit confused."
- Claudio Berardelli, coach of borth James Kwambai and Robert Cheruiyot, as he was watching the 2009 ING NYC Marathon and seeing the superbly-trained Kwambai whose training he said had been "perfect," fall by the wayside while the last-minute replacement Cheruiyot battled for the win.

The quote is part of a great New York Times feature by JERÉ LONGMAN on Dr. Rosa's stable of athletes as they led up to the marathon.

Quote Of The Week #2
"With Martin (Lel), it would have been no contest,"
- Dr. Gabriele Rosa talking in the same NY Times piece on what would have happened in the race if Martin Lel hadn't had to pull out days before the start with an injury.

Quote of The Week #3
"My parents didn't care about education. When you did not have enough food, you could drink this. It fills your stomach, and you can stay two days without eating."
- James Kwambai talking about how he sometimes went to school drunk thanks to a home-brewed grain alcohol.

Quote Of The Week #4
"I wasn't in shape. I wasn't ready. But I told you I would fight."
- a surprised Robert Cheruiyot after getting 2nd  in New York.

Quote Of The Week #5
"It's not possible. James (Kwambai) could win this race on one leg. Something happened."
- a stunned Dr. Rosa after the race was over.

Overall, the New York Times article by Longman is an absolute must-read. There is a reason why we gave it 5 quotes of the day. The article gives you insight into elite level marathoning that you simply don't see. It's clear that the Rosa camp thought that Kwambai wasn't too fit but that he might just rewrite marathoning in New York.

The article also reveals that in the pre-race strategy talk, Dr. Rosa said he was worried about four runners - Ryan Hall, Patrick Makau, Jaouad Gharib and Gomes dos Santos.

More: *How The Kenyans Take On New York

*****
Quote of The Week #6
"The Americans are now like everybody. It's not like before. They are now very strong."
-5-time world major marathon winner and 2009 ING NYC Marthon runner-up Robert Cheruiyot giving out the ultimate compliment about American distance runners. The article comes from a recommended read by Peter Hessler in the New Yorker.

*****
Quote of the Week #7
"It is time the critics learnt to love Paula Radcliffe and it is a mystery why some do not. We do not have the world's best footballers, rugby players or cricket players. An Englishman has not won one of golf's majors since 1996. Despite the huge coverage he gets, Andy Murray has still to win a grand-slam event."
-Rick Broadbent writing a great column in the London Times entitled "Why We Should Learn To Love Paula Radcliffe". The article asks Brits to praise her instead of critcizing her when she she breaks into tears on the few occasions she doesn't win. As Broadbent notes, Radcliffe's failures at the Olympics are naturally going to be very emotional, as other sports stars like Andy Murray have 16 chances to win a major every four years. We'd like to add that they her losses are going to literally be very painful as well, as the only time Radcliffe loses is when she isn't 100% physically at her best.

*****
Justice In South Africa
Justice was finally served to the fools in charge of Athletics South Africa, as the entire body was suspended by the South African Olympic Committee. Once the suspension was announced, some athletes and coaches finally felt free to reveal just how bad it was. At the 2009 World Champs, allegations are being made that top officials only cared about Caster Semenya winning gold and didn't even show up for others' medal ceremonies.

If that's not bad enough, then allegations of severe financial mismanagement and possible crimes should get our blood boiling. But the worst allegations come from former Olympic race walker Nicolene Cronje, who says she was slapped in the face as a 19-year-old female by an ASA official. Incredibly, Cronje says she told ASA head Leonard Chuene what had happened and amazingly his response was as follows according to sport24.co.az: "My child, should this get out to the press or your family, your athletics career is over. Let's pretend it never happened."

More: *Athletics South Africa Suspended By Powerful SA Olympic Committee *Pile ON! Elite Athletes Slam ASA *Korruption Karma - ASA Has Electricity Cut And Owes Millions

*****
Qualify For USAs On The Track In October

One of the problems of track in this country for 10k guys is that to qualify for USAs, people basically have one option - head out to Califonia in the spring to run at Mt. SAC or Stanford (or maybe Cal) to get your qualifier. Well, that slowly is starting to change. People can now qualify in the fall (and in the middle of the country) thanks to the American Milers Club. Three years in a row, they've hosted 10k qualifiers in Indianpolis in late October and three years in a row the weather has been perfect - 50s with no wind.

