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Unbelievable

USATF Board Gave Logan $140,000-A-Year Pay Raise 9 Days Before Starting Termination Process If you're thinking of terminating someone, it's probably not a good idea to bump their base pay which their severance is calculated off of. The AP article above is excellent and has the 3 criteria the board wanted to see more from Logan on.
"The only amateurs left in the Olympic movement are the people running it." That's what Philip Hersh, the pre-eminent Olympic writer in the US, commented after hearing about the Logan raise.

Berlin Marathon Is This Sunday

Patrick Makau And Geoffrey Mutai Lead Charge In Berlin Marathon, Could The WR Fall? Makau was a half marathon phenom who seems to have quickly figured out the marathon (running 2:04:48 in his 3rd marathon). Berlin has 3 sub-2:05 guys in the field.
*Athletics Weekly Preview Of Berlin Marathon
*Germany's Sabrina Mockenhaupt Looking For Podium Finish In Berlin Marathon

Previous: From Bored With Running As A Child To Berlin Marathon Contender This IAAF piece has an interesting look at Germany's top contender for Sunday's Berlin Marathon, Sabrina Mockenhaupt.
*Patrick Makau And Geoffery Mutai Hope To Take Up Where Haile G Left Off The two 2:04 guys certainly should like Berlin's super-fast course.
*Joe Battaglia Preview
*Mzungo.org Has Lots Of Berlin Info

Also This Weekend: Toronto $2 Million Budget For This Weekend's Toronto Marathon
Lisbon: Mary Keitany Headlines This Weekend's Lisbon Half Marathon

Commonwealth Games Start Next Sunday

• Good News: Massive 48-Hour Cleanup Efforts Results In Most Nations Agreeing To Go
• A Must Click Photos Of Athletes' Bathrooms Leaked Warning - this is kind of gross.
  UK Performance Director Backs Phillips Idowu's Decision To Skip Commonwealths
• Kenyan Delegation Is Happy With Accommodations They don't want to join "team of pessimists."
• Boaz Lalang Not So Sure: "You don't know who might be shot or attacked."
• Surprising: van Commenee Backs Phillips Idowu's Pullout
• Four British Cyclists Wimp Out *Two Top Canadian Archers Wimp Out
• British Diplomats Breathe Sigh Of Relief As English Team Agrees To Compete
• New Zealand, Scotland And Canada Going But Delaying Arrival So More Of Cleanup Can Be Completed
• Laughable: Jamaica's World Championships Silver Medallist In Decathlon Pulls Out Due To "Dehydration"
• Former 800m World Champ Janeth Jepkosgei Pulls Out Of Commonwealths
• Welsh Team Delays Leaving For Commonwealths
• Delhi Police Dismiss Security "Sting" Report

We Mentioned These In The Week That Was

• Ryan Hall Blog About His Run In Philly (scroll down) Too focused on running 4:40s.
• Ritz Talks About His Great North Run Got in a little trouble trying to run 59:30.

Doug Logan Doesn't Go Quietly

• New: Mary Wittenberg Not Interested In USATF Job
• Doug Logan Absolutely Rips USATF In Running Times Interview Logan says that he actually raised revenues 30% in 2010 and he was fired because amateurs wanted to keep power. "For too many people in the sport, it is more important that they control it rather than it be good or prosperous." Logan also blasts the amateurish way he was fired and says he was notified he was canned while one USATF staffer texted on his PDA.
• Did Brooks Johnson Take Down Doug Logan? Johnson was thrown under the bus by Logan when Logan started at USATF and it looks like Johnson has evened the score. Johnson blogged the following about Logan: "I am telling you he will NOT last the term ... This guy has a massive ego and  he is going to make mistakes that equal the magnitude of that ego. When he does, I am going to nail his ass because there is a mandate in federal legislation that demands accountability and transparency of organizations like USATF." *LRC MB: Brooks Johnson Has Some Words For Doug Logan And Vice Versa
• Doug Logan Absolutely Rips USATF Board Of Directors In New York Times For Being Amateurish *LRC MB: Doug Logan on the USATF Board of Directors

Week In Review

LRC Week That Was: Haile G, Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Shalane Flanagan, Andrew Wheating, Bernard Lagat's Brother And 79-Year-Old Chris Chataway It was a busy week on the roads and the board rooms (Doug Logan's sacking) and we give you our insight. Is something wrong with Ryan Hall? How amazing is Haile G?

