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Non-NCAA Weekend Action

• Kenyan XC Tomorrow: KCB National Cross-Country Series Continues With A Deep Women's Race Featuring Faith Chepng'etich, Mercy Cherono & Emily Chebet Peter Mateelong leads men's field.
• Big Sur On Sunday: Big Sur Half Marathon Instituting Drug Testing After Two Of Last Year's Top Finishers (Ezkyaz Sisay And Christian Hesch) Were Found Out As Drug Cheats
  *Local Article Citing LetsRun.com
• Sunday's Turin Marathon: Italian Record Holder (2:23) And Olympics 8th Placer Valeria Straneo & 2:24 Dutchwoman Hilda Kibet Lead Deep Women's Field They were both originally scheduled to race NYC. Men's field led by Daniel Rono (2:06:58), Nicholas Kipruto Koech (2:07:23) and Ukraine’s Oleksiy Sitkovskyy (2:09:26), who finished 12th at the London Olympics.

If You're Not Cheating Part 2: Jon Rankin Wonders How Cheating In Sports Can Be Stopped

International News

• Usain Bolt Tweets Pictures Of His Best Kept Training Secret ... Stair Running Does he really train like this, or could it be a ploy to mess with Tyson Gay and Ryan Bailey?
• Uganda Olympic Committee Signs $71,000 Deal With Anti-Doping Company To Fight Drug Abuse Among Athletes They were motivated by seeing all the current allegations against Kenya.
• Coach Of Trinidad & Tobago's Olympic Javelin Champ Gets $54,000 For His Success
• France Debating Making A Bid To Host 2024 Games
• David Rudisha Favorite To Win Safaricom Sports Personality Of The Year Award

When Life Gives You Lemons, Go Race A Marathon In Japan

• This Weekend: A Look At The Elite Field For The Yokohama International Women's Marathon Top internationals include Lydia Cheromei (2:21:30), Amy Hastings, Kim Smith and Jo Pavey, while the Japanese women will try to hit Japan's new strict sub-2:24 standard to qualify for their Moscow World Champs team.
• Dec. 2nd: Martin Lel, Scott Overall, Ryan Vail, Tim Nelson, Brent Vaughn Added To Fukuoka Marathon Field After Missing Out On NYC Field already includes Haile Gebrselassie, Martin Mathathi, Mo Trafeh, Reid Coolsaet, Ryan Bak and Japan runners Arata Fujiwara and Yuki Kawauchi.
  *MB: Martin Lel, Nelson, Bairu, Vaughn, Vail to run FUKUOKA Marathon
• Recommended Read: New Jersey-New York Track Club Elite Miler Liam Boylan-Pett Responds To All The Negative Press Coming From The NY Post Against Mary Wittenberg & The NYRR

Yet Another Great Dies Too Young

Former 10k WR Holder Joseph Kimani Has Died At Age 40 The former road superstar took down the world's best in the 10k by a ridiculous 30 seconds in the summer of 1996 as he ran a still unthinkable 27:04 at Peachtree. He won virtually every big road race in the US at least once, also set a 12k WR, and is still the CR holder at Boilermaker.

More: *LRC MB Remembrances of Kimani
*RRW Article On Kimani
*Utica Observer Dispatch: Joseph Kimani, Boilermaker all-time great, dies at age 40
*Kimani's Death Getting Mentioned In Slovenia (Translated)
*AJC: Peachtree record holder passes away

UK Administrative Stuff: Olympic Stadium Situation Still A Mess

• Olympic Stadium Debacle Catching A Lot Of Heat As It Might Take Longer To Figure Out What To Do With It And Convert It Than It Did To Build It There is talk of the stadium not reopening until after the opening ceremonies of Rio 2016, which would just be ridiculous.
• UKA Chairman Ed Warner: "The legacy use was scheduled to start in two years' time and now it might be four years' time which strikes me as ludicrous ..."
• Three Men Arrested For Spying During The Controversial Bid War Over The Olympic Stadium There are allegations that they were hired by rival bidder Tottenham to spy on West Ham.
• UK Sport Investing A £27m National Lottery Campaign To Try And Bring More Major Sporting Events To Britain But will they have a stadium to put them in?
• London Bidding To Host The 2017 Paralympic World Championships In Addition To The Track World Champs Don't worry, the stadium should almost definitely be ready by then.
• Seb Coe "Frustrated" At Lack Of Opportunities For Sport In Schools
• Q&A With Olympic Medalist And BBC Commentator Brendan Foster

Quick Work: 2008 & 2012 Olympic Javelin Champion (And Former UMinn Gopher) Barbora Spotakova Is Pregnant And Will Not Compete In 2013 "I don't fear losing my appetite for sport - it's in my blood. My partner and I have been really hoping for this, we've allowed things to take their course and we've succeeded."

