October 04, 2014 Homepage Archive

Marathon News: Emmanuel Mutai Best Loser Ever, Haile G Racing Tomorrow, Priscah Jeptoo Out Of NYC *USATF.tv US Marathon Champs Broadcast Sunday At 9AM ET

Haile Gebrselassie Headlines Tomorrow’s Great Scottish Run Where Last Year He Set The Masters WR At 1:01:09 Geb will face the Commonwealth Games gold and silver medalists, SA’s Stephen Mokoka and 2:06 marathoner Mark Kiptoo. Olympic marathon champ Tiki Gelana faces Edna Kiplagat on the women’s side.
Defending Champion Priscah Jeptoo And Stanley Biwott Withdraw From The 2014 TCS New York City Marathon With Injuries Jeptoo is healthy now, but lost too much training time. They will be replaced by 2013 Boston champ Lelisa Desisa and Chicago Marathon runner-up Jemima Sumgong.
Recommended Read: Emmanuel Mutai Talks About Berlin, Being The “Eternal Bridesmaid” And Trying To Win In The Future After finishing 2nd for the 7th time at a WMM, Mutai should be pulling his hair out, but instead is plotting what he can change in his training and talking about doing 42K in training so he can practice finishing the last 2K faster.
Good Read: After Recent Struggles, Amy Hastings Looks To Rekindle Marathon Magic In Chicago Hastings debuted with a promising 2:27:03, but has struggled in the last couple years and not PRed. But she’s feeling confident about Chicago, saying, “I think I’ll be able to go in and mix it up with the leaders. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
RRW: 2013 Boston Marathon Champ Lelisa Desisa And Molly Huddle Headline B.A.A. Half Marathon Elite Fields Set For Next Sunday On the men’s side, Desisa will be up against Stephen Sambu, Leonard Korir and last year’s runner-up Daniel Salel. Huddle faces BAA 10K champ Mamitu Daska, Betsy Saina, Linet Masai and 1:07:44 runner Mary Wacera.

Asian Games

Men’s Marathon: Bahrain’s Kenyan-Born Ali Hasan Mahboob Wins In 2:12:38 Over Japan’s Kohei Matsumura And Yuki Kawauchi The race was ridiculously close as only 4 seconds separated the top 3.
*IAAF Recap China topped the overall track and field medals table with 15 gold medals, 14 silver and 11 bronze.
Thursday Recap: Maryam Jamal Wins 5,000 In 14:59 As China Picks Up 4 More Gold Medals Bahrain’s Moroccan El Hassan Elabbassi won the 10,000 in 28:11.20 beating Japan’s Alberto Salazar-coached Suguru Osako.
Bahrain’s Eunice Kirwa (Formerly Kenya) Wins Marathon In 2:25:37 Over Japan’s Ryoko Kizaki (2:25:50)

Updated High School XC Rankings

Girls: Great Oak Takes Over #1 Spot For Girls, Fayetteville-Manlius High School Moves Down To 7th
Boys: American Fork Moves To #1 Over Former #23 College Park Former #1 La Salle Academy moves to #3 with Great Oak #4.

Interesting Reads

Steve Jones Vividly Recalls Setting The 2:08:05 Marathon WR 30 Years Ago In Chicago Jones didn’t wear a watch, didn’t have a rabbit and thought at 23 he was only on CR pace.
Shannon Rowbury Will Run Serena Williams Ultimate Run 5k On Dec. 14
The Atlantic: What If Democracies Refuse To Pay For The Olympics Again? Our View: Don’t worry, it’s like NFL stadium subsidies. Only one city every few years has to fall for it for the whole system to continue on.

