World's Best 10k - Sunday In San Juan

*Elvan Abeylegesse Will Shoot For Paula Radcliffe's 30:21 Road 10k WR In San Juan This Weekend We're still awaiting word on the men's entrants, but the women's race might actually make a run at the WR with a very fit Abeylegesse, world 5k champ Viv Cheruiyot and virtually unbeatable half marathon sensation Mary Keitany. Might be the most elite women's road race of the year.
*IAAF Preview Contrary to earlier reports from the IAAF website, Dathan Ritzenhein is not running according to Alberto Salazar. Talk about a letdown. Although Ritz was clearly was entered in the race at one point.

Mardi Gras Half Marathon - Lel vs. Wanjiru - Sunday At 7am

Flora London Marathon 2007 Martin Lel Praying For Successful Return At Sunday's Mardi Gras Half Marathon
Recently injured, Martin Lel will have an excellent barometer in fellow Kenyan super-marathoner Sammy Wanjiru. The men's and women's races could both be interesting, as McMillan Elite's Martin Fagan (Irish national half marathon record holder) will challenge the marathon-trained Africans and Kim Smith will challenge Berhane Adere.
*Live Coverage
*Results Coming Sunday am.

Tokyo Marathon Sunday, Fukuoka XC Saturday

Veteran Kobayashi Plans For First Sub-2:10 At Age 33 Adam Goucher might get some inspiration from this article.

4-Time Champion Catherine Ndereba Excited To Return To Boston For Try At #5 Last year, there were conflicting reports about why she didn't run Boston.

HGH Test Success May Send Shivers Through Many Athletes Many people don't know that there had never been a positive test for HGH until last week despite insiders saying it has been a widely-used drug by athletes.

LRC Stronger 2010 Boston Marathon Fields Finalized We've spent years ripping the lack of quality in the Boston fields but are actually fairly impressed for 2010. Boston is expecting more sub-2:07 guys than London this year and Meb Keflezighi has only the 17th-best PRof those expected to race.

Absolutely Great And Absolutely Atrocious NCAA Track News

Seton Hall Shock: We're Cutting Track Completely 38-year coach John Moon and his team were asked to attend a meeting where they were told Seton Hall would be cutting men's and women's track and field at the end of this season, in order to save money. "The Hall" has been known for excellent 4 x 400m and 4 x 800m teams and Moon has coached 71 All-Americans and 19 Olympians along with helping coach the US Olympic track team.
*Poignant: Junior Chris Cox Is Big East Athlete Of The Week

NCAA And PAC-10 Make Gutsy Decision And Allow Oregon State Athletes To Compete At League And NCAA Championships! We applaud all involved in this situation for doing the right thing and allowing kids at a school without a program to compete at the big championship meets if they meet the qualifying marks.
*Recommended Read: Oregon State Football Players Ask School If They Can Do Track

A Good Sign: No More American Exceptionalism

USA Will Give Back 2004 Athens Olympics Women's 4 x 400 Medals
USOC CEO Scott Blackmun: "At some point you have to stand up and do the right thing - and [act] in a way you expect other nations to act. We are not going to fight it just for the sake of fighting it. We support doing the right thing."

Recommended Read: Wesley Korir Profile If you are having a bad day at work, read this and realize what life is really about.

World Indoor News

USATF, Are You Reading This?
Charles van Commenee Announces 38-Person British Squad Announced For World Indoors & Refusesd To Give A Goal Medal Count To The Media The idea of shooting for a specific medal count is ridiculous. *van Commenee Impressed By Lots Of New Faces In Endurance Events

Steve Hooker To Lead Australians At World Indoors, European LJ Champ Ksenija Balta Ready To Battle In Doha

AVIVA Grand Prix
LetsRun.com's The Week That Was In Running This week, our weekly recap of the last week of the world in running gives out praise to Jeff Demps, Deresse Mekonnen, Will Leer and Japanese coaches as we break down the Kenyan and Ethiopian XC Trials and along the way introduce you to Paul Tanui.

