LetsRun.com

LRC The Week That Was Last week was a light one in terms of new action, so we take a look back at NCAAs, talk about the Great White Hope at 100 meters, praise some high school 800 phenoms, including one bound for 'Nova, before dissing high school running in general, talk about "mechanical doping" and then offer a $50,000 challenge to Anna Pierce.

Sprint News

• Tyson Gay & Asafa Powell To Clash July 10th & Powell Is Talking Big: WR Is "Mine To Lose At The Moment" They'll race for the first time in 2010 in Gateshead.
• Usain Bolt Offered Nearly $1 Million To Race Australia's Rugby Stars In September We hope he does it and embarrasses the hell out of them. We're not sure if they are talking Australian dollars or US but $1 million Australian is still $711,491.
• UK Coach: Dwain Chambers Is Now UK Role Model All we can say is we normally dislike drug cheats but for some reason we love Chambers.
• A Day In The Life Of Tyson Gay: Gay Working On Nutrition To Reach Next Level He's hired a personal assistant who helps cook as Gay apparently used to eat out 21 times a week.

The 50th Anniversary Of The Mt. Washington Road Race

• 23-Year-Old Ethiopian Women Locks Shoes In Car/Borrows Shoes And Sets Course Record
• Colorado Men Do Well To Make US Mountain Team Colorado's Chris Siemers surprised two-time champ Art Siemers (also of CO) for the win. *LRC MB: Mt. Washington Road Race Thread
• 71-Year-Old Still Enjoys Racing
• 7-Time Champ & LRC Visitor Hodgie-San Was There Bob Hodge used to post a lot on our forums. He's got a great running history page here.

Shadrack Kosgei Wins 3rd Steamboat Classic 4-Miler (17:36)

Absolute Must Read: Tyson Gay Tired Of Being In Usain Bolt's Shadow The Independent sent a writer from the UK to Florida to do a feature on Gay and it's a must-read in our minds. Learn what Gay has to say about Bolt, fatherhood and visiting his coach in jail. Plus coach Lance Brauman is unapologetic about what sent him to prison as he helped 30 Olympic athletes in the process.
*Usain Bolt Reaffirms That He's Not Running Commonwealth Games

Anna Pierce Has Big Goals For 2010: Sub-3:57 And Sub-1:56 Her days as a steepler may be over for the most part, as she's finding "my speed is getting better the more I train my strength side, which is weird."

Grandma's Marathon/Half *Searchable Results

22-Year-Old Ethiopian Wins Women's Marathon In 2:31 As 3-Time Champ In American Mary Akor Struggles To 4th Akor collapsed at the finish line. Next Up For Akor? Surgery On Friday To Remove Tumors
Philemon Kemboi Win Men's Marathon Kemboi, who has a 2:10:58 PR, picked up $10,900 in his US debut for running a time that is slower than Paula Radcliffe's world record for women as he won in 2:15:44. The race was run into a headwind or crosswind throughout.
Kenyans Sweep Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon The race served as a comeback for Fernando Cabada, who talked big before the race before finishing fifth in 1:05:55. The course record is 1:04:19 and the winning time was 1:04:24.

2008 World Jr. 10k Champ Josephat Bett Wins Race In Kenya
The article makes a big deal of how he's moving up to the senior ranks. We don't think a 12:57 guy will have too many problems.

NCAA News

NCAA Keeps Super Regionals For Next 2 Years Texas A&M coach Pat Henry and Oregon coach Vin Lananna probably aren't happy. But all it means to them is a week where one of their top people could screw up and not make nationals.
Discuss: NCAA Keeps Outdoor T&F Post-Season Format From 2010 For The 2011 Season

We Guess We're More Powerful Than Henry And Lananna Combined: LRC Editorial: The Case For (Pure) Regionals We've got some research on what would happen under various scenarios.

Vin Lananna - "I think we moved the needle last week." We agree. The meet and interest in Eugene/Oregon were incredible.
*Reader Photo: Wheating After His 800 Win Most intense moment of the meet.

Utah Addition Makes It A 12-PAC Article points out: no men's track for Utah.

NCAA Indoor/Outdoor Mile/1,500 Champ Charlotte Browning Pays Tribute To Kelly Holmes And "On Camp" Scheme Says Holmes' program stuck by her through tough times. Suggests UK needs to be more loyal to athletes in general.

