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Week That Was

LRC The Week That Was: More Lance, Shoe Company Talent, A Cool Video, Photo, And More We've got a cool video from France of Mo Farah, Galen Rupp and Dathan Ritzenhein, a cool photo from the Nike campus, some Hansons-Brooks news, and we delve further into everything Lance and what can be done about cleaning up the sport. Plus Ireland, the Euro XC champions, waves the white flag on World XC.

Millrose Mile Fields Announced

• Millrose Announces Field For 2013 Wanamaker Mile: Matt Centrowitz Will Defend His Title Against Lopez Lomong And Robby Andrews Also in the field are Miles Batty, Donn Cabral, Garrett Heath, Jordan McNamara, Ryan Hill, Lawi Lalang, Chris O'Hare, Mitch Goose and Irish Olympian Ciarán O'Lionaird. The women's race features Abbey D’Agostino, Jordan Hasay, Emma Coburn, Ashley Higginson, Delilah DiCrescenzo, Emily Infeld, Sheila Reid and high schooler Mary Cain.
• Matt Centrowitz Thinks He's In Shape To Go For Bernard Lagat's Wanamaker Mile Record And Maybe Even American Record  Lagat's Wanamaker Mile record is 3:52.87 and his AR is 3:49.89. However, it needs to be noted that Lagat set his Wanamaker record at Madison Square Garden while Centrowitz will be at the much faster track at the Armory.
• Centrowitz Says His Recent Workouts Have Been "Faster Than Anything I Could Imagine" Coming Out Of College
  
• Good RW Q&A With Abbey D'Agostino On Being Added To Millrose Mile Field Come NCAAs she'll probably be shooting for the 3k.

US News: Great Quotes From Brett Gotcher And Erik Kynard

• Olympic Trials 5th Placer Brett Gotcher Racing Rotterdam Marathon On April 14th Gotcher: "It's hard [not running Boston] because it is a big part of your yearly income, but I feel like at some point you just have to make a sacrifice for the greater goal, which is to run fast."
• Kansas State's Erik Kynard Won't Let Winning An Olympic Silver Medal Affect His Competitiveness “I won’t let victory defeat me. Victory can defeat athletes. ... You go into competitions expecting everyone else to move out of the way. I don’t expect the Red Seas to part for me, and I don’t expect anyone to bow down.”
• Good Read: Former Iowa State Head Coach Steve Lynn Remembered As A Great Coach, Great Man 400 hurdler Danny Harris: "It wasn't just about athletics, it was about him wanting us to be good people and to be successful in life. That goes beyond coaching — that's teaching and a lot of character — and that's the man he was."
• The Pac-12 Office Releases Statement About Restricting Broadcasting Of Pac-12 Meets Such As Those At The University of Washington’s Dempsey Indoor Meets will only be allowed to be broadcast by the Pac-12 network, which means Runnerspace and Flotrack can't stream or upload any videos of meets.
• USTFCCCA: Arkansas And Clemson Retain Top Spots in DI Team Rankings With Texas A&M Charging
  
• 2008 US Olympic Marathoner Blake Russell Pregnant With Her 2nd Child And Likely to Retire Russell placed 27th in 2:33:15 at the 2008 Olympic Marathon (2:29:10 PR).
• Ken Goe Catches Up With Vin Lananna Talking About His New Role At Oregon In addition to a lot of administrative work, he's still helping coach OTC runners Russell Brown, Erik van Ingen and Andrew Wheating.
  
