In our weekly recap, we catch up with Mike Smith and ask him about his team's loss a the Big Sky xc champs, wonder if a team can go from 8th at SECs to #1 at NCAAs, and rave about Yuki Kawauchi and Athing Mu.
Week That Was
A look at record runs past and future
Learn how Tuntivate managed to run 27:17 despite having a 5000 pb of just 13:57.
Chelimo and his teammates are racing in a special 5000 - the Firefly Recovery 5000 - at the Virginia Beach Sports Complex. The goal? Galen Rupp’s American Record of 13:01.26.
On The Boards
Marathon News
Kawauchi talks about continuing to try and run sub-2:20 marathons into his late 40s or 50s. “I personally think I will never retire from marathons and continue to do this as long as I live.”
- World Half-Marathon Record Holder Peres Jepchirchir Expects Her Kenyan Teammates To Be The Biggest Threat To Her Winning Olympic Gold She's definitely not wrong.
- Pretty Cool: Eugene Marathon Is Using Salvaged Wood From Hayward Field For Their Finisher Medals Less cool is that the race will be virtual again this year.
*Oregon's COVID-19 State Of Emergency Extended To May 2 - Virtual London Marathon Sells Out As 50,000 Sign-Up To Run Remotely How do you sell out of a virtual race?
COVID Vaccine Discussion
"My mind still stays strong, I don’t want the vaccine. ...I don’t want to get into it right now, but I have my reasons." Asafa Powell on the other hand was under the impression he would need to take the vaccine to compete abroad.
MB: Yohan Blake: "I’d rather miss the Olympics than take the vaccine. I am not taking it."
- NY Times Analyzes The Ethics Of Olympic Athletes Skipping The Line For COVID Vaccinations Some don't think it's fair for athletes to get priority while others think having thousands of unvaccinated people from all over the world in Tokyo could be a "superspreader" event.
European Indoor Champs Start Thursday
- Athletics Weekly Men's Track Preview Jakob Ingebrigsten vs Marcin Lewandowski in the 1500m should be a highlight.
- Women's Track Preview Can 18-year-old star Keely Hodgkinson win 800m gold?
- Men's Field Preview Mondo Duplantis vs Renaud Lavillenie in the pole vault.
- Women's Field Preview Ukraine's Yaroslava Mahuchikh has cleared 2.06m this season in the HJ.
- Irish Miler Ciara Mageean Pulls Out Of European Indoor Championships She was expected to be one of Ireland's best medal hopes, but she cited lack of fitness due to setbacks for not wanting to compete.
- HJer Morgan Lake Leads List Of Six Athletes Added To UK Euro Indoor Squad
NCAA / HS News
- Oregon, LSU And Arkansas Stay 1-3 In Latest Men's Indoor Rankings With Only A Week Until NCAAs BYU jumped up from 6th to to 4th.
- No Changes To Women's Top-4 Ranked Indoor Teams As Arkansas Stays On Top Texas A&M, Texas and Georgia are ranked 2-4.
- MileSplit: Four College Recruits Whose Progression Has Exploded Upward Hobbs Kessler tops their list.
- Event-By-Event Top-10 Collegiate Marks From Last Week
Doping News
- Alberto Salazar's CAS Appeal Hearing Starts Tomorrow (Wednesday)
- World Athletics Council Approves Russian Federation Reinstatement Plan There are a number of reform changes required in the coming year, but the report notes that "irreversibly changing a culture will in fact take a generation". *2nd article
SEC Champs - Another Record For Athing Mu
The magical freshman season of the Texas A&M sensation hit a new high as the 18-year-old went from 2:01 to 1:58 in a single race.
- Arkansas Men Win SEC Champs Without A Single Individual Victory It was the first time in the history of the meet for a team to do that. They Beat LSU by 23 points.
- Arkansas Women Take Their 7th Consecutive SEC Indoor Title Arkansas' Krissy Gear won the mile in 4:34.72. Auburn's Joyce Kimeli completed the 3k/5k double with 8:56.02 over Arkansas' Katie Izzo (8:56.55).
- SEC 200m Record Falls Twice Within The Span Of Five Minutes Florida's Joseph Fahnbulleh ran 20.32 to break the record in the first final, but LSU's Terrance Laird ran 20.28 in the second final a few minutes later.
- MB: Athing MF Mu DESTROYS NCAA and WU20 Records - 1:58.40!!
