Quote Of The Day
– Stephen Kiprotich speaking out against the Ugandan Athletics Federation and recently-suspended coach, Peter Wemali, who has been accused of rape and sexual harassment. Kiprotich also shares how UAF wronged him in the past by kicking him off teams, but said he always knew eventually “the federation would be begging me to compete.”
- Bolt runs 20.20
- What do you call the spouse of a female U.S. president?
- Do you think track is boring for Edward Cheserek? Does Oregon take it too easy?
- Ryan Hall loses school record
- Where is Rupp?
- Is marathon pain a different kind of pain than 5k/10k
- Soratos Opens Outdoor Season
- Is heel striking really that horrible?
Sunday Marathons *Rotterdam Results
- Paris: Mark Korir Gets Surprise Win In Paris In 2:05:49, Meseret Mengistu PRs By Nearly 6 Minutes To Win Women’s
Milan: 41-Year-Old Kenneth Mungra Runs Masters WR To Win Milano Marathon In 2:08:44 Lucy Karimi won the women’s race in 2:27:35.- Rotterdam: Abera Kuma Wins Rotterdam In 2:06:47Asami Kato won the women’s in 2:26:30. Reid Coolsaet ran 2:11:24 as the Canadian record still stands.
- Vienna: Sisay Lemma Wins Vienna Marathon By Nearly 5 Minutes In 2:07:31; Maja Neuenschwander Wins Women’s (2:30:09)
- Chile: Kenya’s Luka Rotich Lobuwan (2:11:53) And Peru’s Ines Melchor (2:28:18) Win Santiago De Chile Marathon
- Brighton: Kenyans Duncan Maiyo (2:10:15) And Pennina Wanjiru (2:34:24) Win Brighton Marathon
*Brits Stephanie Twell (32:49) And Jonny Taylor (29:13) Win Brighton 10K
Week That Was
WTWTabor Stevens - The American Star You Likely Haven't Heard Of - Gets A Big Win, So Does German Fernandez And Michael O'Hara X 4, Geoffrey Kamworor And President Bush
Tabor Stevens, the NCAA XC champ and fastest American collegiate steepler last year, got a big win, so did German Fernandez, and Michael O'Hara got four of them. More track action, coaching advice, and a chance encounter with Geoffrey Kamworor in the airport which reminded us of Paul Tergat and Moses Tanui meeting President Bush.
Bizarre Marathon Stuff
Have An Extra $12,700 To Throw Around? You Could Run The North Pole Marathon The race has 45 entrants who will face temperatures as low as -40 degrees.- Loch Ness Marathon Offers $75,000 Reward For Selfie With Loch Ness Monster
- Today Is The 4th Stage Of The Marathon des Sables, The Ultramarathon In The Sahara Desert The 6-day, 156-mile race features temperatures up to 122 degrees.
US Distance News
LRCQ&A: World Champion Chanelle Price Talks About Maturing, Last Year’s Foot Injury, And Her Plans For The 2015 Season We catch up with Price, the former HS phenom who is finally clicking with JJ Clark, after she ran a world-leading 2:00.62 last weekend at the Florida Relays in her first 800 since June 2014. Up next is a loaded 800 at the Drake Relays on April 24 and hopefully the World Relays, where Price aims to help the U.S. defend its 4 x 800 gold.
*Discuss: MB: A Q&A With Chanelle Price
- Meb Keflezighi Is Motivated For Rio 2016 So His Daughter Can Watch Him At The Olympics Since She Was Too Young To Remember London 2012 Meb also put his support behind Boston’s bid for the 2024 Olympics, which has run into a lot of opposition from city residents.
- Shalane Flanagan Focused On Being Top 3 At Boston She had a shortened training cycle as she had an injury and has done less mileage (up to 110 rather than 130), but more quality.