Women’s Distance News

German Marathon National Record Holder Irina Mikitenko Retires, Says Farewell To Her Glorious Career The 42-year-old was 3 times top 5 at Worlds in the 5,000 without medaling but then found 2:19:19 glory in the marathon at age 36 just months after missing the Beijing Games due to injury. She ran 2:24 last year at age 41.
Great Read: Runners World Catches Up With Marla Runyan People under the age of 25, if you don’t know who Runyan is, read this. Recruited as a high jumper for college, she became a heptathlon star. Then she moved to the 800 and quickly to the 1,500 where she made the Olympics. Then she made the Olympic team at 5,000 and was soon 4th in NY at 26.2. And here’s the kicker – she’s legally blind.
Running Times Looks At The Remarkable Success Of Matt Roe’s Butler Bulldogs They had a MAGICAL 2013 as they got 3rd at NCAAs and they have just six women’s scholarships. That’s what we call coaching. How he wasn’t coach of the year is beyond us.
Lisa Uhl Blogs About Her Debut Marathon Next Weekend In Chicago Before her struggles, she thought she’d be going for the American debut record. Now she knows that’s not realistic but she’s fine with that as she’s “realized that the best way to think about this marathon is to go back to the basics, just like how I became an Olympian – through small steps and consistency and focusing on getting the most out of myself instead of comparing myself to others.”
After Earning Bronze At Commonwealths, Kate van Buskirk Is Now Getting Ready For 2015 Pan Am Games In Her Native Toronto
Michigan St. Is Now #2, Michigan #1 In NCAA Rankings, 1st Time 2 Teams From Same State Have Been 1-2
Thank You For Being Beautiful: Nick Symmonds’ Book Excerpt: Symmonds Took Up XC So He Could Hang With A Hot Girl In 8th Grade
*Daily Relay – 5 Takeaways From Symmonds Book
*Symmonds Doesn’t Name Names In His New Book You can google and figure it out but they aren’t named specifically.
Kelly Holmes, Who Started At Age 14 And Believed She’d Be Olympic Champ, Is Focused On Her Foundation’s Work Now
*Holmes’ “Get On Track” Trust Helped 26-Year-Old With Criminal Record Get A Job
Good News, Ladies: Study: Gender Equality Leads To More Olympic Medals For Men And Women Countries with greater parity – particularly for measures of educational equality – had more women and men reach the podium, irrespective of GDP.

Nick Symmonds’ Autobiography Out Next Month *Excerpt

RRW: Q&A With Nick Symmonds On His New Book, “Life Outside The Oval Office: The Track Less Traveled” Symmonds talks about the writing process and what kinds of things he included in the book. He also says he’s 100% healthy and training great. He’d like to run a 5,000 and 1,500 this spring, but his next race on the track will be a beer mile.
MB: Nick Symmonds book excerpt, you’re gonna want to read this!
Symmonds Talks With ESPN About His Autobiography And Says There Were Punches Thrown At USATF He said USATF was not sent an advanced copy of the book: “They can buy a copy and I’ll take my royalty.”
Excerpt From Symmonds Book

Weekend XC Coverage

USTFCCCA Weekend XC Coverage: #19 Michigan Men Upset #10 BYU At Notre Dame 97 To 112 Michigan also got the individual win by Mason Ferlic in 23:15. #12 ranked New Mexico dominated the women’s race with 49 points to NC State’s 123. New Mexico’s Charlotte Arter won the race in 16:09.
*Men’s Results *Women’s Results
*Michigan Article *New Mexico Article
Q&A With Arkansas’ Stanley Kebenei Ahead Of This Weekend’s Chile Pepper Invite
Q&A With Arizona State’s NCAA 1,500 Champ Shelby Houlihan Houlihan got a big win at Roy Griak last weekend. Here she talks about everything from running to junk food to impulsive online shopping.
Podcast Interview With Mitch Kastoff About His Visits With Collegiate Teams Over This Summer, Including Colorado And Michigan
*LRC The Gunslingers Of Boulder
MileSplit High School XC Weekend Recap/Coverage
LRC Weekend XC Preview: Notre Dame Invitational, Washington Invitational Headline Action
*Aisling Cuffe Out For Most (Or All) XC Season With A Stress Fracture According to this blog post by one of the Stanford men.
*USTFCCCA Weekend Preview

