LRC Deena Kastor’s American Record Survives As Shalane Flanagan Runs 2:21:14, 2nd-Fastest Time Ever By An American, For Third At 2014 BMW Berlin Marathon Shalane Flanagan went for the AR in Berlin, but paid the price the second half. She was rewarded with a PR and the #2 time ever by an American and a third place finish as Tirfi Tsegaye (2:20:18) and Feyse Tadese (2:20:27) went 1-2 with PRs in front of Flanagan. *Video Highlights

• Discuss: Congrats to Shalane Flanagan…
• Why Shalane and other Top US distance runners don’t win

NCAA XC News *Battle In Boston Results: Men, Women

LRC Oregon Men Dominate Battle In Beantown; Edward Cheserek And Eric Jenkins Go 1-2Cheserek and Ducks teammate Eric Jenkins went 1-2 in a slow men’s race as Oregon put four in the top six en route to a dominant win. The Ducks scored 24 to runner-up Syracuse’s 52, with Providence (79) and Georgetown (103) rounding out the top four. *Interviews With Cheserek, Jenkins, Andy Powell, Chris Fox

LRC Michigan Women Win Easily, BC’s Liv Westphal Gets Individual Title Michigan went 2-3-8 (Erin Finn, Shannon Osika, Brook Handler) to win on the women’s side, scoring 55 to runner-up Georgetown’s 77. Syracuse (134) and Boston College (192) were a distant third and fourth.
*Interviews With Liz Westphal, Erin Finn, Mike McGuire,  Dana Giordano

Coast To Coast Battle In Beantown Message Board Thread Here

• This Week’s NCAA MB Chatter: *MB: Battle in Beantown this Friday (D1 XC) *MB: NCAA XC Dark Horse Pick?

• Roy Griak: #3-Ranked Michigan State Women Handily Win Roy Griack Invy Over #9 Iowa State Michigan State put 5 in the top 22. On the  men’s side unheralded / unranked Southern Utah won over a slew of top-3o-ranked teams. They were lead by Nate Jewkes’ individual win over Craig Lutz. *Women’s Results*Men’s
• AZ State’s Shelby Houlihan Gets Roy Griak Individual Win By 7 Seconds Over Baylor’s Rachel Johnson
• MB: Roy Griak 2014 *Unranked SUU wins 2014 Griak!! *Griak – why .  times so slow?
• Stanford: Joe Rosa And Maksim Korolev Make Wrong Turn At Home Invy, Still Win Holding Hands In 23:16 Stanford sat most of their top runners, so only finished 3rd as Washington State won. Stanford women won as did Washington State’s Abby Regan. In her first race after signing with Nike, Alexa Efraimson had a big lead coming down the homestretch, but then collapsed twice (once right after the finish) and lost two spots, finishing 3rd. *Results
• MB: Alexa Efraimson finishes third in pro debut *Stanford. 24:25 wins in 2013 and 23:16 wins in 2014.
• OSU: Kirubel Erassa And Monika Juodeskaite Lead OSU To Cowboy Jamboree Sweep

(Mostly Women’s) Distance News

• Good Read From RW:“10 Things We Learned From Deena Kastor Over Lunch” Some interesting tidbits from Kastor talking about her masters WR, the mental side of running and more. Sometimes she does a final stride before the start, not for warming up, but to psyche out her opponents.
• Athletics Weekly Writer Angered UKA Will Only Take Men Who Can Make Top 30 At World XC Champs “Do we avoid the Africans like cowards and deprive British athletes of experience on the world stage?”
  *MB: Pathetic: Great Britain’s new motto – “If you can’t win, then don’t try at all.” What a horrible message to send!
• Cory McGee Joins New Balance Boston; Will Be Coached By Mark Coogan And Training With Abbey D’Agostino
• Q&A With Kim Smith, Who Is Recovering From Foot Surgery As a teenager she got to run with Arthur Lydiard as her best friend and sister were coached by him.
• Zola Budd Taking Comrades Marathon Officials To Court Over Her Disqualification From The Masters Race She was DQed from the masters race back in June for not wearing a separate age category tag on her vest.