- MB: Athing Mu Progression
Tokyo 2020 Updates
- Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto Believes Fans Should Be Allowed To Attend The Games In Limited Numbers "When we think about the possibility of holding the Olympics without fans in the stands, athletes will definitely wonder why there are no fans just for the Olympics and Paralympics when other competitions are allowing in spectators."
- Seb Coe Addresses Reports Of Japanese Public Wanting Games Cancelled Or Postponed "I think we all have to be realistic that a postponement is not possible. I think we recognize that it will not be a postponement, it would be a cancellation, and the next Games would be Paris."
- Athletes Could Receive Exemptions To Enter Japan When State Of Emergency Lifts Athletes wouldn't be required to quarantine for two weeks when they arrive.
- New Tokyo 2020 President Seiko Hashimoto: “On a daily basis I am faced with difficult challenges and I am spending my days in a hectic manner. I have been reminded of the importance of this position.”
- Around 1000 Tokyo 2020 Volunteers Quit In February Due To Sexism Controversy And COVID-19 Concerns Would be interesting to know the breakdown of each.
- Tokyo Leg Of Torch Relay Will Give Nod To 1964 Olympics
Lake Biwa Goes Out With A Bang
Kego Suzuki got the NR. Behind him, the results were staggering as 5 Japanese men broke 2:07, 15 ran 2:08 or faster, 26 broke 2:09 and 40 broke 2:10. Suzuki's final 7.2k was LEGENDARY.
Atlanta Half-Marathon
A year after making the US Olympic Marathon, team Seidel was back in Atlanta setting another PR. Abdisamed Abdi won the men's race in 63:59.
Non-Distance Action
The last time Lavillenie vaulted higher was when he set the former WR of 6.16m in 2014. He ended his evening with three failed attempts at a would-be world record of 6.20m. GB's Holly Bradshaw won the women's competition with 4.78m.
- Track Is Finally Back In Jamaica After Tough COVID-19 Restrictions Nesta Carter won the 200m in 21.48 with Yohan Blake 3rd (21.72).World champ Tajay Gayle took the LJ with 8.03m and Zharnel Hughes the 100m in 10.37 with a strong -3.5 headwind.
- Valerie Adams Rolls Back The Years With 19.65m Shot Put Victory in Auckland It the 36-year-old mother of two's longest throw in five years. On the men's side, Tom Walsh ended his losing streak to Jacko Gill with 21.60m to Gill's 21.52m.
- AW Weekly Round-Up World 400H champ Karsten Warholm ran a national record indoor 300m record of 32.47 in Norway.
More Distance Results
- Half-Marathon WR Holder Kibiwott Kandie (28:28.0) And National XC Champion Sheila Chelangat (15:42.2) Win At Athletics Kenya Series Meet
- Youngster Gideon Rono Gets Surprise 5000m Win Over Kenyan National XC Champ Rogers Kwemoi In AK Series 5000m Rono ran 13:21.2 to beat Kwemoi by .6.
- Ryuji Miura And Kaede Hagitani Win Japan National XC Championships Hagitani had a big margin of victory on the women's side, but the men's race was decided by less than a second and had the top six within 10-seconds of each other.
The Latest Shoe Talk
- If You Think Shoe Tech Has Gone Too Far, You Must Read This: "Why I Will Never Wear Performance Enhancing Shoes" 2:20 marathoner Russell Bentley penned this piece in 2019.
- Opinion Writer Says It's Too Late To Stop The New Shoe Tech As Records Have Already Came Down Sprinting is likely next as reports say Nike's unreleased shoes could slash 0.3 seconds off a runner's 100m time.
High School Action / adidas Indoor Champs
- DyeStat: Jaylen Slade Extends 2021 Indoor Domination With 6.68 60m Victory At Adidas Indoor Nationals He also ran a leg on IMG Academy's 4x400 which won in 3:13.33 (#3 on the HS all-time list).
- IMG Academy's Ashton Schwartzman Anchors 4x800 To Adidas HS Champs Win Hours After He Found Out His Stepfather Died Schwartzman said he knew his stepfather would have wanted him to race. They won in 7:51.92.
- Florida High Schooler Markevus Jackson Ran a 20.99 200m At St. Cloud Invy He won the 400m as well in 47.68 PB.
- Avery Lewis Breaks Freshman LJ Record With 21 Feet, 2.50 Inches (6.46m) To Win Adidas Indoor Nationals Her mark is also #6 all-time on the all-time indoor HS list.