Dreams Do Become Reality

LRC: Riley Masters Interview: 4:06 To 3:59 In One Race
LRC catches up with the Maine sophomore who inspired the running world by going from 4:06 to 3:59 in one race. In sharing the secrets to chopping off 7 seconds from his mile PR in one race, Masters reveals that he had never broken 2:00 flat for 800 until the week before his sub-4 race.
*LRC Week That Was Featuring Riley

We're Thinking Of You

Serena Burla Knee Pain Diagnosed As Malignant Tumor - Let's Give Her Our Support Burla, a mother, recently finished 2nd at the Houston Half Marathon and is one of the top US road runners. She will undergo surgery Friday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Center in New York City.
LRC Boards: Serena Burla support

USA Indoors Saturday & Sunday In Albuquerque *Entries *Results Will Be Here

Major Conference Championships *All NCAA Conference Results

Track and Field: 103rd Millrose Games ACC @Va Tech, Fri/Sat
*Live Results
*Watch Live Friday
*Robby Andrews anchors UVA men to DMR win.
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Big Tens At 2 Different Locales
*Big Ten Women @Penn State, Sat/Sun.
*Big Ten Men @Minnesota, Sat/Sun.
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SEC @Arkansas, Fri/Sat/Sun
*Live Results
*Championship Central
*Torrin Lawrence Ready To Lead Georgia Into Arkansas
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Cross Country: 37th IAAF World Championships-Press Conference Big XII (@Iowa State, Fri/Sat)
*Live Results
*Baylor Men DMR, Lisa Koll (15:41) set Big XII Meet Records.
*Texas A&M Favorite On Both Sides, German Fernandez In 3,000 After Setting World Junior Record In Mile Last Year At This Meet
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Heps Website @Dartmouth, Sat/Sun
*Results: Men  Women
*Meet Entries At HepsTrack.com
Coach Rojo goes for Cornell's 13th conference track championship in 15 tries.

Get Your Inspiration Here

Track and Field: Nike Coaches Clinic LRC Employee #1 - A Night With Joe Newton
Wandering around the country, LetsRun.com's Employee #1 infiltrated the Nike West HQ Tuesday in suburban Los Angeles to join a gathering of 300 SoCal high school track and XC coaches for a clinic. The centerpiece of the evening was a speech from long-time York cross-country coach Joe Newton. Newton was incredible, and we try to explain why.
*Recommended Read: Interview With Wesley Korir Louisville's Wesley Korir is "The L.A. man". This might be the best of the Korir articles.
*Hendrick Ramaala Wants To Be President Of Tattered Athletics South Africa Ramaala says the leaders of the sport should know the sport well and have time to meet and improve the sport - not just have business or political interests.

Kenyan XC Runners Head To Mandatory Pre-Worlds Camp

Strange Running News - Think Before You Flip The Bird

Runner In South Africa Abducted By President's Security Forces For Giving A Middle Finger This runner got picked up by a black Beamer and had a bag put over his head while detained and questioned for 24 hours. The offense? An obscene gesture (scroll to the bottom of the article).

LRC: USATF's Decision To Not Offer Altitude Adjustments For Performances At USA Indoors Is Raising Ire In Mid-D And Distance Circles US distance runners are getting screwed by Doug Logan's refusal to take Albuquerque's 5,000-foot altitude into consideration for distance runners in the 2010 Visa Championship Series standings. We talked with Shannon Rowbury's coach John Cook about the USATF decision and got input from other top coaches/agents who also question why the Visa "Series" money goes to the individual who has the single best performance at only one meet.

LetsRun.com Readers Furthering Sports Psychology

STATE CROSS COUNTRY UO Grad Student Curtis Suver Uses LetsRun Reader Surveys To Study Team Dynamics Of XC Teams Hundreds of LetsRun.com readers responded to Suver's survey back in August and September of 2009 and helped him complete research that shows a strong correlation in male distance runners between individual performance and connection with their team.

Runners Creating Inspiring Races

Recommended Read: Pat Butcher Writes About The Sahara Marathon

This Saturday: War Ravaged Congolese Women To Run A Race Organized By American Woman Avid LetsRun.com reader Michelle Hamilton alerted us from Kenya of this amazing race that will take place in the Congo. According to estimates, more than 5 million have died in wars in the Congo, the most lethal conflict since WWII.
Run For Congo Women Website

We Wonder If He'll Scream Racism On This One
Former South African Track Boss Leonard Chuene Bought A Mercerdes Benz For 12.8 Cents It may be hard to put this guy behind bars, as earlier computer files were deleted and documents shredded.

Mid-D & Distance Heavy Bay Area Track Club Led By Shannon Rowbury Is Formed