Quote Of The Day


"Being realistic, running a sub-2:47 is really going to take a huge effort."

- 1984 Olympic gold medallist, Joan Benoit Samuelson, telling the Associated Press she'd like to qualify for the 2012 Olympic Trials at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 10th at the ridiculous age of 53. At the very least, Samuelson wants to break 2:50 for the third time as a 50-year-old.

Pat Butcher: Patrick Makau Is Now The Man To Beat In The Marathon He's certainly the #1 in the world in our minds so far for 2010.

LetsRun.com's Endorses This Guy As Doug Logan's Replacement
South African Olympic Head Says He's Willing To Personally Clean Toilets To Insure India's Commonwealth Games Go On This guy clearly isn't afraid of getting his hands dirty and doing the grunt work. Certainly much better than what could be said of the old AAU guys.
*USOC Might Intervene If USATF Appoints Board Member CEO

Commonwealth Games Start Sunday

Berlin Marathon *Live Thread *Splits

In Case You Don't Want To Know The Results
The Last Minute Of The 2010 Berlin Marathon:

Patrick Makau ***** **** Wins Berlin Marathon In Sprint Finish In 2:05:06 (Warning: We're about to reveal the winner's name) Despite rain, Patrick Makau won the race in a sprint finish in 2:05:06 over Geoffrey Mutai as Bazu Worku was close behind. The rain prevented a world record attempt, but Makau has established himself as a marathon star. Aberu Kebede won the women's race by over a minute in a slow 2.23.58.

Toronto Waterfront Marathon: Kenneth Mungara (2:07:57) And Sharon Cherop (2:22:42) Both Break Kenyan All-Comers Record At Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon Canadian Reid Coolsaet ran 2:11:23 to make the Canadian Olympic standard by 6 seconds. Sharon Cherop got the women's winby 1 second over Tirfi Beyene with 2:22:43, which was faster than the winning time in Berlin.
*Message Board Discussion

Stop The Presses: Say it Ain't So: Menjo Loses At Lisbon Half Marathon, Mary Keitany Romps Races need to do a better job of promoting Menjo. We had no idea the LetsRun.com superhero was running. In case you have no idea what we're talking about, Menjo earlier this year soloed a 3:53 mile, a 12:55 5k, and the world-leading 10k.

Big Family News

Kara Goucher Gives Birth To Colton Mirko Goucher Congrats to Kara and Adam. Mom and baby are doing well after the baby was face up during delivery. The baby was 5 days early, which means Paula Radcliffe's second child is due in 5 days.

Galen Rupp Gets Married We can't believe no one has posted on it yet, but the wedding was yesterday according to the wedding website. Congrats to Galen and Keara.

Unbelievable

USATF Board Gave Logan $140,000-A-Year Pay Raise 9 Days Before Starting Termination Process If you're thinking of terminating someone, it's probably not a good idea to bump their base pay which their severance is calculated off of. The AP article above is excellent and has the 3 criteria the board wanted to see more from Logan on.
"The only amateurs left in the Olympic movement are the people running it." That's what Philip Hersh, the pre-eminent Olympic writer in the US, commented after hearing about the Logan raise.
Update: USATF Communications Director Jill Geer Writes To Clarify Our Comments Above

Previous Berlin News: From Bored With Running As A Child To Berlin Marathon Contender This IAAF piece has an interesting look at Germany's top contender for Sunday's Berlin Marathon, Sabrina Mockenhaupt.
*Patrick Makau And Geoffery Mutai Hope To Take Up Where Haile G Left Off The two 2:04 guys certainly should like Berlin's super-fast course.
*Joe Battaglia Preview
*Mzungo.org Has Lots Of Berlin Info

Also This Weekend: Toronto $2 Million Budget For This Weekend's Toronto Marathon
Lisbon: Mary Keitany Headlines This Weekend's Lisbon Half Marathon

Commonwealth Games Start Next Sunday

We Mentioned These In The Week That Was

Doug Logan Doesn't Go Quietly

Week In Review

LRC Week That Was: Haile G, Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Shalane Flanagan, Andrew Wheating, Bernard Lagat's Brother And 79-Year-Old Chris Chataway It was a busy week on the roads and the board rooms (Doug Logan's sacking) and we give you our insight. Is something wrong with Ryan Hall? How amazing is Haile G?

