The Latest In The Dirty World Of Doping

• Former 400 World Champion Amantle Montsho Gets 2-Year Drug Ban After Testing Positive At Last Year’s Commonwealth Games She plans to appeal the decision.
• No Shame? South Korea Plans To Give Citizenship To Kenyan Marathoner Wilson Loyanae Erupe To Ensure Marathon Gold At Rio Olympics EPO cheat Loyanae won the Seoul Marathon last weekend in 2:06:11. That will hardly “ensure” gold, but then again EPO can work wonders. *Discuss
• Get Ready For The Next Wave Of Drug Bans: IOC To Retest Hundreds Of Samples From The Beijing Olympics The IOC is being smart and targeting athletes who are under suspicion to try and get them banned before they can cheat their way to medals at Rio 2016.
• Abbott World Marathon Majors And IAAF Release Details Of New Testing Protocols It Will Use With Its Elites Athletes competing at WMM races and meeting certain criteria (about 150 total) will be subject to additional out-of-competition testing.
• Now If Only Russia (Or The US) Would Take This Kind Of Hard Stance: Australian Olympic Committee Says It Won’t Send Coach With Murky Past To Rio If Athletics Australia Hires Him Athletics Australia was/is considering hiring former Canadian sprinter Kevin Tyler (implicated in the same group as Ben Johnson) as a coach and the Olympic committee said they refuse to send him with the team to Rio.
• David Rudisha Talks About How The Doping Of A Few Taints The Whole Sport Rudisha would like Athletics Kenya to find out who is supplying dopers like Rita Jeptoo.

Elite Distance News

• Great In-Depth Interview With Katherine Switzer, The First Woman To Run The Boston Marathon Switzer talks about her historical day in 1967 Boston, the “pioneers” of women’s running, the good and bad of Title IX and more.
• Molly Huddle Shares Her “Words Of Wisdom” Training Advice She says she recovers way better as a pro than in college because in college she was always riding her bike around between classes, not taking ice baths or naps and didn’t recover enough.
• Eliud Kipchoge Says He Wants To Run His Own Race At The London Marathon Rather Than Going For The Win If he actually runs his own race (rather than going out with the usual suicidal pace in London) he actually has a pretty good shot to win.
• David Rudisha Says He’s Happy With His Training And Expecting A Good Season As He Works Towards Reclaiming His World 800 Title In Bejing
• Asami Kato Wins Matsue Ladies’ Half Marathon In Japan In 1:10:36 Kit Ching Yiu set a Hong Kong NR with 1:14:55.

NCAA News

• Daily Relay’s Jess Squire Asks Some “What About The Sport?” Questions Squire thinks track’s decline in popularity is connected with how infrequently athletes at both the college and professional level compete. He also brings up the troubling fact that next year, USATF Indoor Champs is the same weekend as NCAA Indoors.
• Oregon Men And Arkansas Women Lead Current Standings For NCAA Program Of The Year Award The award calculates the best all-around team between XC, indoors and outdoors.
• Post-Indoors Bowerman Award Men’s Watch List Eric Jenkins joins Edward Cheserek on the list. Also Edward Kemboi and Anthony Rotich.

Doping Updates

• What Else Is New? Two More Russian Race Walkers Banned For Doping Andrei Ruzavin was banned 2.5 years while Nina Okhotnikova was banned 2 years. Both were caught with the biological passport and have had results annulled going back to 2011.
• NY Times Reporting That Lance Armstrong Recently Met With USADA Head Travis Tygart About Reducing His Lifetime Ban Reportedly, Armstrong has confided to close friends that the meeting went well and that he was hopeful of further talks.
• Seb Coe Underlines Need For IAAF To Introduce Independent Drug Testing He thinks it will remove “potential conflicts” within federations and speed up the sanction process.
• Jamaican Organization Concerned That There Will Be No Drug Testing At Next Week’s ISSA Boys’ and Girls’ Championships Apparently JADCO promised last year that they would have drug testing at the high school championship meet.
• Russia’s Temporarily Suspended IAAF Treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev Says They Have Been Receiving International Support From Those Who Don’t Believe Systematic Doping Allegations

Marathon News: Bekele Out Of London

• Kenenisa Bekele Withdraws From London Marathon With Achilles Injury On a positive note, Geoffrey Mutai was added to the men’s field and Dubai Marathon winner Aselefech Mergia (2:19:31 PR) was added to the women’s.
• Recommended Read: Ryan Hall Spoke With The New Yorker Article About His Running Philosophy Before The LA Marathon A lot of insight into the mind of Hall, who pre-race said, “I’m not afraid of failure. I don’t take it personally. So if I blow up, I’m bummed for sure, but it’s like, life goes on. It doesn’t define me. So I’m not afraid to take big chances.”
  *MB: Longish article on Ryan Hall in the New Yorker today pre LA
• RunBlogRun: Jared Ward Adds Himself To The Long List Of Possibles For One Of The 2016 US Olympic Marathon Spots Right now, Meb Keflezighi is the only person who could be considered a “favorite” to make the team, so there are at least two spots wide open.