A Case That Makes The Caster Semenya Situation Seem Like A Fairy Tale

MB: Indian Female Gold Medallist, Pinki Pramanik, Formally Charged With Rape After Being Determined To Be Male - She Says No, It's Just Result Of Drugs I Took

*Asian Games Gold Medallist Pinki Pramanik Charged With Rape After Medical Reports Confirm Her As Male
*Pinki Pramanik Blames Injections For Her "Masculine" Physique
*Pinki Pramanik Plans Defamation Case Against Cops, Prosecutor
*Medical Reports Confirm Pinki Is A Male
*Police Forcing Me To Commit Suicide, Says Pinki Praminik

Laughable: Cycling Head Pat McQuaid Says UCI Will Establish Confidential Doping Hotline To Build Trust & Says Releases Open Letter to Peloton That Says He's Been A Leader In Anti-Doping Movement It's a little too late for gestures and false statements like this: "The UCI has always been a pioneer in the fight against doping, a fact recognised by WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) and the IOC (International Olympic Committee) among others," wrote McQuaid in his letter addressed "Dear rider."

More Weekend Results

• Stanley Biwott Shatters Rock 'N' Roll San Antonio Half Marathon CR 1:01:11 He was originally supposed to run the NYC marathon last weekend before it was cancelled.
• 2012-13 IAAF XC Series Gets Under Way As Imane Merga Holds Off Kenya's 4th Placers For Narrow Win The runner-up was Kenya's 5k 4th finisher, Vincent Chepkok, and 10k 4th placer (and 2012 WL) Emmanuel Bett was third. London 5th placer in the steeple, Ayalew Hiwot, destroyed Linet Masai to win the women's crown.
  *Ireland's Euro XC Champ Fionnuala Britton Finishes 4th
• An Irish Kip Litton? Irish Runner Cuts Dublin City Marathon Course Closing In 1:07:20 After Running The First Half In 1:23:17

Richmond Marathon, Half & 8k + Athens, Beirut & Istanbul Marathons *Richmond Photos

Neely Spence Runs With Dad Steve For 3 Miles Then Smashes 8k Course Record With 25:22 Win Steve ran 25:45. Ethiopians won the half marathons. Mengstu Nebsi set a CR at 1:03:21 as Hirut Beyen ran 1:15.14. *Discuss

Kenya's Kipkoech Ruto Wins Richmond Marathon In 2:15 As American Christo Landry Debuts In 2:17 After Pushing Pace Early Hoping For 2:12

Aziza Aliyu Of Ethiopia - Who Was Going To Run In New York - Blows Away Women's Field In 2:40:21 A pretty easy run for Aliyu, who has a 2:36 PR.

Pre-Race: Richmond Marathon Acquires A New York Accent Not too much of one as the first place prize was only $2,500.

Istanbul: Tortoise Beats The Hare Stephan Chebogut Picks up $50,000 & Wins Istanbul Marathon By 4+ Minutes In 2:11:05 As Leaders Blow Up After Going Out In 62:47 (new link) Koren Jelela won the women's title in 2:28:05.

Athens: Marathon Record Is Now 2:11:35 Thanks To Raymond Bett That's a long way from the 2:58:50 that won the 1896 Olympics. The women's race was won in 2:40:00.
*59-Year-Old Man Running 10k As Part Of Athens Marathon Dies From Heart Attack After Finishing

Beirut: 33,000 Run As Ethiopia's Kedir Fekadu Wins In 2:12:57 Saeda Kedir won the women's race in 2:35:08 as American Mary Akor was third in 2:37:32.

