US Marathon Champs Are In March

• Elite Field Announced For 2015 USATF Marathon Championships At The LA Marathon Men’s field has Ryan Hall, Shadrack Biwott, Matt Llano, 61:30 half marathoner Scotty Bauhs (debut) and ultra-marathoners Sage Canaday and Max King. Women’s side led by Janet Bawcom, Brianne Nelson and Sara Hall in her debut.
• Hall Excited To Make Her Debut: “I’ve fallen in love with the marathon distance just watching so many of Ryan’s races. He makes it look like so much fun out there.” Her coach Steve Magness talks about her impressive range as last year she was competing well over distances from the mile to the half. He says even during marathon training she’s still been able to bang out 29-second 200s on the track.
  *MB: Sara Hall Running LA
• Matt Llano: “There’s a big learning curve with a race that long, and even though I received advice from some of the world’s top marathoners before Chicago … … there’s something to be said for lessons that resonate better through experience.”
• LA Marathon CEO Tracey Russell: “This is shaping up to be one of the most competitive fields in the history of the [LA] marathon.”

More From The Weekend: Paula Runs 10K

• AW Weekly Round-Up: Paula Radcliffe Runs 34:16 (5:30 Pace) At Gran Canaria 10K Double WJ champ Morgan Lake scored 4448 points in the pentathlon to break Carolina Kluft‘s world age-17 best and come within 78 points of Katarina Johnson-Thompson‘s WJ record.
• Elite Mile Results From 2015 New Balance Games At The Armory Stephanie Charnigo won the mile in 4:31.78 over Ashley Higginson (4:32.31). John Travers won the men’s race in 3:59.62.
• Oregon Men Overtake Florida For No. 1 Spot In NCAA DI National Team Rankings Florida women stay #1 while Georgia moves up from 4th to 2nd.
• Janet Bawcom Wins RNR New Orleans Half In 1:12:22 Mike Popejoy won the men’s race in 65:18.
• USTFCCCA Weekend NCAA Highlights Non-distance action included: Texas A&M’s Bralon Taplin running 45.78 in the 400, Florida women running the #12 all-time NCAA indoor 4 x 400 with 3:29.58, Kendell Williams #2 all-time pentathlon score (she also has the record), Georgia’s Keturah Orji setting the US junior TJ record at 13.98m.
• Record Breakers Demi Payne (PV) And Michael Lihrman (Weight) Are NCAA DI Athletes Of The Week

Pro Distance Stuff

• Meb Keflezighi Gets Topps Baseball Card Throwing The First Pitch At Red Sox Game After Winning Boston
• IAAF Weekend XC Round-Up: African Junior XC Champ Agnes Tirop Wins Eldoret Discovery XC Race Little-known Peter Emase won the men’s 10K race as Asbel Kiprop ran the first 8K before dropping out. Elsewhere, Belgium’s Louise Carton and Ethiopia’s Tasame Dame won the Lotto Cross Cup. Nguse Amlosom and Rehima Jewar won a separate race in Spain.
• Eritrea’s Teklemariam Medhin Gets Another XC Win In Spain Medhin beat out Euro XC champ Polat Arikan by 2 seconds with Jairus Birech and Paul Tanui in 5th and 6th. Bahrain’s Ethiopian-born Mimi Belete got a surprising win over 2-time World XC champ Emily Chebet and World 5,000 silver medalist Mercy Cherono.

Yulia Zaripova Can Kiss That Medal Goodbye

Olympic Steeplechase Champion Yulia Zaripova Facing Doping Ban And Potential Loss Of Titles From 2009 Through 2013 An IAAF spokesman said “a decision is expected soon.” Meanwhile, Zaripova “voluntarily withdrew” from competition in July 2013, but claimed publicly that she had an injury before Moscow 2013 and was taking a break to have a baby.

• Nick Arciniaga Wins First-Ever Star Wars Half Marathon In 68:13 At Disneyland Resort *2nd Article With Photos
• Ethiopians Tesfaye Abera (2:09:46) And Dinkesh Mekash (2:30:00) Win Mumbai Marathon