- Based On Her Post-Stanford Comments, Flanagan Will Be Taking A More Tactical Approach To Boston “I think it’s going to be a much tighter finish which is going to make for a really great event. I think it’ll be a little more tactical this year and an overall closer race because there will be 10 sub-2:23 women.”
Russian News
- Ultimate Ageism:Russian Parliament Considering Law That Would Bar Athletes From Competing In More Than 2 Olympics The law isn’t expected to pass, but if it somehow did, it would stop Yelena Isinbayeva from competing at Rio 2016 as that would be her 5th Olympics.
- Former 800 Olympic Champ Yuri Borzakovskiy Permanently Named Russia’s New Head Coach Article mentions that WADA has been questioning some Russian athletes at competitions despite “protests by team officials.”
*Borzakovsky: “I’m sure that all of the country’s athletes understand clearly that the past should remain in the past. … all of its athletes are ‘clean’ now.”
The Search For A Better Running Shoe
LRCThe Most Popular Running Shoe On LetsRun.com Is … Not Made Anymore … The Nike Pegasus+ 30Thousands of you filled out our detailed running shoe survey in the fall and more of you ran in the Nike Pegasus+30 than any other shoe. Only problem is all of you need to find a new shoe, help us out below:
LRCThe Improved LRC Running Shoe Survey Is Back – Three Minutes To A Better Running ShoeThe running shoe buying process sucks and we want to improve it with data. We took your reviews from the fall, made a running shoe beta site, and have improved our survey to ask you what shoe your previously ran in. We now need more reviews from you on the latest shoes.
3 World XC Getty Images Photo Galleries:
1) Pro Photos From Getty Images
2) New Rojo’s Women’s Photos
3) New Rojo’s Men’s Race Photos
Cherry Blossom 10 Miler *Results
LRC Stephen Sambu And Mary Wacera Win Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Sambu finished 8 seconds ahead of runner-up Jacob Riley. Other top Americans included Girma Mecheso (5th), Jared Ward (10th) and Luke Puskedra (12th). For the women, Wacera was given the same time as runner-up Cynthia Limo. Serena Burla was the top American in 6th.
*MB: Cherry Blossom 15K The course was short as it had to be changed at the last minute due to a car accident.
Not A Good PR Day For UAF
Olympic/World Marathon Champion Stephen Kiprotich Speaks Out Against Ugandan Athletics Federation Kiprotich opens up a lot about UAF and the current sexual harassment scandal with Peter Wemali. He also brings up times UAF has wronged him in the past (by kicking him off teams) that he has never publicly mentioned until now.- How Does This Happen?Police Reveal They Investigated Coach Peter Wemali Last Year When Accusations Of Sexual Harassment Began They apparently put out a report last year saying that he didn’t rape anyone, but “lured a female runner to his house and attempted to make sexual advances but he failed.” And yet he kept his job until recently when three women testified they were raped.
Friday Never Happened – Ignore Everything You Read Coming From Wilson Chebet
LRCWilson Chebet Says The Quotes Attributed To Him - Saying Meb Keflezighi Was A Rabbit, Guaranteeing Victory In 2015 - Were Made Up
Chebet and his management team have written LetsRun.com to say that the quotes which were featured as QOD yesterday were 100% fabricated by the Kenyan press. No interview took place.
Pre Weekend HS/College Track News
- Arcadia (The Stanford Of HS Distance Running) Is Fri. /Sat.: 10 Must-See Races 20 boys broke 9:00 last year.
- Jesse Squire: This Week’s Best Matchups Harvard vs. Yale and Cal vs. Stanford make the list.
- USTFCCCA Weekend Preview
Oregon’s One-And-Done Transfer Will Geoghegan (Dartmouth) Is Doing More Than Getting Third At NCAAs – He’s Also Tutoring The Ducks- Austrian 1:46 Man Niki Franzmair (The One Getting Tutored) Loves Running For The Ducks
- Andrew Wheating’s Free Coaching Advice – Don’t Listen To Audio Books Or Stand-Up Comedy On Your IPod While You Run
- Q&A With NCAA Mile Champ Leah O’Connor Her three goals for outdoors are “happy, healthy and fast.”