Other Marathon News: Great News: Philly Takes 1,360 NY Would-Be Marathoners - Says They'll Donate $100 Hurricane Sandy Relief
*Ridiculous: New York Marathon Giving Out Finisher Medals Even Though No One Finished The Race

Kenyan XC Meet

• She's Back 2010 World XC Champ Emily Chebet Wins 2nd Straight Kenyan XC Meet As 5th Placer From Kenyan Trials, 10,000 Geoffrey Kirui, Dominates Men's Kirui won by 13 seconds. *Results
• Kenyan Recap Of XC Meet Boston runner-up Jemimah Chelagat was 2nd.
  
  
• More Kenya-Related News: P. Makau And R. Mota Honoured With Awards At A Gala Dinner On The Occasion Of The 30th Anniversary Of Both The Association Of International Marathons

Kenyan News

• David Rudisha: WR Holder And Now Movie Star In The Movie "The First" Movie on his WR setting win at London 2012. *Trailer
• Ethiopians Abay Girma And Argachew Tadesse Lead Field For Kass Marathon Next Sunday In Kenya There's a $5,000 bonus for the first foreigner across the line.
• Kenyan XC Today: 2010 World XC Champ Emily Chebet Headlines Field In 2nd Of 7 Meet Series Peter Matelong (Richard Matelong's younger brother), Hosea Macharinyang and Isaac Korir lead men's field.
  *World XC News: IAAF Members Conclude Their Visit To Bydgoszcz, Poland To Inspect The Site Of The 2013 World Cross-Country Championships On March 24th Everything seems to be in order."

US News: Lolo Jones Wins Bobsled World Cup Silver Medal

• Lolo Jones' Team Wins Silver At Bobsled World Cup Tianna Madison and her partner took bronze. Jones said, "I'm kind of in shock."
  *Videos Of Lolo Jones And Tianna Madison In Bobsled Action

NCAA Nationals Are TOMORROW

First Predictions From LRC Prediction Contest To Be Released At Noon Eastern Friday

LRC Men's Team Preview: Expect A Battle Between #1 Oklahoma State, #4 Wisco And #7 Colorado LRC breaks down the field and disses #2 Stanford and #2 Iona while giving #4 Wisconsin and #7 Colorado a chance. Disagree? Vote in our $200,012 prediction contest.

LRC Men's Individual Preview: Can Anyone Stop Lawi Lalang? Will An American Get In The Top 10? Lawi Lalang won NCAAs last year as a freshman. If he wins this time, he could be on his way to becoming the first 4-time NCAA champion.

More NCAA News:
*RW Interview With Florida State Coach Karen Harvey "I'm calling my girls horses. They are so fit. I mean, it's almost scary."
*Interview With UConn Women Team Members On Making Their First Trip To XC Nationals
*Running Times Interview With Colorado Runner Blake Theroux "I'm going to run my own race, trusting that my guys are behind me, doing what they need to do. I would say I'm number two on the team right now ... and my goal is to beat every other number two in the country."
*Running Times NCAA Predictions
*DII Chairman Speaks On Decision To Still Hold DII XC Nationals In Joplin, MO After The Town Was Almost Completely Destroyed By A F5 Tornado Last May
*Australian Exchange Student Laments University Of Richmond Dropping It's Track Program
*OSU Coach Dave Smith Says His Team Is "Racing A Little Angry" At NCAAs "We are hungry again. Last year stung pretty badly. We are training and racing with a chip on our shoulder, like we did in previous years. We are running like we have something to prove, training and racing a little angry."
*Stanford Teams Happy With Where They're At After Regionals
*Q&A With Iowa State's Meaghan Nelson On The Team's Training And Outlook Ahead Of NCAAs She says her mileage has got up to 100-plus, and many others are in the 70-100 range.

US All-Time Greats In The News

• Track Gossip: Rumors Of Bruce And Kris Jenner Getting A Divorce Kris Jenner is the matriarch of the reality TV family the Kardashians.
• Lopez Lomong Wins Visa Humanitarian Of The Year Award In less than a year, the Lopez Lomong Foundation raised $150,000 to provide clean water and health care for those in South Sudan.
• Q&A With US HJ Record Holder And 1996 Olympic Gold Medalist Charles Austin, Who Is Being Inducted Into The National Track & Field Hall Of Fame He won gold by breaking the Olympic record on his final attempt, after coming back from a knee injury where four different doctors told him he'd never jump again.

