November 08, 2014 Homepage Archive

The Straight Dope On Rita Jeptoo?

Rita Jeptoo’s Estranged Husband Accuses Her Of Long-Term EPO Use Since 2011 Her husband shared legal documents where he essentially blackmailed her, saying that he’d tell WADA about her doping if she didn’t agree to a financial settlement.
*MB: Rita Jeptoo’s Husband Says She Began Doping in 2011
NY Times: Problems With Anti-Doping System Cast A Shadow On Kenyan Runners Some harsh words from Frank Shorter, who thinks the WMM should have its own testing pool that tests top marathoners (i.e. Kenyans) more regularly out of competition.
*MB: Frank Shorter in the NYTimes basically convicts all of Kenya for doping
Rita Jeptoo’s Agent Federico Rosa Defended By His Other Kenyan Clients The other athletes, which include Asbel Kiprop and Janeth Jepkosgei, said that whatever Jeptoo did was on her own and they are willing to be investigated.

Week That Was

LRCWeek That Was: New York, New York, Rita Jeptoo Tests Positive, Can We Go Back To College, And More

We take one final look at the 2014 TCS NYC Marathon, Rita Jeptoo's positive "A" sample, ponder whether Phoebe Wright, Andrew Wheating and many pros might want to go back to college, and why high school marathoners should go to college.

More Distance News

Inagural Kansas Road Mile This Sunday: Ben Blankenship Faces 2009 World 1,500 Champ Yusuf Kamel Alan Webb will be the event’s honorary starter. *Race Website
Irish Star Runner Fionnuala Britton Responds To Criticisms About Her Euro Champs Marathon Spot She was given a spot despite never even running a half, but earned her selection with a 2:31 for the 4th fastest ever by an Irishwoman. This was 4 days after she ran the 10K.
Short Profile: BYU Coach Ed Eyestone – Transformation From Athlete To Coach Eyestone is a two-time Olympian who has “prolonged his love for running” by becoming a coach.
Indianapolis Monumental Marathon: 92-Year-Old Sets Single-Age Half WR While Woman Breaks Above-Knee Amputee Marathon WR Mike Fremont ran a 3:19:30 half while Hailey Daniswicz ran a 4:25:28 marathon.
Boston Marathon Course Could Be Slightly Altered In 2015 There is road work being done that could shorten the course by 6 to 8 feet.

News From Kenya

Wilson Kipsang, Head Of Recently-Formed Professional Athletes Association Of Kenya (PAAK), Wants Dopers Stopped
Kenyan Columnist: We Can’t Ignore Doping Any Longer “Kenyans are taking the subject very lightly without realising we are sitting on a time bomb.”
Many Athletics Kenyan Branches Claim They Will Still Go Through With Special Meeting On Nov. 14 – Even Though AK Has Said It’s Outlawed
*Some Rift Valley Branches To AK Will Not Go To Outlawed Splinter Meeting Next Week

Sprint/Hurdle News

Dan Pfaff: Far Too Many Coaches Overtrain Athletes “I believe very strongly in the principle of minimum, effective dose (MED).”
Jamaica’s Teen Hurdle Phenom Jaheel Hyde Is An Incredible Soccer Player As Well He had a hat trick for Jamaica’s U-17 team.

US Distance News: New Beer Mile WR

LRC Chris Kimbrough Shatters Women’s Beer Mile World Record With 6:28 She broke the previous 17-year-old record of 6:42.
Bob Kennedy On His 3:26:17 NYC Marathon: “You go in spurts of 100 meters. You feel like you’re clicking, and you feel like you want to drop out.”
Recommended Read: Tim Layden Nominates Meb Keflezighi As SI’s Sportsman Of Year “On the most American of days in running, in the most American of races, an American won the Boston Marathon.”
An Insult To Elite Women Marathoners Everywhere? WSJ Article Extrapolates That Tennis Star Caroline Wozniacki Could Run A Low 2:30 Marathon If She Really Trained For It She ran 3:26:33. These types of predictions are extremely hypothetical, but her own post-race prediction of maybe getting down to 3 hours if she trained all-out seems much more reasonable.
Mike Rutt Blogs: 10 Ways to Become A Better Runner (Part 1)
Competitor’s List Of The 35 Greatest American Female Marathoners Of All Time Joan Benoit Samuelson and Deena Kastor top the list.

Weekend NCAA XC Roundup

LRC OK State Shows Its Cards, Iowa State Women Impress, And Are The Team Races Over? 10 Thoughts On NCAA XC Conference Champs
Ranking Updates: Four New #1 Teams In Final DI XC Regional Team Rankings
PAC-12 Champ Edward Cheserek And ACC Champ Liv Westphal (Boston College) Are Athletes Of The Week Cheserek ran his last 3K in 8:23 to win while Westphal ran a 19:43 CR to beat Colleen Quigley by 14 seconds.
Thomas Awad Becomes Penn’s 1st Heps XC Winner Since 1975
NCAA Track: Oregon Unveils 2015 Track Schedule And Does Away With The Oregon Preview It’s their traditional season opener, but they scrapped it as athletes are still tired from indoors.