• Longtime T&F Journalist Doug Binder Working In NYC For The Armory As An Assistant Director Of College Track And Field

More (Mostly NCAA) Results From The Weekend

• UTEP's Anthony Rotich Runs NCAA Altitude-Adjusted Leading Times In Both The 3,000 (7:59.40) And Mile (4:03.07) At New Mexico Invitational His times were 8:11.51 and 4:08.48 without the altitude conversion.
• Texas A&M Sprinter Deon Lendore Is USTFCCCA's Athlete Of The Week For His World-Leading 45.91 400 Followed By A 45.90 4 X 4 Split Oklahoma thrower Tia Brooks won the women's award for her collegiate-leading mark of 61-6¾ (18.76m).
• 1:47.87 800 By Austrian Andreas Rapatz And 2:04.79 Anita Hinriksdottir Highlight European Weekend Results

US News

• Jesse Williams Says Size Doesn't Matter "Almost in every big competition I'm the shortest and usually the heaviest or closest to it, which I take pride in."
• Brooks Running Company Pledges Continued Commitment To Developing Athletes And The Sport Of Running They've started a Seattle-based middle distance team which includes Matt Scherer and Mark Wieczorek.

Sunday And Other Weekend Action

Course Records Fall At 2013 Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon As Jackson Kiprop Runs 2:09:32 And Valentine Kipketer Runs 2:24:33 Kipketer's 2:24:33 is fastest time in world in 2013 and new Indian all-comers record. Edit: This press release incorrectly stated that Kipketer's 2:24:33 was a World Leading time. It is actually 3rd fastest in 2013 behind the top two from the Houston Marathon, Merima Mohammed (2:23:37) and Buzunesh Deba (2:24:26).

• Jairus Birech And Former World Jr. Champ Mercy Cheron Are The Weekend Winners At Italian XC Meet For the men, World Junior steeple champ Conseslus Kipruto was well beaten in 3rd.
• Crazy: Less Than 48 Hours After Winning The Egypt Marathon In 2:12 Yuki Kawauchi Runs Saitama Ekiden He finished 2nd on his 11.9 km stage in 36:54 (4:59 pace for ~7.4miles).
• Collis Birmingham Dominates Australia's World XC Trials Wins by 27 seconds.
  *Birmingham's Training Partner Brett Robinson Also Qualified

News From The UK: Mara Yamauchi Retires

• GB 39-Year-Old Marathoner Mara Yamauchi Retires She is Britain's second-fastest-ever marathon runner, finished runner-up in 2009 London Marathon and won the 2008 Osaka Marathon.
• Many Races Cancelled As Britain Is Hit With Severe Snowy Weather The South of England Cross-Country Championships and the South of England Indoor Championships were among two bigger ones that were cancelled.
• Those Poor People: Large Sculpture Of Weird London 2012 Mascot Placed Permanently In Front Of UK Stadium That Was "Birthplace" Of Paralympics

18-Year-Old Ajee Wilson Sets WORLD Jr. Record At 600 (1:27.30) And Will Attack AR At Millrose

Dying Too Young

LRC 4-Time World Marathon Majors Runner-Up Abderrahim Goumri Has Died At Age 36 The former MAR national record holder at 2:05:30, who once ran 12:50 for 5k and was twice the runner-up in New York, has been killed in a car accident. Goumri was busted for drugs due to the biological passport last summer.

Former 10k World Record Holder Samson Kimobwa, Who Ran 27:30.47 On June 30, 1977 In Helsinki, Has Died Suddenly At Age 58 Interesting fact - he coached Boaz Cheboiywo in Kenya and went to Washington State. *Wikipedia Page
*IAAF Tribute To Samson Kimobwa And Abderahim Goumri

Great Idea: 2004 Olympic Hurdles Champ Joanna Hayes Wants Runners To Have Customized Jerseys

Houston Marathon/Half Was Sunday

LRC Ethiopians Feyisa Lilesa And Mamitu Daska Win 2013 Aramco Houston Half Marathon The performance of the day belonged to Daska, who was dominant on US soil just as she was in all of 2012. Shadrack Biwott (62:23) and Lisa Uhl (73:28) were the top Americans as Luke Puskedra and Aaron Braun also broke 63.

LRC Bazuk Worku (2:10:17) And Merima Mohammed (2:23:27) Win 2013 Chevron Houston Marathon Titles The former WJr. record holder picked up marathon win #1 as Andrew Carlson (2:17:16) and Tera Moody (2:39:10) took top American honors.