Sprint / Field News

Chinese Hammer Thrower Stripped Of Asian Games Gold After Failing Doping Test It would have been Zhang Wenxiu‘s 3rd straight title.
IAAF Announces 10 Men’s And 10 Women’s Candidates For 2014 Athlete Of The Year Dennis Kimetto, Nijel Amos, Jairus Birech and Genzebe Dibaba are the distance runners who made the list.
InsideTheGames: Drug Cheat Justin Gatlin A “Controversial” Inclusion In Athlete Of The Year Nominations Gatlin was undefeated this year and ran the best 100/200 single day double in history.
Germany’s Rico Freimuth And Netherlands’ Nadine Broersen End Year As Overall Winners Of IAAF Combined Events Challenge

US Marathon News: Shalane Breaks AR

Shalane Flanagan Did Get An American Record In Berlin, Over 25K She split 25K in 1:22:36 to breat Janet Cherobon-Bawcom‘s previous mark by by exactly 2 minutes. Flanagan just missed Deena Kastor‘s 30K AR by 7 seconds.
Ryan Vail Blogs: Less Than 5 Weeks To The New York City Marathon Vail talks a little about pacing Flanagan in Berlin.
Q&A With Luke Puskedra About His Upcoming Marathon Debut At NYC Puskedra talks about laughing when the random spectator jumped in the race next to the male elites during the US 20K Champs.
Ben Bruce Blogs About Winning The Montreal Marathon Last Weekend In 2:22:38 In Hot Conditions

Field / Sprint Stuff

Police Suspect Oscar Pistorius’ Brother Of Wiping Data Off Oscar’s Phone In The Days After He Killed His Girlfriend According to an Eyewitness News report, the police thought about charging him with “defeating the ends of the justice,” but ultimately decided not to.
IAAF Work, Rest And Play Interview With South African 400 Hurdler Cornel Fredericks Fredericks won 400H gold at the Commonwealth Games, African Champs and IAAF Continental Cup this summer.
Good Question:Can A Thrower Be Jamaica’s Athlete Of The Year? It’s a toss-up on the men’s side for athlete of the year and O’Dayne Richards won Commonwealth Games with a NR.

Week That Was

WTW All Hail Larry Rawson And Dennis Kimetto, Sub-2 Here We Come, Shalane And Emmanuel Win By Losing, Rupp’s Medal Chances Go Up, & Proof Runners Are Crazy Last week was a momentous week with Dennis Kimetto breaking the 2:03:00 marathon barrier. We take another look at that, compare Tsegaye Kebede to all American marathoners ever, praise Shalane Flanagan, like Galen Rupp‘s medal chances, and tell you why runners are officially crazy.

Crazy 800 At Asian Games

All Three Medalists Disqualified In Men’s 800m On Day Of Controversy At Asian Games Two lane violations and an obstruction so the medalists finished 4th, 5th, and 6th. Agar Almntfage of Iraq celebrated like he actually earned it.
*6th Placer Who Ended Up Third: “I was sad for the disqualified three guys.”

Margarita Mukasheva Wins Women’s 800 In 1:59.02 India NR holder Tintu Luka held on for silver after going out in 1:27.43.

Random

Asian Games News

Yuki Kawauchi Wants Gold In Friday’s Asian Games Marathon The favorite is Ethiopian born Shumi Dechasa, who won the Hamburg Marathon in May with a personal best 2:06:43.
*Kawauchi Could Secure Olympic Spot With Top 8 Finish If he wins, he’s on the 2015 World Championships team. To lock up an Olympic spot, he only has to be top Japanese and top 8. Go figure.
Ehsan Hadadi Wins 3rd Straight Discus Title – Iran’s First Gold Of Asain Games In the rounds of the 400H, Bahrain’s Kemi Adekoya got her second Games record by running 55.09.
*Chinese Athletes Win The Three Other Golds Given Out At Asian Games
5 Of 1st 7 Golds At Asian Games Awarded In Non-Walking Events Went To African-Born Athletes

Worth A Read?