Good Reads For HS, College Kids Looking For Perspective

• Interview With Morgan Uceny, 4:04.1 At adidas Grand Prix College and high school kids, there are some great articles for you to read today. Uceny, Employee #1's former teammate at Cornell, talks about not making varsity her freshman year and making NCAAs the next. Teammate Anna Pierce tabs Uceny as the top American up-and-comer.
• Gabriele Anderson Overcomes Cancer, Runs To NCAA 1,500m Runner-Up Finish The quote of the day is about perspective. Now graduated, Anderson will run at USAs next weekend.
• Gary Reed Taking A Down Year Between Worlds And Olympics Will he be able to come back after a lighter year? It's not easy.

Upcoming - No Big Meets This Weekend!!! (First Time Since New Year's)

• Steamboat 4-Miler This Weekend Peter Kamais and Ridouane Harroufi are the likely favorites and Jorge Torres and Antonio Vega lead the US men's challengers.
• Kenya Announces Little Brother Of Moses And Linet Masai As Member Of World Junior Team Will Dennis Masai be the next world phenom?
• USA Mountain Running Team Will Be Selected At Mount Washington Look for Max King to excel on the mountain run.
• Tennessee's Crazy 8s 8k Announces July Field

Post-NCAA News

• Disappointing News: Andrew Wheating Won't Run USAs Galen Rupp will run the 10k, but Wheating is too tired according to Lananna.
• We Can't Disagree With The Logic College Track Has Too Many All-Americans "When the USTFCCCA hands out 428 All-America citations, the award doesn't mean much."
• AJ Acosta Predicted The Morning Of The Race He'd Get Third His prediction came from how many tries it took him to make a shot on a mini B-Ball hoop. We guess he's a better shot than he thinks.

Tyson Gay In The News

• Tyson Gay Says New False Start Rule Could Hurt Sprint Races
• Tyson Gay Diary He says he's not injured but not totally healthy. Describes the problem as "muscle soreness."

LRC The Week That Was We travel the globe from Rome to New York to Eugene tell you how Oregon could have won, how Florida may have really won (if it wasn't for a blown call), but how Texas A&M really did win. Along the way, we talk about those that struggled last week and shined, including Nancy Langat, Jeff Demps, Pat Henry, Nick Symmonds, Andrew Wheating, Lisa Koll and of course Oklahoma State cross-country. Plus we talk about Bernard Lagat's future at 10k and more.

At Age 39, Allen Johnson Is Still Hungry His goal is to break 13.20, which undoubtedly will be an age group record.

Brit Iwan Thomas Expects Martyn Rooney To Break His British 400m Record Of 44.36 This Year Rooney is confident after he broke 45 for the 1st time this year last weekend.

Bizarre & Inspirational At The Same Time
Marathon Great Rob de Castella Believes Africans Can Be Beaten - By Indigenous Australians He's forming a team and taking them to the NY marathon. He's found one prospect whom the police have to drive 5km from town so he can train without being attacked by wild dogs.

Random Links Of The Day

• Sad News: Due To Heart Problems, Peter Snell Won't Be Able To Travel To New Zealand To Celebrate 50th Anniversary Of His Olympic Triumph On Sept. 2, 1960, tiny New Zealand won gold in the 800 and 5k within 60 minutes of each other thanks to Arthur Lydiard.
• ESPN Banned In Jamaica
• Jenny Barringer Talks About What It's Like To Train Inside The Air Force Academy

USAs Start Thursday (Wed For Jrs)

Drake & Des Moines Excited To Host USAs
Officials Expect Many Drake Stadium Records To Fall

European Team Champs *Results *Final Team Standings

• Russia Dominates Day 2 Of European Team Champs As Yuriy Borzakovskiy Opens In 1:45.41 It was the first outdoor 2-lapper of the year for the 2004 Olympic champ.
• Throws Highlight Lower Leagues Of European Team Champs
• GBritain 2nd As Phillips Idowu, Michael Rimmer, Jo Pavey, Hannah England And Men's 4 x 400m All Get 2nd As Well
• Idowu Thinks Big Summer Is Upcoming For Him Despite 2nd-Place Showing Shockingly, world indoor record holder Teddy Tamgho was only 3rd as unheralded Victor Kuznyetsov got the win.
• Dwain Chambers Runs 9.99 To Beats France's GWH (Great White Hope) Chambers broke 10.00 for the first time since 2001 and came within .02 of his PR as he took home the title. The GWH failed to be the first white man under 10.00 but did run 10.02. *MBoard: White Man Runs 10.02
• Mo Farah Dominates Last Lap To Convincingly Win 5k Farah is full of confidence after a 4-week training stint in Kenya.
• Summary Of Day 1: Russia Leads After Day 1 Of European Championships, Brits Garner Several Individual Wins
• Russia Seems Poised To Grab Team Title
• British Team Exceed Expectations & Wins 5 Events On Day 1 But Likely Will Finish 2nd
• France's Teddy Tamgho May Try To Break Jonathan Edwards' Triple Jump Record This Weekend He flew last weekend at the adidas meet.
• Farah Gets Nutrition Figured Out, Eager To Help Brits At European Team Champs In Bergen Farah ran 27:28 this year and some more disciplined training in Kenya has him ready again.
• Preview Of European Team Champs - Chambers, Farah Lead GBR Runners
• Brit Chris Thompson Is Pumped And Dreaming Big After His 27:29 Healthy for the first time in a long time and reinvigorated by OTC coach Mark Rowland, Thompson is doing well.
• Team Race Down To Russia v Germany? Brits lost some of their top runners who don't want to compete. Consistent Olympic and world champion Andreas Thorkildsen is the top name for host Norway.