This Weekend’s Action

Preview Of Sunday’s Beirut Marathon: William Kipsang Back To Defend His Title He’ll face Ethiopians Fikadu Girma Teferi (2:09:34) and Abdela Godana (debut, 27:54 10k). Zemzem Ahmed (2:27:12) leads the women’s field.
Qatar’s Bellor Yator (2:08:39) Vs. Ethiopia’s Shume Hailu (2:09:06) Highlights Marathon des Alpes-Maritimes Nice-Cannes In France The women’s race has Salina Jebet Kosgei (2:23:22 PR from 2006) defending her title vs. Emily Rotich and Tigist Abdi.
MileSplit Weekend HS State Meet Coverage

Random Distance Stuff

Q&A With Four NCAA Coaches Who Started New Positions This Year, Including Chris Solinsky At William And Mary Solinsky has been enjoying the job so far and says he it hasn’t been too hard getting in his own training.
Athletes Come To Blows During Club XC Race In Ireland A big rivalry between two clubs led to a lot of shoving with one athlete throwing a punch and another putting an opponent in a headlock.
Q&A Catching Up With Andrew Bumbalough Bumbalough wasn’t thrilled with his season from a time perspective as it was the first year in his career he didn’t get a PR at his primary event.
What’s The Ideal Age For Marathoning? Based on statistical analysis of pros, right around 28 years old. Recent trend of older runners (mid 30s+) running faster could be due to financial, rather than biological, reasons.
Number Of Ultramarathons In The US Has Doubled In The Last Decade More than 800 events in 2014. While most running events have more women then men, ultrarunning is still about 75% men.

Ocar Pistorius’ Lawyers Oppose Prosecution’s Appeal Of Verdict/Sentence The date for the appeal hearing has not been set yet.

USATF Announces 2014 Hall Of Fame Class Includes Stacy Dragila, the first women’s Olympic PV champion and Ted Corbitt, the first African-American Olympic marathoner.

Championship Hosting

Japanese Architect Says Proposed Tokyo Olympic Stadium Looks Like A Turtle He doesn’t like the changes to the original proposal, as he said, “What remains is a dull, slow form, like a turtle waiting for Japan to sink so that it can swim away.”
Q&A With Vin Lananna About Biding For 2019 World Championships In Eugene Asked what Eugene’s “biggest area of deficiency” is, Lananna basically said none. Others would disagree as Eugene lacks in stadium size, hotels/restaurant options.
Impressive: Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games Came In $40 Million Under Budget

Europe News

Column: Cleaning Up Athletics Remains A Marathon, Not A Sprint
70% Of Tickets For 2015 European Indoors In Prague Are Already Sold Saturday and Sunday sessions are already sold out.

Upcoming: Ryan Hall’s First Race In 5 Months

Sunday:Deep Field Lead By Ryan Hall Set For The Pittsburgh 10 Miler Hall faces 1:01 half marathoner Leonard Korir and Fernando Cabada. Women’s field has 2012 World Junior 5,000 champ Buze Diriba and Sara Hall.
*MB: Ryan Hall 10-miler this weekend
Next Sunday: Loaded Elite Fields Released For .US National 12K Champs: Molly Huddle And Aaron Braun Return To Defend Their Titles Braun faces a slew of elites including Ben True, Christo Landry, Diego Estrada, Girma Mecheso and Sean Quigley. Huddle will face Kim Conley, Sara Hall, Janet Bawcom and more.
Jan:Will Leer, Morgan Uceny, Shannon Rowbury Headline Fields For Camel City Indoor Mile

Updated NCAA Rankings

Men: Top Ten Teams Hold Steady In Penultimate DI XC National Rankings Colorado, Oregon and Syracuse sit 1-3.
*MB: 2014 Regional Predictions – Qualifiers to NCAA
Women: Arkansas And Iowa State Move Up In Tumultuous Post-Conference D1 XC National Rankings Michigan State, Georgetown and Oregon stay as the top 3, but Michigan moves down to 8th from 4th.

Official TCS NYC Marathon Highlight Video (If you only want marathon highlights, skip to the 1:30 mark)

Sprints / Jumps

Cool Graphic:Watch Usain Bolt Race Against The Fastest Machines And Animals In The World Spoiler alert: he gets his ass kicked.
Yohan Blake Back In Training On Comeback From Hamstring From Injury
Former NY Giants Running Back David Wilson Serious About Moving To The TJ His football career ended because of a spinal injury, but the former All-American TJer is now training for the Rio Olympics.
IAAF Work, Rest And Play Interview With Jamaica’s Youth Olympic 400m Gold Medalist Martin Manley His least favorite workouts: “Weights, because they are heavy …”

NYC Marathon Photos

Latest Post-NYC News

LRCWhat Shoes Did The Pros Wear In New York?