Interesting Reads

• LRC Haile G’s Classic Video Call Of Epic Women’s Finish In Dubai: “Yes, yes, yes, yes. Go, go go, go, go. … Win for Ethiopia!!!! Wonderful!! Thank you!” The Great One may have a future in broadcasting. Plus HD video from men’s race.
• Haile Gebrselassie Says Paul Tergat Was A “Perfect Athlete” And He Only Didn’t Win Gold Because He Wasn’t “Lucky”
  *Kid Mistakes Haile For Shoe Store Employee – Asks If They Have Size 6 Trainers
  *MB: Class act – Haile G: “Paul (Tergat) was a perfect athlete. … Both of us should have won the gold in Sydney.”
• Pablo Solares, Who Ran 3:56 Last Week, Isn’t A Full-Time Runner – He Just Started A Full-Time Job With Merrill Lynch And Also Is A Professional Painter Frustrated with injuries, he started to move on last year but wanted to put a 2016 World Indoor qualifier before his job started at Merrill Lynch. He’s got commissions to do two murals for Oregon State University. “It’s good to stay busy.”
• 2012 LJ Champ Greg Rutherford Carries Injured Deer Two Miles To Get Help He found the deer while walking his dogs.
• A Look At Why The Men’s High Jump Might Currently Be The Greatest Event In Track Some are calling it “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

2015 Dubai Marathon *Results

Unbelievable! LRC Some Guy You’ve We’ve Never Heard Of (Hayle Lemi) Wins Sport’s Richest Prize Of $200,000 As Bekele Drops Out This doesn’t happen in any other sport. A total unknown (Hayle Lemi), who previously had one international race to his name and had not broken 2:10, took home the sports richest prize ($200,000) at the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon as Kenenisa Bekele dropped out.

MB: Official 2015 Dubai Marathon Live Discussion Thread

Must Read: Coach Canova Talks To Alberto Stretti About Bekele’s Buildup & Future In The Marathon – “His engine is still the most powerful in the World.” Canova, who also reveals he coached the race winner, is still VERY bullish on Bekele’s future. 
*Discuss On MB

Pre-Race: Kenenisa Bekele Talks At Length With Sabrina Yohannes About How He’s Learning To Be A Marathoner

Full Coverage, Including More Pre-Race News, In Our 2015 Dubai Marathon Special Section

Standard Chartered Dubai Women *Results

LRC Aselefech Mergia Edges Gladys Cherono In An Epic Stretch Run To Win A Cool $200,000 Ethiopia’s Aselefech Mergia is back. The Dubai course record holder prevailed by :01 in an epic final straight battle over World half marathon champ Gladys Cherono to take home $200,000 in the deepest women’s marathon ever (top 10), bumping Desi Linden from the fastest 10th-place finisher ever.

Olympic News / The 1st Amendment Doesn’t Apply

Boston Mayor Has Signed A Formal Agreement With The USOC That Bans City Employees From Criticizing Boston’s Bid For 2024 Games The “joinder agreement” forbids the city of Boston and its employees from making any written or oral statements that “reflect unfavorably upon, denigrate or disparage, or are detrimental to the reputation” of the International Olympic Committee, the USOC, or the Olympic Games.

Learn Something About The 1964 Olympics: 50 Years Ago, Jim Alder Was Left At Home As Alternate For Tokyo Olympics; He Went Out And Ran Nearly 95 Laps On Track To Blow Off Steam And Set 2-Hour WR That Still Stands *Discuss On MB

Russian Doping Updates

• IAAF Issues Statement That The Number Of Russian Doping Cases Is A “Major Concern” And They Are Investigating Out of the 37 athletes sanctioned by the Biological Passport system since 2009, 23 have been Russians.
• Australia’s Double Olympic Racewalk Silver Medalist Jared Tallent Calls For A Blanket Ban On Russian Athletes Tallent was beaten by a doper at both the 2008 and 2012. He is questioning why RUSADA has said that 2012 winner Sergei Kirdyapkin was clean for the Olympics, but dirty for the World Cup in May 2012. We 100% agree … if he was dirty 3 months before the Games, he was dirty at the Games.
• 2nd Article With Good Quotes From Tallent And Ireland’s Olive Loughnane Tallent: “It’s crazy, absolutely ridiculous. You can’t cherry-pick when the athlete should get the results annulled.”
• Paula Radcliffe Wants Maker Of German Documentary On Russian Doping To Come Forward To The IAAF With List Of 225 Athletes With “Suspicious” Blood Samples She says, “This makes me so mad because he won’t give it to the IAAF. The IAAF have no idea what you’re talking about.” However, we were under the impression that the list came from an IAAF employee and they knew exactly what it is.

LetsRun.com’s 2014 Awards – We Need Your Vote

LRC Meb Or Galen? Vote For LetsRun.com’s 2014 Award It’s time to vote. Vote and tell us who are the male and female runners of the year for the World, US, and NCAA. Plus vote for the “best record-breaking performance,” the “race of the year,” the “moment of the year” and “unusual moment of the year.”