- Brandon Miller Wins Adidas HS Indoor Champs 200m With 21.18
Texas Qualifier
The event ended up being a bit of a misnomer as few qualifying times were earned as 11 days after 7 degree temps (-13.9 C) were in Austin, warm and humid conditions made fast times difficult in the long distance events. But Klosterhalfen and Wilson were impressive as was 5000 meter man Justyn Knight (3:36.62) who dropped down and spanked the milers in the 1500.
NCAA XC Conference Champs
NAU's Abdihamid Nur won the individual race in 23:55.6. The NAU women won handily behind Taryn O’Neill‘s individual win. *Results
Southern Utah Coach Eric Houle: "I didn't expect to win the dang thing, but we'll take it."
- BYU Men And Women Sweep West Coast Conference XC Championships Conner Mantz won in 22:54.4 to lead the team to a sound victory over #8 ranked Portland. Portland's Anna Pataki won the women's race over BYU's Aubrey Frentheway. *Results
More NCAA Action
Scroll down for video; Penn State's Domenic Perretta won the race in 1:50.90.
- Freshman Micah Williams Breaks Oregon 60m Record Again With 6.49 At The Championships At The Peak In Colorado It's the fastest time by a collegian since Christian Coleman in 2017.
- Virginia Tech Men, FSU Women Claim ACC Indoor Titles Florida State’s Adriaan Wildschutt (7:55.26) and NC State's Elly Henes (9:00.53) won the 3000m
- Texas Men And Women Sweep Big 12 Titles Highlights included Ruth Usoro winning the TJ with 14.36m (#2 NCAA indoor all-time) to complete the LJ/TJ double and Chanel Brissett winning the 60H in 7.89. *Results
- Iowa Men Win Their First Big Ten Indoor Title Since 1963 *Results
- Minnesota Women Dominate Team Scoring At Big Ten Indoor Champs *Results
Six women ran under 4:32 with Oiselle's Angel Piccirillo second in 4:30.65. Washington State's Colton Johnsen won the men's 3000 in 7:53.18.
Previous SEC Results
We believe it's the fastest split in NCAA history.
- LSU's Juvaughn Harrison And Texas A&M's Tyra Gittens Both Win SEC Long Jump / High Jump Double Kentucky's Abby Steiner ran 22.41 to equal #3 on the all-time NCAA 200m list. Auburn's Joyce Kimeli won the 5000m over Arkansas' Katie Izzo, 15:46.88 to 15:47.82. Ole Miss' Cole Bullock won the men’s race (13:59.10).
- MB: Matt Boling - World Leading 20:37 In His Heat At SECs He also placed 4th in the LJ (8.07m).
- Texas A&M’s Top Ranked 400m Runner Charokee Young Had To Miss SECs Due To COVID Exposure A scary thought is this could happen to someone at Tokyo 2020.
Day 1 adidas Indoor Nationals Coverage
- IMG Academy's Girls Win Adidas Indoor Nationals DMR; Just Miss National Record They ran 11:34.86 to win handily over Saratoga and put themselves #3 on the all-time list (the record is 11:34.54).
- Hunter Jones Breaks High School 5000m Sophomore Class Record With 14:49.62 Win At Adidas Indoor Nationals
- adidas Track Nationals is this weekend in Virginia Beach When the normal nationals was cancelled, Joe Lee of the Bullis School in Maryland, sprung into action and planned this in hardly any time.
Previous NCAA Action
- Texas Tech's Ruth Usoro Gets Clutch Defense Of Her Big 12 Long Jump Title; Baylor's Ackera Nugent Equals 60H World U20 Record With 7.91 Usoro jumped 6.82m, equal #6 NCAA all-time. Iowa State's Wesley Kiptoo took the 6000m (13:42.52) and KC Lightfoot the PV (5.90m). DMR wins went to the OSU men and West Virginia women.
- Day 1 ACCs: Virginia Tech has great day as Antonio Lopez Segura breaks Justyn Knights ACC meet record with a 13:49 win NC State won the women's DMR thanks to Elly Henes’ closing 1600 meters time of 4:33.80.
This Week's Podcast
What a show. We recorded this right after Grant Holloway's WR. Our featured guest is Ben True who tells us how he just ran a 26+ second pb of 27:14 at age 35. Yes, the shoes helped but True reveals he's become rejuvenated by paying Dan Curts $20,000 a year to train with him. Plus is a marathon in True's future?
Best of Jon Gault
Take Your Love of LetsRun to the Next Level
LetsRun Classics
‒BTC's Kieran Tuntivate talking about his shocking 27:17.14 breakthrough for 10,000m at "The Ten" last month. *Discuss