RRW: Ethiopians Sweep Titles At Cold, Wet 2013 Chevron Houston Marathon & Aramco Half Marathon Includes quotes from Biwott, Carlson, Uhl.

Former Stars Retire

• Felix Limo Hangs 'Em Up Limo, who famously ran 41:29 for 15km (4:27 pace) to set the WR and beat Haile G in 2001 and then went on to win the Rotterdam (2004), Berlin (2004), Chicago (2005) and London (2006) marathons, is calling it quits at 32 due to back problems. His 2:06:14 was the fastest marathon in 2004. He'll now focus on his farms and business interests.
  *Interesting: Toni Reavis Remembers Having Dinner With A 20-Year-Old Limo And Limo Telling Him What He'd Do When He Retired "When I retire, I will open Felix Limo's House of Ugali."
   
• Two-Time NCAA Champ From Texas, Jacob Hernandez, Officially Retires At Age 27 "Today, I announce my retirement from track and field. Ray Lewis and I decided, its time to go."
  *LRC 2008 NCAA 800 Recap *Race Video
  *LRC 2008 NCAA Photos
  *Retirement Video Interview With Hernandez

Usain Bolt Gets Dumped

• Usain Bolt Gets Dumped By British Girlfriend She says she couldn't handle the long-distance relationship and spills the beans on what it was like to date the global superstar.
• Article Claims That Usain Bolt Was Motivated To Win Gold In London By Pictures Of His Girlfriend's Butt
• Bond > Bolt? Usain Bolt #2 On AskMen.com's Top 49 Men Of 2012 List James Bond was #1.

Asafa Powell Gives Some Tips For The Ladies

• Asafa Powell Tells Women How To Keep Guys Interested "Being clingy is a Highway 2000 route to being single. Being too available can come across as desperate and a turn-off. We like a little chase. If you're always there then."

Unbelievable

The Smoking Gun.com: Suzy Favor Hamilton Has Been Working As $600/Hour Escort For Last Year SFH, the 3-time Olympian, has been one of the hottest commodities in the escort business over the last year as she jumped up to a #3 ranking and got rave reviews for her runner's body and for providing the "full GFE (girlfriend experience)." One client raved, "I would do anything to protect her. ... She is worth every penny. I will go bankrupt before I stop seeing her. I hope no one else goes to see her, because I want her all to myself. ... I never thought I would find anyone in this hobby like her."
*Definitely Not Politcally Correct: Chicago Sun-Times Columnist: SFH isn't alone - lots of female distance runners are total nut jobs SFH had "a glint of ferocity in her eyes, of suppressed danger. I saw the look in many of the Wisconsin middle-distance and long-distance female runners. In my book, I made special note of them, of their lapses into near insanity, of their successes and crashes and eating disorders and dependence on their controlling German head coach, Peter Tegen."
*Suzy Favor Hamilton Issues A Statement
*MB: Suzy Favor-Hamilton: Vegas Escort

Suzy Favor Hamilton TV Report In Chicago

Foot Locker Finals *Results *Boys Photo Gallery *Legends Pre-Race Photo Gallery

Boys: Edward Cheserek Repeats After Battle With Sean McGorty McGorty, the South champ, and Jake Leingang, the Midwest champ, didn't make it easy for Cheserek, but there is a reason Cheserek doesn't lose - he's the best in the US high school ranks. The four Regional winners went 1-2-3-4. *Results *Milesplit Recap *Edward Cheserek Interview

Girls: Anna Rohrer Overcomes Fall To Win Rohrer pulled away for the win after falling after the start. Her Midwest teammates dominated the race with 6 in the top 10. Catarina Rocha of the Northeast was the runner-up, with both runner-ups having a least one Foot Locker finalist parent. *Results *Steve U's Recap *Anna Rohrer Interview
*OTB: Sarah Baxter 2016 Olympics? *wow footlocker, get your cameras fixed. learn how to cover a national race *Has Foot Locker gone too far?