Upcoming Road Action

• Sunday: World Champs 10K Bronze Medalist Belaynesh Oljira And 66:09 Half Marathoner Lucy Kabuu Lead Field For Carrera de la Mujer 10K In Bogota, Colombia The US will get representation from Janet Cherobon-Bawcom.
• Sunday: Stephanie Rothstein Bruce Blogs About Her Husband Ben Bruce’s Marathon Prep Ahead Of The Montreal Marathon She’s bummed the forecast is for hot weather as he was hoping to run fast.
• Oct. 19: Ethiopia’s CR Holder Meseret Hailu (2:21:09) And Kenya’s Commonwealth Games Champ Flomena Cheyech (2:22:44) Will Duke It Out At Amsterdam Marathon

• LRC 2014 NCAA Cross-Country LRC Pre-Season Fan Polls: Colorado Men And Michigan Women #1
• Good Read: RRW: “Emma Bates’s Forest Fire”
• USTFCCA Weekend Preview: Roy Griak Features Interesting Matchup B/W Three Track Champs: Emma Bates (10K), Shelby Houlihan (1,500), Leah O’Connor (Steeple) Article also gives a unique metaphor to explain the somewhat complicated qualification process for NCAA Champs.
• Mason Ferlic And The Other Michigan Captains Helped Stabilize Team During Tranistion Period After Alex Gibby Was Fired In June

Distance News

• Ben True Focused On Training For 2015 World XC Champs, Where He’ll Try To Replicate His Success From 2013 In 2013, True ran great, finishing 6th as the first non-African, leading the US to a surprise silver. He’s going to be doing altitude training for the first time in Guiyang China at 4,000ft.
• Kara Goucher Blogs About Her Return To Racing At The RnR Philadelphia Half Last Weekend It was her first race in 15 months and she said, “It’s strange to come back to racing and run a time that is not your best, or even close to your best (my PR is 66:57), but to accept the time.  The competitor in me is a bit embarrassed but the realist in me is satisfied.”
• Talking About His Disappointing Season, Asbel Kiprop Says He Had Some “Personal Domestic Issues” That Were A Distraction “As much as I trained hard I just couldn’t concentrate on my races owing to these problems. I just couldn’t take them off my head.”
• Asian Games Long Distance Preview

Blue Collar

LRC Wannabe Distance God Book Review And Blue Collar Runner Of The Month #2 Unless you ran in the Big 8 Conference in the early 1980s, you’ve probably never heard of Timothy Tays. His book, Wannabe Distance God, explains what it was like for him to run under the legendary Bob Timmons (Jim Ryun‘s coach) at Kansas and how he (like many LRCers, we suspect) struggled to come to terms with the fact that he was never going to be one of the world’s elite. Tays’ story is compelling and his passion for the sport and desire for greatness make him our September Blue Collar Runner of the Month.
Previous BCRM: A Real Running Hero: The Flo Groberg Story Former Maryland track and field and cross-country runner Flo Groberg helped thwart a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan.  This is his story.

Interesting Reads

• Rosa Twins Thrilled With Summer Training, Hoping For Big Season For Stanford At NCAA Cross The twins also admit it’s a bit awkward that they are good friends with Edward Cheserek due to their NJ ties.
• Great Q&A With WMM Leader Tsegaye Kebede, Who Is Running Berlin: “I get home from somewhere, I eat, I rest, then I train. There are no distractions. I have no vices.” He also says Kenenisa can get the WR in Chicago.
• Bolt On Jamaican Drug Positives: “There were mistakes but there weren’t any serious drugs.” He added, “It is still bad: the drug scandal. But it was a good thing it wasn’t like they were deliberately going out of their way to take drugs.”
  *Bolt Still Dreaming Big, Says With “Perfect Season” He Will definitely have the chance to break the 100m world record.” His big goal is a sub 19 200m.
• MB:Teen with one prosthetic leg, wants healthy leg removed so she’ll be better at Paralympic sports The headline in the Daily Mail was “Cut off my foot so I can run faster.”
• Anthony Whiteman Tells You How He Ran 1:48.05 At Age 42 And 3:42.02 At Age 40

USA 5K Championships *Top 20 US Results*Top Overall Results

RRW:Molly Huddle Earns Fourth USA 5-K Title In 15:10; Diego Estrada Wins Emotional First National Title (13:56) Huddle won by 15 seconds over Jordan Hasay in second; Mary Cain was back in 6th (15:53). Estrada won in a kick over German Fernandez (13:57.0) and Maverick Darling (13:57.5). Matt Centrowitz was 7th in 14:03.2.