The Son Of Teachers, World Record Holder David Rudisha Once Thought He'd Be A Geography Teacher

More Weekend Action

Great North Run And CityGames *Mile-By-Mile Splits For Leaders *Elite Photos

Haile G Remains Undefeated As Adere Repeats! *LRC Thread On Race Haile G still has got the goods as he put on a great show and crushed the field in poor conditions in England. He remained undefeated in 2010 and won by almost 2 minutes in 59:33 as American Dathan Ritzenhein was 4th in 62:34.
*
Everyone In Britain Would Love To See Haile Win Olympic Marathon In 2012
More From Britain:
Craig Mottram & Hannah England Win Distance Races At Great North CityGames Craig Mottram won the 2-mile by 1 second in 8:31. *LRC MB: Mottram wins 2 mile over Birms...Bads...Thompson...and No Farah
*In Commonwealths Tune-Up, England Beats Australia 5-4 At Great North CityGames
*Special Portable Track Makes CityGames Possible

Former NAIA Star Aaron Rono (3:58.18) & Carmen Douma-Hussar (4:35.60) Win Grandma's Minnesota Mile *Minnesota native Garrett Heath and Amy Mortimer were the runners-up.

Recommended Reads About 1,500 Men

We Guess A Dane Having The WR Was The Equivalent Of Stolen Livestock
*Thousands Greet David Rudisha As The Warrior Returns Home "Whenever a moran goes to war, the way Rudisha did, he is given such a reception on his return, especially if he successfully seized back the stolen livestock."
*Rudisha's Prized Gift Is A Framed Photo Of His Father Being Celebrated For Returning With Olympic Silver In 1968

Doug Logan In The News

LRC: Why Doug Logan Is Out At USATF And Where It Goes From Here LetsRun.com co-founder Weldon Johnson offers his analysis of the Logan dismissal. The outsider likely had zero built-in allies in USATF, which even USATF admits is an organization that is inherently "dysfunctional" in its setup. And when an outsider, not an insider, over-promises and possibly under-delivers, he's immediately thrown to the curb as no one's got his back. Regardless, the key thing to focus on is not why he's gone but what type of person does USATF hire to replace him and how do we prevent history from repeating itself as it appears the initial search process was poorly done.
More Logan:
*
Phil Hersh: How The Logan-Hightower Relationship Went From Kiss-Kiss To Kiss-Off In The Last Year
*
Logan Replacement Likely To Come From Within Sport
*SI Claims Logan Secured $10 Million-A-Year Deal With Nike If that's the case, they couldn't be too far off their $12 million goal for sponsorship for 2010.

53-Year-Old Joan Benoit Samuelson Hoping To Qualify For Olympic Trials In Chicago 2:47 is going to be very hard for her and her #1 goal is to break 2:50 for the third time as a 50-year-old.

Catching Up With Four Top Milers

It's Official - European Marathon Champ Viktor Röthlin Is Running ING New York City Marathon We reported that Röthlin was running two weeks ago but it's official now. He leads the European charge which also includes French national record holder Christelle Daunay.

Random/Interesting Links

Jeremy Roff Completes 800/1,500 Double At Oceania Champs

The 30th Edition Fifth Avenue Mile *Top Results *Searchable Results *Photo Gallery *Video

LRC Recap: Shannon Rowbury Caps Season With Win In NY Many people expected Shannon Rowbury to repeat on Sunday on the streets of New York but she had a tough brawl with New Jersey's finest, Erin Donohue. Rowbury won last year and used her road skills to time her kick perfectly.

Men:
Amine Laalou Earns Some American Respect  Amine Laalou had the top 800 and 1,500m times coming in, but everyone was focused on the strong American contingent.  All the main contenders, including Bernard Lagat, were there with 100m remaining, but Laalou got the win.
*Photo Gallery *Race Videos

3 Good Pre-Race Profiles:
*Alan Webb In The NY Times
*Recommended: Great NY Times Profile On Leo Manzano Leo talks about turning around his 2010 season and growing up very poor (his parents didn't really understand what it meant to go to college).
*Lengthy Profile On Nick Willis, His Upbringing In New Zealand And This Sunday's 5th Avenue Mile Written by a Kiwi who saw Nick run a race at age 7 (the article talks about Nick's family and how his mother died when he was 5).

New World Road 10k Record

Leonard Komon Runs 26:44 WR He smashed the old record but famed coach Renato Canova tried to put it in perspective, as the 10k on the track and roads has become much less of a priority recently.
*Message Board Thread On Record

College XC Season Heating Up

Stanford: Recap
*Men's Results: Stanford Men Defeat Arkansas, NAU NCAA 5k champ David McNeill got the win as NAU sat 3 guys.
*Women:
Stanford Women Defeat Cal
*Message Board Thread: Stanford Results

OSU: OSU Men And Women Win Cowboy Jamboree (German Fernandez 6th) The Cowboys ran as a team except for ringer transfer Girma Mecheso, who won the meet (Mecheso won the SEC as a freshman 2 years ago at Auburn before transferring last year).
*Message Board Thread: Girma

Roy Griak: Men: Duke Men Defeat NC State, New Mexico, BYU At Roy Griak New Mexico had 3 before Duke's 1st but could only finish 3rd.
Women:
Arizona Women Win Roy Griak

Pro Distance News

Previous 5th Avenue News

Newsweek: The Case Against College Athletic Recruiting We must admit we don't get why totally obscure sports get supported at the Ivy League level, but then again, some might say track is obscure. No mention though of how athletes might succeed better after college.