A Lot Of Indoor Action This Weekend

• BU Terrier: Galen Rupp Running Mile At BU Terrier Invitational; Sources Say He May Go For Bernard Lagat's 3:49.89 AR Also in the field are Riley Masters and Dorian Ulrey.
   
• NB Indoor Games: Mary Cain Going For The National High School Mile Record At The New Balance Games At The Armory She'll chase the 4:38.5 record set by Debbie Heald, which at over 40 years old, is the oldest remaining girls' HS record indoor or out. The field also includes pros Sarah Bowman and Aussie steeplechase Olympian Genevieve LaCaze. Robby Andrews highlights the men's mile field which includes Craig Miller, Jack Bolas and Liam Boylan-Pett. There will also be an indoor steeple with Ashley Higginson and Stephanie Garcia leading the women's field. That is the oldest remaining national high school girls' record, indoor or outdoor. Gerry Lindgren's indoor two-mile mark - established in 1964 - is the only older indoor standard.
  *Robby Andrews Says He's The Most Fit He's Ever Been Ahead Of NB Mile
  *Flotrack Signs Exclusive Rights deal With Armory Track To Stream New Balance Games And Armory Collegiate Invitational The Armory usually streams most of its meets for free on YouTube, but this means you'll have to pay if you want to watch these two.
   
• Glasgow: Bernard Lagat Up Against Augustine Choge As He Represents Team USA In The 3000 At British Athletics Glasgow International The meet features a team competition between the US, GB, Russia, Germany and a Commonwealth select team. Other top Americans competing are Matthew Centrowitz against Kenya’s 3:31 man Bethwel Birgen in the 1500, 800m Olympian Geena Gall against Russia's Olympic bronze medallist Yekaterina Poistogova and Carmelita Jeter in the 60m.
  *UK's 2011 400H Champ Dai Greene Joins Field For Glasgow 600 Against Duane Solomon And London Games 800 8th Placer Andrew Osagie
  *Olympic HJ Bronze Medalist Robbie Grabarz Will Compete In Glasgow And Captain Team GB Dwain Chambers will race Kim Collins in the 60m.
  *World Indoor Champ Yamile Aldama Leads Glasgow TJ Field
   
• Roads: Elite Fields For This Sunday's Carlsbad Marathon & Half Marathon Announced: Stephen Sambu Will Make His Half-Marathon Debut Sambu leads the field for the men's half which also includes 1:03 runners Michael Eaton and Sendeku Alemayehu and defending champ Mario Macias. In the women’s half Kenya’s Everlyne Lagat will defend her title. 2011 marathon winner Demesse Tefera leads the men's marathon field as 2011 champ Mary Akor leads the women.
  *OsakaWomen's Marathon Is This Sunday: Top Japan Athletes Competing Include 2004 Olympic Champ Mizuki Noguchi And 2012 10th Placer Kayokoko Fukushi Also former marathon national record holder Yoko Shibui.

UK (Mostly Jessica Ennis) News

• After Being Named UK Coach Of The Year Jessica Ennis' Coach Toni Minichiello Loses His Full-Time Job With UK Athletics “The viewpoint a lot of the time is that coaches are inter-changeable. I don’t think they value the longevity and relationship development year on year. I think they believe anybody can coach anybody if you just come in at the right time.”
  
• Olympic Parent Problems: Jessica Ennis Says She Fears When She Has Children They Will Face Pressure To Be As Good At Sports As Her
• At Least The Olympic Stadium Is Being Used For Something: Olympic Park To Host Live Nation Concerts And Festivals In July

News From Kenya

• Ezekiel Kemboi Adorns Kenyan Head of State, President Mwai Kibaki, With His London Olympic Gold Medal At State Awards Function Kemboi: "I could have given the president my medal forever. But Olympics rules don’t allow that...He can have that; I still have the one from Athens and many other medals."
  Kenyan Government Gives Monetary Awards To London Olympic Medalists $8,586 to gold medalists, $5,724 to silver medalists and $3,434 to bronze medalists