And the results have come. This year, former Oklahoma State Cowboy and now Hansons-Brooks Zap Fitness team member Dave Jankowski broke 28:30 for the first time, as he qualified for USAs with a 28:27.4. So a Thumbs Up to Dave and to the American Milers Club High Performance Series, which is put on by Greg Harger of the Indiana Invaders. The meet was actually on Halloween and we should have mentioned it last week, but we pretty much just talked about the NYC and NCAA conference stuff last week. More: *2009 Results *2008Results *2007Results

Recommended Reads/Watches From Last Week
*Science Of Sport Studies Whether Marathon Times Are Improving At Major Marathons The flat, rabbitted courses keep getting faster times, but the hilly courses aren't seeing much improvement over the last 30 years.
*LRC: Parisian Doctor Writes To LetsRun To Offer Opinions On Meb
*LRC: 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.
*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.
*How The Kenyans Take On New York The NYTimes gives you an inside look into the preparations of Robert Cheruiyot and James Kwambai in the days before the race.

Remembering The Last Week With The Quotes Of The Day - Day-By-Day:

Monday:   "[ASA] were besotted with power - constantly trying to show the athletes who is boss. Phiwe knows nothing about athletics. Her comments showed this clearly. Hendrick (Mokganyetsi, team manager) was aggressive towards everybody and made numerous wrong decisions. Humile is nothing more than a secretary - she knows nothing about managing a team. She was also flown back and forth between Germany and SA, at ASA's cost (to write exams). They (Tsholetsane and Bogatsu) were constantly shopping and not giving attention to what they were there for - managing the team. Or they were flitting around Chuene. We were castigated because we did not, according to them, support Caster, but not one of them was at Khotso's (Mokoena) or Mbulaeni's (Mulaudzi) medal ceremonies."
- Former World 200m junior 200m champion Paul Gorries joining a several-part chorale of South African athletes finally given voice by the media after the entire Athletics South Africa board were suspended indefinitely by the SA Olympic Committee.


Sunday:
"If Meb isn't American that what is he? Me, I was lucky enough to be born in the U.S. Meb and his family left a war torn country with nothing for the chance at giving their kids a shot at something better here in America. If that isn't the American Dream then this country has lost its way."
- Chad Faber of the US Navy writing to us about "watching" Meb win the New York City Marathon while stationed in Camp Liberty, Baghdad.

Saturday: "I feel that after being head coach for every World Championship, except the inaugural one and the one in 2003, and every Olympic Games since 1988, that's a good run, and the crowning glory in Beijing ... it's good to quit while you're ahead."
- Usain Bolt's coach Glen Mills steps down as Jamaican national senior head coach. He'll remain the coach of Bolt and Racers Track Club. Jamaicans had earned 7 gold medals in their Olympic history before winning 6 in Beijing.


Friday:
"In addition to his remarkable speed, unusual race-day height, and distinctive 'clip-clop' gait, Keflezighi's frequent nickering caused the other runners to speculate that he may have been using a horse in some fashion."
- Terrible news reported first by satirical news company The Onion. According to their sources, Meb Keflezighi, hailed by many as an American sporting hero, was caught using a performance-enhancing horse during the New York City Marathon. Even if you don't have time to read the article, you have to see the photo.

Thursday:
"Cherish it. It's a beautiful thing, when you can click the miles along. It's a beautiful thing, and you better cherish it."
- Another quote from Meb Keflezighi as LetsRun.com continues what has become "Meb Week." This quote came after Meb finished 14th in the 2008 US 10,000m Olympic trials and failed to make the Olympic team after medaling in Athens 2004. It's part of a LetsRun.com Recommended Read from Peter Hessler for New Yorker Magazine.


Wednesday: Meb Keflezighi Rocks On Letterman - LetsRun.com Shows You All The Meb Coverage Here

Tuesday: "Back in 2006 my agent and my brother and my family made a shirt and it said 'He who strives will succeed.' He who strives will succeed. And that was the motto that I used ... I hope to be an example. When the going gets tough, there is light at the end of the tunnel if you keep your hopes high."
- Meb Keflezighi after his amazing win in New York on Sunday.

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