Assorted News From The UK

• Jessica Ennis Says Sportswomen Can "Create a real healthy body image for young girls to aspire to." She admits to hating lifting weights when she was younger because she knew it would affect her figure.
  *Ennis, Christine Ohuruogu And Other UK Athletes Appeared On BBC's Special Titled "Body Beautiful?"
• Brit Runner Has Ran 587 Marathons In His Lifetime (500 Of Them Sub-3:30) Also broke a world record for running 87 marathons in a year, but no mention of his PR.
• UK Writer Worries That The New "Superstars" Special By The BBC Will Be Much Tamer Than The Original '80s Version
• Government Report Says Construction Of Olympic Venues "Injected $11.6 Billion Into The British Economy
• London Had To Take Extra Measures To Make Sure Tourism Industry Was Not Devastated By Games You might assume the Olympics bring many more people in than usual, but with the number who avoid the city before and after the Games, London will be lucky to break even.
• Seb Coe Says UK Schools Need To Recruit Better PE Teachers And Pay Them More To Build On Olympic Legacy

Kenyan News: Paul Tergat Is On The IOC

• Sammy Wanjiru Honored By Commonwealth Games Federation & Paul Tergat Chosen To Succeed Kip Keino As Kenya's Representative On The IOC Executive Board The award included $379, which was given to one of his wives his wife. She gave the money to the Wanjiru Foundation, which aids local races and is helping the local hospital buy equipment that could have possibly saved Wanjiru.
• Caroline Kilel Among Athletes Vying For Overall Jackpot In 3-Part Safaricom Gusii Golden Kebirigo 10km Road Series Winner gets $584, a cow, a goat and a sack of maize. Cha-ching!
• Big Surprise: AK President Isaiah Kiplagat Urges Retired Kenyan Athletes To Take Up Management Of Current Runners Rather Than Use Foreign Agents "It is not economically healthy for all the agents to be from abroad. If our agents take care of our athletes, the benefit would be for the Kenyans."
• Heated Debate Continues At Eldoret Athlete Seminar Beteween KRA And Runners Over The Taxation Of Prize Money

Pro Track/Road News

• Jamaican Press Criticizes IAAF For Not Including Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce On Short List For World Athlete Of The Year Award However they do concede that she won three gold medals to Fraser-Pryce's one and even mention their surprise that Ashton Eaton was left off the men's list.
• Valerie Adams, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Sally Pearson, Jessica Ennis & Allyson Felix Nominated For Laureus Sportswoman Of The Year Award Non-track athletes nominated include Serena Williams, Missy Franklin and Japanese wrestler Saori Yoshid.
• Neely Spence Says She's Looking Forward To Being Part Of The US's Kiden Team Competing At The Chiba Ekiden Later This Month
• Ashton Eaton's Coach, Harry Marra, Named USATF Coach Of The Year www.usatf.org He also coaches Eaton's fiance Brianne Theisen.
• Mid-D Runner Ryan Gregson Criticizes Decision Of Australian Soccer Teams To Go Train At High Altitude In Boulder Or Flagstaff During November
• Olympic Heptathlon Champ Jessica Ennis Wants To Join The 7,000-Point Club Her best is 6,955, while three in history have broken 7,000, the WR holder being US's Jackie Joyner-Kersee (7,291).

Previous NCAA News

There's Smart And Then Stanford Smart NCAA Okays Private Plane To Take Stanford's Miles Unterreiner To Rhodes Scholarship Interview From NCAA XC Meet
*AP Article On Unterreiner
*D3 Runner Annie Lydens Of Pomona Pitzer Will Skip NCAAs To Go To Interview
*MB: NCAA XC vs Rhodes Scholarship

Oscar P Receives Honorary Doctorate From Glasgow's Strathclyde University - A Leader In Prosthetic Research *Daily Mail On Oscar P

After 3 Days In Cell With 40 Men, One Open Toilet And A Blanket That Had Not Been Washed In Years, Former World High Jump Champion Jacques Freitag Gets Bail

National Security Issues Start With Running:
Wall Street Journal Examines Paula Broadwell And David Petraeus' Running: "Paula Broadwell Is Faster Than You" She ran 1:36 for the half marathon at 39.