Other Upcoming Races

• Feb 3rd: Mohammed Aman (The Only Man To Have Beaten David Rudisha In The Past 2 Years) Added To Russian Indoor 600 Field The World indoor record (1:15.12) could be under threat as the field includes Olympic 800 silver/bronze medallists Nijel Amos and Timothy Kitum and 2004 Olympic champ Yuriy Borzakovskiy. The women's PV is also competititve with Olympic medallists Yarisley Silva, Fabiana Murer and Holly Bleasdale.
• April 14th: Haile Gebreselassie Going For His Third Straight Vienna City Half Marathon Victory Last year he ran 60:52 and the year before a CR 60:18.

African News

• Olympic Marathon Champ Stephen Kiprotich Says He's Focus On Moscow 2013 And Hates Missing Training Days For Travel He'll either compete in the Boston or London Marathon this spring.
• Interesting Chart Displaying Caster Semenya's 800 "Rivalry With Russians" According to this, since 2009 Caster is 2 and 7 (not counting semi-finals) with Olympic champ Mariya Savinova.
• In His Retirement, 15k WR Holder Felix Limo Focusing On Real Estate, Dairy Farming And Tea Plantations
• Lornah Kiplagat, Haile Gebrselassie And Kenenisa Bekele Among Top Runners To Use Earnings To Built Sports Facilities And Give Back To Younger Athletes

LRC Lukas Verzbicas' Comeback Continues With 21:02 4-Mile Win We're calling this kid "The Real Lance" as he is a comeback-from-near-death athlete you can believe in.
*MB: Discuss

NCAA Results *All College Results *Full Triangular Results

• LSU Women Win 2013 Arkansas, Texas A&M, & LSU Triangular
• Texas A&M Men Win 2013 Arkansas, Texas A&M, & LSU Triangular Henry Lelei won the mile (4:10.95) and anchored the winning DMR.
• Kansas State Sweeps Wildcat Invitational Winning All 6 Dual Meets Against Oklahoma State, Tulsa And UMKC Olympic silver medalist Erik Kynard jumped for the first time since London winning in 2.29 meters (7-06.00) to set a new meet and collegiate dual meet record.
• Nebraska Wins Men's And Women's adidas Classic Titles
• University Of Minnesota Sweeps Titles At Jack Johnson Invitational Jon Peterson won the 3k in 8:03.00 as Jamie Cheever won the women's in 9:19.87.

Who Says It's Just January? *Full UW Results

LRC Mary Cain Runs 9:02.10 For 3,000 - Arguably The Greatest Distance Performance In High School History
MB: *Cain 9:02!!!
*Mary Cain 9:02!!!
*How many boys state 3200/2 mile can mary cain win?
*NOW what do you think about a Baxter-Cain face-off at 3200 / 2-mile? Hmmmm?

RIP John Thomas And Steve Lynn

Former HJ WR Holder And USATF Hall Of Famer John Thomas Passes Away At 71 Thomas won silver and bronze Olympic medals and when he was only 17, became the first person to clear 7 feet indoors.
*RR: Rip John Thomas: Toni Reavis Blogs On The "Passing Of A Hero"
*Video Of John Thomas' Historic 1959 Millrose Games WR HJ Meet director Howard Schmertz: "That was my No. 1 most memorable moment in Millrose history. It brought the house down. It was the loudest roar I ever heard at the Garden. Any sport."
*Former Iowa State Track Coach Steve Lynn Dies At Age 61

Upset About Treatment On A "Human, Personal Level" By Cuban Officials, Dayron Robles Will Sit Out All Of 2013 In Protest Last week, we heard he was lacking motivation.