What shoes did the pros race in in the 2014 New York City Marathon? We tell you.

Wilson Kipsang Looking Ahead To 2015, Saying He Wants To Win Worlds And Get Back His World Record From Dennis Kimetto
Pre- And Post-NYC Interview With Ryan Vail Interesting to see Vail’s thoughts before and after the race side-by-side. Overall, he said he would have liked better than 9th, but thought he did everything he could do.
Podcast Interview With Desiree Linden After Her 5th Place NYC Finish
*Interview Transcription Her marathon advice: “In training and in racing, we all have moments that hurt. You’ve just got to smile and remember that what you are doing is fun.”
Forbes Gives Full-Time Lawyer Annie Bersagel Mention For 10th Place Finish In NYC

UK Jav NR Holder Goldie Sayers Says She’ll Prove To UKA That She Should Have Received Lottery Funding She’s had two surgeries since she got hurt in London 2012, where she could have been a medal contender.

Women In the News

Pregnant Tirunesh Dibaba To Miss 2015 Season
*MB: The baby-faced assasin is having a baby: Tirunesh Dibaba will miss 2015 season – How fast will her and Sihine’s baby be?
Q&A With Former 5,000, 10,000 And Marathon WR Holder Ingrid KristiansenShe’s most proud of her 10,000 time of 30:13.74, but her marathon WR of 2:21:06 lasted for 13 years.
Interview With Australian Georgia Wassall, Who Has Decided To Go To School At Sydney University, Not In The NCAA The 2:01.78 performer, who has a Nike contract, was worried about getting injured in the US.
Profile Of Former NCAA Pole Vault Champ For Stanford, Ekaterini Stefanidi Of Greece, Who Is Now A PhD Student At ASU At Stanford, she gained 25 pounds her frosh year at Stanford and was a disaster.

More 2014 New York City Marathon News

Top 2 Runners Who Ran Off Course At Mile 24 Of Manchester Marathon Will Get $1,250 Each

Next Week: Preview Of IAAF Cross de Atapuerca In Spain, Where Ibrahim Jeilan Will Race XC For 1st Time In 5 Years 2014 world 5,000 leader Muktar Edris is also racing.

Prosecutors In Oscar Pistorius Case Appeal “Shockingly Light” Sentence As Well As Verdict They say the judge failed to consider the “horrendous manner” in which Ms. Steenkamp was killed.

Previous Kenyan News: Jeptoo Requests “B” Sample Test

Competitor Q&A With Rita Jeptoo’s Agent Federico Rosa Rosa was very blunt saying he “absolutely” thinks Kenya has a problem.
Rita Jeptoo Provisionally Suspended; Requests To Have Her “B” Sample Tested
Jeptoo Hounded By Reporters Her only response: “Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”
What Everyone Has Been Wondering:Wilson Kipsang To Lelisa Desisa At The End Of The NYCM: “What’s the problem?”
Kenya Sports Minister Promises They Have A Plan To Tackle Doping Problem Hassan Wario accuses AK of being uncooperative, but says they will open a new anti-doping agency by the end of the year.
Wilson Kipsang And Mary Keitany Arive To Heroic Welcome At Nairobi Airport

More Pro News

All For It:WADA Chief Sir Craig Reedie Says Doping Should Be A Criminal Offense
Jo Pavey Disappointed But Not Surprised To Miss Out On UKA Lottery Funding She admitted she knows she’s “probably too old to get the funding.”
UK Headline:“Serial Doper Justin Gatlin Has Paid His Dues, Claims 3-Time Olympic Champ Jackie Joyner-Kersee” She said she “believes in second chances.” Well, what about third?
IAAF Video Interview: Ato Boldon Talks With US’s Two-Time 100 Champ Gail Devers
Konica Minolta Men And Universal Entertainment Women Win Third-Straight East Japan Corporate Titles

Post 2014 TCS New York City Marathon News Results (Updated)* *Photos

Daily Monitor: “The Curious Case Of Stephen Kiprotich” Author wonders how Kiprotich won the Olympics/Worlds, but is nowhere close in London or NYC. Well, he has a 2:07 PR and is clearly better in championship races. Plus 5th in NYC isn’t too bad.
Photo:NYC 10th Placer Nick Arciniaga Ran Through His Nipples No matter how fast you are, no one is immune to nipple chafing.
AP: Stephan Shay Honors Older Brother Ryan Shay said it was a very emotional experience, especially when he ran by the bench dedicated to Ryan placed near where he died.
Funny Video Of NYC Marathoners Trying to Walk Down Stairs Afterwards
2014 NYC Marathon Sets Record For World’s Largest Number Of Marathon Finishers With 50,564 Article includes some other interesting stats and list of celebrity finishers.