Weekend Action:
HS New Balance Nationals *Results *Stream

Day After Spliting 1:47.15, Chris FitzSimons Runs 4:05.7 To Lead Team To DMR Victory/HS Girls DMR Record Is Lowered To 11:31.26 FitzSimons will be going to Nova next year.
Not Making This Up: HS Soph GIRL Splits 2:00.59 For 800 In Sprint Med
HS Soph BOY Splits 1:47.99
On The Boards: Ajee Wilson, sophomore from NJ, splits 2:00 on a relay leg. Could we see Kim Gallagher's legendary record go down soon? She is quite the talent, as we know from this thread: High School Sophmore Girl runs 2:04.94 800m and 4:43 1600m

Rosa Brothers Go 1-2 As Joe Rosa's 8:44 Crushes Fast-Starting Lukas Verzbicas In 2-Mile
Discussion here.

5k Results (HS nationals in N.C.) Matt Mizereck (14:37) and Katherine Walker win 5,000s.

HS Forum

British Newspaper Says Tyson Gay Says False Start Rule Could Ruin Sprints The problem is Gay never said that. He is against the rule, however.

Elites: This Artwork May Help You Get Funded

USATF Auctioning Artwork Honoring Legends - Prints Going For $2,500 Eccentric javelin thrower Roald Bradstock made this piece being sold on ebay Friday at 1:30 Eastern. Can you identify every runner from this enlarged picture?

Must Read For Coaches: Stephanie Hightower, USATF, Responds To Coaching Registry Criticism

NCAA Awards - Oregon, Distance Runners Dominate

Coaches Name Lisa Koll NCAA Track Athlete Of The Year Koll set an NCAA 10k record and destroyed the fields at NCAAs. But what about this record setter?

Queen Harrison USATF Athlete Of The Week - Beaten By Koll In USTFCCCA Voting Hokie Queen Harrison became first woman to win both hurdles events at NCAAs.

Eaton And Whiting Named Co-Field Male Athletes Of The Year Can't argue with these 2 studs sharing the award.
*Wheating Named USTFCCCA D-1 Track AOY, Ducks Top Team

We Were Thinking: Latest Results Show Ashton Eaton May Be World #1 Among Healthy Decathletes Eaton's 8400+ points at NCAAs were impressive considering he was "off" in most of the non-running events (he wears tennis shoes to shot put).

Friday Random Links Section (This Should Get You Through The Afternoon)

• Missoula Marathon Offering Free Entry To Marathoner From Delaware To Complete All 50 States Post on the message boards if you find someone to do it.
• NY Daily News: 13-Year-Old Girl Runner Invited To NYC Mini 10k Some are saying 55 miles a week and relatively rigid training are "too much." Oh well, she's run 17:00 for 5k and got to go meet her heroes. If she was recovering from cancer, there would be no controversy. Could be worse.
• White House Sends Rep To NYRR To Urge Kids To Get Active But not as active as the kid above.
• Stats Say Running Numbers Are Recession-Proof More $$$ being spent on shoes, more people running, more people racing ... more people visiting LetsRun.com, too.
• IAAF Inks Samsung As Major Diamond League Sponsor A big relief for IAAF but we're wondering how low they had to go.
• South African Man Killed By Family Members For Changing The Channel To World Cup Game What would they have done to him if he was trying to watch an NBC Diamond League broadcast?
• Cartoon Narration Of Guy Trying To Make NCAA 5k A reader sent this to us and we chuckled (because we've kind of been there).
• Good Piece On Last Oregon State Male Track Guy To Make NCAAs - Karl Van Calcar 1988 Football player/high jumper Jordan Bishop became the latest guy this year.

LRC Exclusive: An Inside Look At The After Effects Of The Rome Golden Gala Fiasco At 400 Meters With their focus on NCAAs, many Americans missed out on one of the more bizarre episodes in track and field history as four runners were nearly wiped off the track by the overheard television camera on the giant arm, which mistakenly swept onto the track in the middle of the men's 400.