The Son Of Teachers, World Record Holder David Rudisha Once Thought He'd Be A Geography Teacher

More Weekend Action

• Performance Of The Weekend? Chris Chataway Runs Great North Run In 1:51:09 (8:29 Pace) At Age 79 He paced Roger Bannister to his historic first sub-4 and is still going at it. He's Ed Whitlock's age and could probably beat both Rojo and Wejo.
• Netherlands: Hilda Kibet (51:30) Defeats Lornah Kiplagat (52:03) At Dam Tot Dam Loop 10-Miler 19-year-old John Mwangangi won the men's in 45:26.
• DC: Catherine The Great Wins Inaugural Woodrow Wilson Half Marathon
• Brazil: Fabiana Murer Vaults 4.70 At Brazilian Champs, Marílson dos Santos Runs 28:44.59 10k
• Hawaii: Nate Brannen Wins Maui Mile In 4:15 For $500
• Nate Brannen Runs Maui Half In 1:12

Great North Run And CityGames *Mile-By-Mile Splits For Leaders *Elite Photos

Haile G Remains Undefeated As Adere Repeats! *LRC Thread On Race Haile G still has got the goods as he put on a great show and crushed the field in poor conditions in England. He remained undefeated in 2010 and won by almost 2 minutes in 59:33 as American Dathan Ritzenhein was 4th in 62:34.
*Everyone In Britain Would Love To See Haile Win Olympic Marathon In 2012
More From Britain: Craig Mottram & Hannah England Win Distance Races At Great North CityGames Craig Mottram won the 2-mile by 1 second in 8:31. *LRC MB: Mottram wins 2 mile over Birms...Bads...Thompson...and No Farah
*In Commonwealths Tune-Up, England Beats Australia 5-4 At Great North CityGames
*Special Portable Track Makes CityGames Possible

Former NAIA Star Aaron Rono (3:58.18) & Carmen Douma-Hussar (4:35.60) Win Grandma's Minnesota Mile *Minnesota native Garrett Heath and Amy Mortimer were the runners-up.

Commonwealth Games-Related News

• Craig Mottram Enjoying Showing Selectors That Snubbed Him For Commonwealth Games They Made A Big Mistake Mottram also talks about his poor performance in Beijing and says he just put way too much pressure on himself by making it the end all and be all.
• Indian Slum Demolished And Visitor Cries, "You will play games while we will die."

Recommended Read 10 Years After Speeding To Olympic 100-Meter Glory, Marion Jones Is Now Teaching Others (And Herself) To Slow Down Before Making Big Decisions Australia's Daily Telegraph has written a very long piece on Jones, who is busy giving speeches to schools and writing a book due out Oct. 24th.

Inspiring Read Former World Jr. Champion (And Galen Rupp's Workout Partner) Julius Achon Is Helping Children One At A Time In War-Savaged Uganda

Minnesota Native Garrett Heath Hoping To Win Grandma's Minnesota Mile *Race Website

Commonwealths Are Approaching

• Originally Hoping For Double (800/1,500) Commonwealths Glory, Nick Willis Says Repeating As 1,500 Champ Is Big Enough Of A Challenge
• John Walker Urges New Zealand's Athletes To Ignore Terrorism Fears And Go & Compete In India Walker raced Steve Ovett in front of 65,000 in 1990.
• The $port Has Changed Forever
  None Of Jamaica's 6 Sub-10 Guys Will Run 100m At Commonwealths

Recommended Reads About 1,500 Men

• Andrew Wheating Gets Props & Talks Big In Sports Illustrated For the youngsters that have never purchased a magazine in their life, there are few bigger honors in US sports than a Sports Illustrated feature. In this one, Wheating, who is known for running from the back, says he's not afraid to try to try to run on David Rudisha's shoulder in a world record attempt.
• A Brief Chat With Nick Willis Willis talks about his comeback, his feelings on drug cheat Rashid Ramzi and even Alan Webb being a third wheel.
• Alberto Salazar Talks In Depth About Alan Webb's Comeback Apparently, Five Guys burgers and beers are out as Webb has lost 8 pounds. Prior to his 3:36, Webb was discouraged as he struggled to run 10 200s in 27.5.