Olympic 100m Bottle Thrower Convicted

Guilty: Men's 100m Bottle Thrower Is Convicted Sounds like due to his mental illness, he'll get a slap on the wrist, but the judge's reasoning was sound: "The video, in my view, quite clearly shows Mr Gill-Webb checking to see if he is under observation before taking the risk of throwing the bottle. I am sure that he was at that point weighing up the chances of being caught before throwing the bottle in an effort to disrupt the start of the race and put off Usain Bolt. I am sure, therefore, that he was at that point acting rationally and wrongly."
*MB: OJ Simpson may have gotten off but the Olympic bottle thrower is convicted!!

Kenyan Attacked

Video: Kenyan Runner Edwin Kipsang Rotich Was Attacked During Brazil's New Year's Eve Kings Run 10k, But Still Went On To Win Police said the attacker has a history of mental problems and doing stunts like this. Rotich was unfazed at the finish as he didn't even mention the attack in his post-race interview. *Longer Video

Recommended Watch: Very Well Done Documentary On Ryan Vail On The Life Of A Professional Runner "This is my job. It's not about, 'I don't feel like running today' because everyone doesn't feel like going to work today. So I just say, 'This is better than a 9 to 5. Get out there and do your work today. This is going to work. Just get out there and do it.'"

Random US News: Lauren Fleshman Responds To You

• Lauren Fleshman Responds To LRC MB Posters: "Why I'm No Longer With Nike" Fleshman responds directly to LRC message board posters who came up with "several interesting speculations" as to why and how she left Nike.

US News: Adam Nelson On His Way To Becoming An Olympic Champion

• Good News: 4 Throwers From 2004 Athens Olympics Officially Stripped Of Their Medals After Doping Retests *2nd Article
• Which Means ... Q&A With Adam Nelson, Who Stands To Be Upgraded To Gold After Official IOC Announcement Stripping Yuriy Bilonog Of His Medal "To be honest, it feels really strange and it's a weird feeling. I've heard the rumors before and have not given the rumors much credit until an official ruling. Now that it's happened I'm excited. It is all just sinking in. You know, I feel I excited as I did to not lose that event [in 2004]; I was second on a tie-breaker. I feel good that I will always be the person who threw farthest on that day."

A MUST Read - One Of The Greatest Races Ever Run - The US Women's Version Of The Billy Mills 10,000 Win

RWorld Reintroduces The World To Debbie Heald, Who 40 Years Ago Incredibly Ran The US HS Indoor Mile Record Of 4:38.5 Steve Friedman's piece on Heald is moving to say the least. Heald, whose father had committed suicide, who had been molested and who was always battling injury (13 different running-related surgeries), somehow at the US vs. USSR meet at age 16 in 1972 beat the greatest runners in the world, including the indoor 1,500 record holder and that year's eventual Olympic 1,500 champion, by running an a 8.5-second PR of 4:38.5. She came from way back to win thanks to a ferocious kick and she was known for having no kick. Her life since then has been full of struggles with schizophrenia but her HS indoor record still stands.
MB: Debbie Heald article in RW

Heald's Incredible 1972 Race

More On Heald:
*2002 LA Times Feature
*1972 Sports Illustrated
*1967 Faces In The Crowd At Age 11
 From The MB:
*16-year-old Debbie Heald takes down the Russians, sets AR in 1972
*No Wikipedia entry for Debbie Heald ...
*1972 USA vs. USSR: 16-year-old wins the women's mile in a national record. (still standing)
*1972 Video Of Debbie Heald

Run, Recover, Run More

LRC Runners Recover Better And Hopefully Stay Injury Free With These Two Products From The 2012 Running Event Wejo talks about some of the injury prevention products he saw at the The Running Event, which include better methods for massage, icing, and compression.

The Running Event Is In The Books *Photos

LRC The 2012 Running Event Is In The Books: Five Takeaways On The Industry Shark Tank's Daymond John Speaks The trade show for specialty running shops was last week in Austin, Texas and LRC's Wejo was there plus Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, and most of Saucony's top athletes. The running industry should be renamed the "how to not get injured" industry. Some take-aways from the convention.
*Press Release: The Running Event 2012 Attracts 2,100 To Austin