US Distance News

Doping News

International News

Most Read Running Story Of The Week

Front Page Of Wall Street Journal: Men Who Run Women's Only Races Technically, most of the races aren't women's only. Some even invite men, like the Nike Women's Half Marathon, but then when a dude won it he was heckled.

Some Runners Aren't Happy That Competitor Group/Corporate Entities Are Taking Over Running Events

Max King & Lauren Fleshman Win 2010 XTERRA Trail Run National Championship

Marathons For The Masses

British News

Philly Half & US 5k

Philly: LRC Matthew Kisorio Slays Gebre Gebremariam As Ryan Hall Struggles 5k man Matthew Kisorio showed that Gebremariam is beatable after all, but it takes a 4:24 3rd mile to do it. Ryan Hall was never a factor and struggled mightily (63:55) as Brett Gotcher (62:50) was the top American, but he was beaten by former NCAA runners Simon BairuAlistair Cragg, Wesley Korir and Shawn Forrest.
Pre-Race:
Hall Very Confident: "I wasn't totally in top-notch shape last year, but I think I'm in better shape this year."
LRC
Meseret Defar Wins As Shalane Flanagan Runs 68:36
2004 Olympic 5,000-meter champ Meseret Defar's move up to the half marathon was a successful one as she defeated the hottest road racer on the planet in a sprint finish to get the win, as Shalane Flanagan became the 4th-fastest American in history.
More: Defar Wins As Heat Bothers Flanagan
Pre-Race: *
defar VS flanagan....who ya got?

Providence/USA 5k: LRC Molly Huddle And Robert Cheseret Win 5k Titles
American record holder Molly Huddle got a comfortable win on the women's side but on the men's side, it was newly-naturalized US citizen Robert Cheseret who got a surprise win. Don't know Cheseret? He's Bernard Lagat's brother as well as the guy who was able to beat Dathan Ritzenhein for the NCAA title even though he fell down in the middle of the race.

A Brief Chat With Shannon Rowbury The 1,500 star will end her season in New York on Sunday.

Weird: Pro Meet In Kawasaki, Japan Has No Distance Races You'd think given the Japanese love of distance running that would be the highlight. Instead, it was highlighted by Christophe Lemaitre in the 100m.

Sprint News

Villanova And The Ducks Go To Washington

Drug Cheats Rejoice

104 Baseball Cheats Can Breathe Easier Tonight As Court Rules Government Illegally Seized Records Of Their Positive Drug Tests

Underdogs Rejoice Man With 15th-Best PR Wins Japanese University 5,000 Title

Drug News

Former University Of Iowa NCAA Standout Racheal Marchand Tests Positive For EPO Marchand was fifth at the NCAA XC champs in 2008 and quit her job this past year to train full-time for the 2012 Olympics for Puerto Rico. We and everyone else are bit late on this story, but this message board thread is all over it.
*Racheal Marchand Wins XC Race, Refuses To Talk To Reporter, Her Mom Blasts Reporter In Comments Section
*Flashback: Racheal Marchand Quits Her Job As A Drug Rep To Train Full Time For 2012 Games
On The Boards:
Former NCAA standout EPO busted

Finish of Leonard Komon's 10k WR and Interview

College XC Season Heating Up

Stanford: Recap
*Men's Results: Stanford Men Defeat Arkansas, NAU NCAA 5k champ David McNeill got the win as NAU sat 3 guys.
*Women:
Stanford Women Defeat Cal
*Message Board Thread: Stanford Results

OSU: OSU Men And Women Win Cowboy Jamboree (German Fernandez 6th) The Cowboys ran as a team except for ringer transfer Girma Mecheso, who won the meet (Mecheso won the SEC as a freshman 2 years ago at Auburn before transferring last year).
*Message Board Thread: Girma

Roy Griak: Men: Duke Men Defeat NC State, New Mexico, BYU At Roy Griak New Mexico had 3 before Duke's 1st but could only finish 3rd.
Women:
Arizona Women Win Roy Griak

High School/College News

LRC Poll
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