Random Stuff

• Bizarre: San Francisco Thief Steals Paralympic Hopeful’s Prosthetic Running Leg The leg is valued at $30,000, but Ranjit Steiner says they’re custom so only he can use it. “There’s no real black market for [prosthetic legs].”
• Poll Finds Students Who Played High School Sports Were More Likely To Make Six Figures At Their Jobs Later In Life
• Study Finds 30-Minute Naps Can Help You Feel Less Pain
• Tucson Runner Fined $89 For Running On Roads Cop said he should have been on the sidewalk.

Trial Update: Police Describe Gun Battle With Boston Marathon Bombers

2015 NCAA Indoors *Results *Day 1 TV Replay *Day 2 TV Replay *Fan Poll Results *LRC Post-Race Interviews
*NCAA DII/DIII Results / Streams

M3,000 LRC Eric Jenkins Takes Down Edward Cheserek For NCAA Title #2 – Or Did Cheserek Let Him Win? Two hours after we wondered if Edward Cheserek would ever lose another NCAA race, Cheserek lost, but was it on purpose? This one will be debated forever.
MB: That was F***ing awesome – Oregon Civil War – Jenkins FTW!! Edward Cheserek is human!! (Wait: Ches says he let Jenkins win!)

MMile LRC Cristian Soratos Goes For It But Edward Cheserek Runs 2:19 Last 1k To Win Men’s Mile The reigning NCAA XC and 10,000 champ was unfazed by a mid-race 53 second 400 and got the win by running the 2nd fastest 1k in NCAA history. #unfair

WMile LRC Leah O’Connor Of Michigan State Sets NCAA Meet Record In Women’s Mile Shelby Houlihan broke the old NCAA mark as well but lost as O’Connor was spectacular.

W3,000: LRC What A Night: Arkansas’ Dominique Scott Wins NCAA Individual Title, Team Title And Gets Engaged

3k Race Recap Scott Pulls Away from Stud Frosh Elise Cranny To Close Out A Perfect Weekend Dominique Scott won her first individual NCAA title in convincing fashion over Elise Cranny.

800s Natoya Goule (2:01.64 MR) & Edward Kemboi (1:46.05) Win Fast 800s Goule broke the meet record and Kemboi ran faster than anyone else had at NCAAs in 14 years as the 800 action was fast.

LRC Omar McLeod Of Arkansas Breaks 18-Year-Old NCAA Record In Men’s 60 Hurdles, Gets Jamaican Mark As Well

AP Recap Of NCAA Indoors In addition to all the action above Kendell Williams broke her NCAA record in the pentathlon.

Distance Runners Usher Oregon’s Dominant Ducks To The Men’s NCAA Indoor Title Ken Goe of the Oregonian recaps the Ducks win.

LRC In Defense Of Ryan Hall: The Moses Mosop Connection How Kenyan 2:03:06 man Moses Mosop proves Ryan Hall’s self-coaching wasn’t a mistake and why there is hope for the US’s fastest marathoner to get back on top.

Week That Was

WTWAndrew Wheating Your Kiwi 800 Champ, Great 1,500 Video From Euros, The Great Julia Lucas, Airbrushed Logos, Tweet Of The Week And More

Recommended Read: Julia Lucas Blogs About The 2012 Olympic Trials 5,000 And Her Retirement From Professional Track And Field “And so, as I emerge from a career that ended not as I would have liked, disappointed with what could have been and almost was, I still look to running. … A race is just a race, but running can be anything.”
*MB: Julia Lucas wrote an article about losing out in the 2012 Olympic Trials 5,000
*LRC Archives: The Women’s 5,000 Final – The Olympic Trials At Its Absolute Best
*“It Should Be Mathematical: One Couple, Two Dreams, .04 Seconds” Popular piece by Michael Heald.
*Official Julia Lucas Appreciation Thread!!!

LRC Remembering LRCer Van Townsend The running world lost one of its bright lights this week with the death of Van Townsend.
*MB: RIP Van Townsend: Share Your Respects Here