Administrative News

No Excuses: WADA Releases List Of Banned Substances For 2015
We’ll Host It: Alan Abrahamson: IOC Will Give $880 Million To Host Of 2022 Winter Games
B.A.A. To Review Boston Marathon Registration Process Since 1,900 Qualifiers Found Out They Actually Hadn’t Qualified Either have a qualifying time or don’t.

Bizarre

Lonely Wife Marathoner Recounts How She Used Rage, Sexual Frustration, Cigarettes And Wine To Train For Her First Marathon In terms of actual training, she did just 15 to 25 per week. *Discuss
42-Year-Old New Zealand Barefoot Runner Hoping To Set 24 Hr. And 100km Guinness Records This Weekend

Sprint/Field Event News

Justin Gatlin Says Focus Will Be On 100, But Eyes 19.4 In 200 In 2015
*Gatlin Says He Partied With Bolt In Brussels
Lauryn Williams “Playing With The Idea” Of Bobsled This Season, But Is 100% Done With Track And Field Williams, who didn’t compete in track at all this year, had thought she’d retired from both sports.
Yelena Isinbayeva Gave Birth To Her Daugther In Monaco, Hopes To Return To Russia Soon She calls her daughter the “biggest victory” of her life.
Dai Greene Has Dumped His Coach – Colin Jackson Backs Greene’s Decision

News From Kenya

Sunday Road Action: US Marathon Champs At Twin Cities

RRW: Six Storylines – USA Marathon Championships At Medtronic Twin Cities Marathon Tyler McCandless, Ian Burrell and Sean Quigley lead the men’s charge, while Jeannette Faber, Esther Erb, Meghan Peyton and Brianne Nelson front the women’s field.
*Press Release: US Masters Marathon Championships Titles Also At Stake
World Record Holder Zersenay Tadese Leads Field For Rock ‘N’ Roll Lisbon Half Marathon Other big names in the half field are Teklemariam Medhin and Ibrahim Jeilan. The men’s marathon has 7 sub-2:10 men led by 2:06 man Philip Kimutai. Defending champ Agnes Kiprop (2:23:54) leads the women’s marathon. Italian Nadia Ejjafinni has the fastest PR in the women’s half field with 68:27.
Deep Fields Set For Sunday’s Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon: Aaron Braun, Jeffrey Eggleston And Ethiopia’s Dereje Ali Lead The Men Lauren Kleppin, Renee Metivier Baillie and Kellyn Johnson lead women’s field.
Saturday: IAAF Preview Of Smarna Gora Mountain Running Race In Slovenia
Next Month: Ryan And Sara Hall Will Run EQT Pittsburgh 10 Miler On November 9th The men’s field is competitive with Iona alum / 1:01 half marathoner Leonard Korir, Fernando Cabada and Ethiopia’s two-time Olympic steeplechase finalist Nahom Mesfin.

Championship Bidding

Kimetto (And Mutai) Get Hero’s Welcome In Kenya

Dennis Kimetto Receives Hero’s Welcome, Sucks Down Some Fermented Cow’s Milk, On Return To Kenya

More News From Kenya:

Doper Matthew Kisorio Will Race For 1st Time Out Of Country In Return At Valencia Half Marathon On Oct. 19
Spikes Mag Catches Up With Kenyan Road Racer Margaret Wangari Muriuki She shares a funny anecdote about struggling on the police firing range with Asbel Kiprop, whom she claims isn’t a good shot. She also talks about being chased by a family dog when staying with a host family at a road race.

Behind The Scenes At Colorado

LRC Feature The Wetmore Formula Those who know him best insist there aren’t any secrets to Mark Wetmore’s success as a distance coach. Yet few can match his accomplishments. How does he do it? We go back to his Bernard High roots in the 1970s and do our best to explain. Chris Lear has read this piece and loved it: “This is why I go to letsrun. Thanks for the read.”

Discuss On The MBoard: LetsRun.com Investigates: What Makes Mark Wetmore So Special?

LRC The Gunslingers Of Boulder Mitch Kastoff catches up with the defending champs, who return everyone from last year and then some, and finds a very confident group.