We Guess A Dane Having The WR Was The Equivalent Of Stolen Livestock
*Thousands Greet David Rudisha As The Warrior Returns Home "Whenever a moran goes to war, the way Rudisha did, he is given such a reception on his return, especially if he successfully seized back the stolen livestock."
*Rudisha's Prized Gift Is A Framed Photo Of His Father Being Celebrated For Returning With Olympic Silver In 1968

Doug Logan In The News

LRC: Why Doug Logan Is Out At USATF And Where It Goes From Here LetsRun.com co-founder Weldon Johnson offers his analysis of the Logan dismissal. The outsider likely had zero built-in allies in USATF, which even USATF admits is an organization that is inherently "dysfunctional" in its setup. And when an outsider, not an insider, over-promises and possibly under-delivers, he's immediately thrown to the curb as no one's got his back. Regardless, the key thing to focus on is not why he's gone but what type of person does USATF hire to replace him and how do we prevent history from repeating itself as it appears the initial search process was poorly done.
More Logan:
*Phil Hersh: How The Logan-Hightower Relationship Went From Kiss-Kiss To Kiss-Off In The Last Year
*Logan Replacement Likely To Come From Within Sport
*SI Claims Logan Secured $10 Million-A-Year Deal With Nike If that's the case, they couldn't be too far off their $12 million goal for sponsorship for 2010.

The 30th Edition Of Fifth Avenue Mile Is This Sunday ... Watch Live On LetsRun.com (Pros At 12:50pm Eastern) *Men's Bios *Women's Bios *Preview

This is the best 5th Avenue Mile on the men's side we can remember (the tactician Bernard Lagat vs. the hot Leo Manzano vs. a fast-improving Alan Webb vs. Nick Willis rounding into form for Commonwealths, not to mention Amine Laalou). Pro races start at 12:50 pm Eastern with a live feed on LetsRun.com. We've got 2 great reads below to get you psyched for Sunday.
*Recommended: Great NY Times Profile On Leo Manzano Leo talks about turning around his 2010 season and growing up very poor (his parents didn't really understand what it meant to go to college).
*Lengthy Profile On Nick Willis, His Upbringing In New Zealand And This Sunday's 5th Avenue Mile Written by a Kiwi who saw Nick run a race at age 7 (the article talks about Nick's family and how his mother died when he was 5).

Pro Distance News

• Chris Solinsky Goes Into His High School Hall Of Fame
• Fasil Bizuneh Talks About His First US Title, His New Training Group And Training For Chicago
• Nicole Blood Joining Nike/OTC

Previous 5th Avenue News

• LetsRun.com Friend Lesley Higgins Previews The Pro Races
• Recommended Read Amazingly, Sydney Maree's Record From Year 1 Still Stands Maree got the record just 17 days after he beat Steve Ovett on the track in a year where Ovett and Seb Coe traded the mile world record.
• Dan Huling: "I was on track to break the American record in steeplechase this year ..." Huling is looking to go sub-4 for the first time in Manhattan.
• Nick Willis Thinks Road Miles Benefit Bigger Runners Like Himself
• 2008 NCAA Champ Hannah England Is Enjoying Her 1st Year As A Full-Time Pro She, like Nick Willis, will be running Commonwealths.
• RR: Bernard Lagat's 4-Year-Old Son Is Tired Of Dad Losing Races But he's being taught early how to lower expectations for Americans on the world scene, as after Lagat got the AR but lost, he said, "Daddy lost but you're still good in the country, right, Daddy?"
• Brief Chat With Shannon Rowbury
• Good Brief Chat With Nick Willis Webb hung out and trained with Willis some in Italy and was worried about being the 3rd wheel on a trip with Nick and his wife Sienna.
• Previous: Olympians Lagat Vs. Manzano Vs. Webb Vs. Willis At Continental Airlines Fifth Avenue Mile
• Lebow's Fifth Avenue Mile Dream Still Alive At 30

Newsweek: The Case Against College Athletic Recruiting We must admit we don't get why totally obscure sports get supported at the Ivy League level, but then again, some might say track is obscure. No mention though of how athletes might succeed better after college.

US Distance News

• Gags (Frank Gagliano) Has Started Another Training Group From the Reebok Enclave to the Farm Team to OTC and now an unnamed team in New Jersey. It seems like every prominent East Coast grad is in the group, including Erin Donohue, Rob Novak, Julie Culley, LBP and Max Smith.
• A Preview Of Next Sunday's US Marathon Men's Marathon Championships & US Women's 10-Mile Champs 2008 champ Fernando Cabada will battle it out with Minnesota native Luke Watson in Minnesota.
• Flanagan & Koll Going Gaga Over Each Other On Twitter Meanwhile, we thought about changing the motto of LRC to "We don't tweet."

Doping News

• Authorities On Alert For Possible EPO Substitute The drug is called Hematide.
• Katerina Thanou And Costas Kenteris Trial For Making False Statement To Authorities Postponed

International News

• IAAF Won't Consider London For 2015 Worlds Unless Government Guarantees Bid
• Cape Town Missed Internal Deadline But Wants To Bid For 2020 Olympics They'd seem to have a much better chance to win than Durban.