Recommended Reads And Seb Coe News

• Recommended Read: Having Recently Won $500,000 WMM Title, Geoffrey Mutai Hasn't Forgot His Poor Upbringing & Remembers How He Borrowed Money To Run 2007 Kass Marathon This year's edition of the race is this year and Mutai says the winner will be able to get top 3 in Boston.
• Recommended Read: Brothers Futsum Zienasellassie And Bahlbi Gebreyohanns Talk About Being Separated & Now Reunited Again At NAU
  
  
• A Nice Q&A With Former Olympic Medallist And TV Columnist Extraordinaire Brendan Foster
  
  Speaking Of Recommended Reads, A Few People Actually Have Emailed And Said That His New Autobiography Is A RR Despite Monday's Terrible Review
• Seb Coe Talks To Sky Sport About His New Book And Olympic Memories From London 2012
• IOC President Jacques Rogge Has Expressed Caution About The Chances Of Sebastian Coe Becoming A Member Of The Olympic Body Next Year
• Even Though They Brought In 50% More Money Than Any Other Olympics Through Ticket Sales, Politicians Are Still Expected To Criticize Seb Coe On Wednesday

Pro News: Galen Rupp Will Be Back At It November 23rd In Japan

• Looking Ahead To Japan's November 23rd International Chiba Ekiden Top names on the start list include Galen Rupp, Kenya's Olympic marathon silver medalist Priscah Jeptoo, and Canada's Olympic marathoner Reid Coolsaet.
• Geoffrey Mutai Talks About His First Big Marathon Win At The Kass Marathon Back In 2007 Before that 2007 race, Mutai couldn't even afford the entry fee and had to borrow money to register, but after his finish his manager first discovered him and set him up with his first World Marathon Major.
• Recommended Read: Part 1 Of A 3-Part Piece By 3:54 Miler Jon Rankin On Why Elite Athletes Shouldn't Cheat "But doesn’t becoming the best entail knowing that YOU are standing on the podium because you're the one responsible for achieving your performance, and not because you used something that was made in a lab? Personally, I wouldn't be able to live with that lie."
• Ashton Eaton And Allyson Felix Named "Jesse Owens Athletes Of The Year" This is Felix's fourth time winning.
  *Q&A With Felix And Eaton Felix says she'll probably move up to the 400 for Rio 2016 and that she won't be running indoors this year.
• The Victorian Institute Of Sport Drops Craig Mottram From Their Funding List In Favor Of Younger Athletes "With A Better Chance Of Winning Medals"
• Oscar P Receives Honorary Degree From Scotland's Strathclyde University

NYC News: NYPD To Refund Fees Paid By NYC Marathon Police fees were the main reason entry fees spiked for the 2012 marathon.

Recommended Read If You Are A Seb Coe Fan
British Journalist Reads Seb Coe's Autobiography, Interviews Him And Then Totally Pans Him As An "Uninspiring" Bore We don't think we've ever read a more critical review of someone who is such a success.

Nice Read: 20-Year-Old Irish Pentathlete, Whose Inspiration Is Steve Prefontaine, Has Painfully Made Himself Into One Of The World's Elite With Just A Ton Of Hard Work

Japan And China Go To War Over A Marathon?

• Update: Correction: Japanese Now Can Compete In Beijing - Chinese Say "Administrative Oversight" Kept Japanese Out Initially If you believe that, you are a fool.
• As A Result Of Japan-China Territorial Dispute And Protests, Beijing Marathon Bans Japanese Citizens "For Their Own Safety" The race, which was originally scheduled for Oct., was cancelled by the Communist party earlier in the year but it came out on Nov. 7 that it would take place in 18 days.
  *Despite Controversy And 2 Weeks Training Time, Beijing Marathon Is Hot - 26,000+ Applications In Two Days
  
  More News From Japan:
  Japan's Sole Olympic 5,000/10,000 Runner Yuki Sato - Is Dreaming Of Marathon Medal In Rio Sato, a 13:23/27:38 performer, ran in London with "B" qualifiers but will likely move up for Rio.
   
  
• Japan's 2:07 Man Arata Fujiwara Is Running December's Fukuoka Marathon For One Reason - He Wants To Beat The Great Amateur Yuki Kawauchi "Once the Olympics were finished and I had to think about what would motivate me next, I thought a showdown with him would be the most fun."
• Incoming Japanese Federation Marathon Director On Kawauchi: "I want him to keep doing things in his own style."