Most Read Running Story Of The Week

Front Page Of Wall Street Journal: Men Who Run Women's Only Races Technically, most of the races aren't women's only. Some even invite men, like the Nike Women's Half Marathon, but then when a dude won it he was heckled.

Some Runners Aren't Happy That Competitor Group/Corporate Entities Are Taking Over Running Events

Max King & Lauren Fleshman Win 2010 XTERRA Trail Run National Championship

Marathons For The Masses

• Gallowalker: "It takes more mental fortitude than continual running." We disagree and have never understood why some Gallowalkers have to try and make themselves superior to runners.
• Meb Going On A Run With Subway's Jared Fogle
• SI's Peter King Running A Half Marathon October 2nd He said he'd run an ultra-marathon if the Bengals signed TO. Well, they did and King is (sort of) paying up.

British News

• It's London Vs. Beijing For 2015 Worlds The bigwigs of course have to tour the sites to make sure everything is okay even though London is hosting the 2012 Olympics.
• Interesting Read With Charles van Commenee, Head UK Athletics Coach

Philly Half & US 5k

Philly: LRC Matthew Kisorio Slays Gebre Gebremariam As Ryan Hall Struggles 5k man Matthew Kisorio showed that Gebremariam is beatable after all, but it takes a 4:24 3rd mile to do it. Ryan Hall was never a factor and struggled mightily (63:55) as Brett Gotcher (62:50) was the top American, but he was beaten by former NCAA runners Simon Bairu, Alistair Cragg, Wesley Korir and Shawn Forrest.
Pre-Race: Hall Very Confident: "I wasn't totally in top-notch shape last year, but I think I'm in better shape this year."
LRC Meseret Defar Wins As Shalane Flanagan Runs 68:36 2004 Olympic 5,000-meter champ Meseret Defar's move up to the half marathon was a successful one as she defeated the hottest road racer on the planet in a sprint finish to get the win, as Shalane Flanagan became the 4th-fastest American in history.
More: Defar Wins As Heat Bothers Flanagan
Pre-Race: *defar VS flanagan....who ya got?

Providence/USA 5k: LRC Molly Huddle And Robert Cheseret Win 5k Titles American record holder Molly Huddle got a comfortable win on the women's side but on the men's side, it was newly-naturalized US citizen Robert Cheseret who got a surprise win. Don't know Cheseret? He's Bernard Lagat's brother as well as the guy who was able to beat Dathan Ritzenhein for the NCAA title even though he fell down in the middle of the race.

A Brief Chat With Shannon Rowbury The 1,500 star will end her season in New York on Sunday.

Weird: Pro Meet In Kawasaki Japan Has No Distance Races You'd think given the Japanese love of distance running that would be the highlight. Instead, it was highlighted by Christophe Lemaitre in the 100m.

Sprint News

• Tyson Gay Satisfied With 2010 Season
• Usain Bolt Not Excited About Restarting Training On October 4th
• Usain Bolt Wants To Retire On Top Whether he thinks he'll still be on top in 2016 will likely determine how long he sprints.
• Usain Bolt Show Continues In Melbourne

Villanova And The Ducks Go To Washington

• Villanova XC Also Goes To The White House The Wildcat women's team keeps getting overlooked.
• Oregon Women's Team Meets President Obama They were a part of a group of NCAA champions in the "lesser" sports visiting the White House.
• Jordan Hasay Blogs About The Visit
• More Presidential News: Allyson Felix Having Her First Presidential Council Meeting On Physical Fitness And Then Is Off To Bahamas

Drug Cheats Rejoice

104 Baseball Cheats Can Breathe Easier Tonight As Court Rules Government Illegally Seized Records Of Their Positive Drug Tests

Underdogs Rejoice Man With 15th-Best PR Wins Japanese University 5,000 Title

Drug News

Former University Of Iowa NCAA Standout Racheal Marchand Tests Positive For EPO Marchand was fifth at the NCAA XC champs in 2008 and quit her job this past year to train full-time for the 2012 Olympics for Puerto Rico. We and everyone else are bit late on this story, but this message board thread is all over it.
*Racheal Marchand Wins XC Race, Refuses To Talk To Reporter, Her Mom Blasts Reporter In Comments Section
*Flashback: Racheal Marchand Quits Her Job As A Drug Rep To Train Full Time For 2012 Games
On The Boards: Former NCAA standout EPO busted