- Q&A With Colorado 1,500 Runner Jake Hurysz
- Tracktown USA Feature On Arizona State NCAA Champs Shelby Houlihan And Bryan McBride Houlihan, who is from Iowa, fell in love with ASU because she hates winter.
*MB: Louis Q on Houlihan: I think she’s very similar to Jenny Simpson in that she can run everything from the 800 to the 5k. - Profile Of UF Coach Mike Holloway, Who Is Very Thankful Lyle Knudson Hired Him Way Back In 1986
Boston Is Coming – A Week From Monday
- Running Times Catches Up With Matt Tegenkamp, Jeffrey Eggleston, Nick Arciniaga And Fernando Cabada Before Boston Can one of them break 2:10? Teg: “The message from (NYC Half) is that I can run 10 miles with Meb and Dathan, who’ll be in Boston.”
- Amy Cragg (Hastings) Says Her Training Is Much Farther Along Than Last Fall When She Was 5th In Chicago
- Boston Marathon Contender Dathan Ritzenhein Has Been Getting Advice From Former Boston Champ (And Neighbor) Greg Meyer About His Boston Debut
- Next Saturday: Molly Huddle (Defending Champ) And Ben True (2-Time Champ) Will Headline Next Saturday’s BAA 5k – LetsRun.com True will face Sambu and Lalang.
- Past Boston Champs – Morio Shigematsu (JPN, 1965), Jaqueline Gareau (CAN, 1980), Geoff Smith (GBR, 1984 And 1985), Greg Meyer (USA, 1983), Lorraine Moller (NZL, 1984), And Lisa Rainsberger (1985) – Will Run BAA 5k – LetsRun.com Joan Samuelson, Gelindo Bordin and Amby Burfoot will run the full 26.2.
- Morgan Uceny, Gabe Grunewald And Chris O’Hare Will Headline BAA Mile Next Saturday
2015 IAAF World Relays Are At The End Of The Month – Good News And Bad News
- Justin Gatlin Commits To World Relay Champs – Track Fans Will Get To See Him Clash With Bolt!
- David Rudisha Opts Out Of World Relays We guess we could have broken this story as the date of his previously-announced 600m WR attempt in Ostrava is the same day as the Relays.
- Good News USA Fans:Eunice Sum, Janeth Jepkosgei And Mercy Cherono Are “Kicked Out” Of Kenya’s IAAF World Relays team We’re not sure if we’d use the words “kicked out” like the paper, but they won’t be going as they didn’t attend the first trials. A stupid decision by Kenya, who should just hand the 4 x 800 gold to USA now. Asbel Kiprop Will Be Biggest Star At Kenya’s Relay Trials
- Teams From Botswana, Nigeria And South Africa Are Competing In 4 X 400 At Kenya’s World Relays Trials
Other Marathon News
- Last Year’s Boston Runner-Up Says He Thought Meb Was The Rabbit
*MB:2014 Boston runner-up on Meb: “I thought he was a pacesetter … I lost the title last year to an Eritrean turned American” 
Rick Hoyt Will Compete In 2015 Boston Marathon Once Again, But A Local Dentist, Not His 74-Year-Old Father, Will Be PushingDick Hoyt retired after last year’s race at age 73.
*Dick Hoyt Will Be Grand Marshall- MB: Health experts urge runners not to train for 2015 London Marathon on Friday (no joke)
- Sub-Two Marathon Might Fall In London On July 19th (In 4-Person Relay) Good luck. You have to average 28:26 per 10k to get it.
- Distance: Fionnuala Britton Aiming To Finally Triumph At Great Ireland Run On Saturday WC silver medalist Valeria Straneo is the favorite for the women. Leonard Komon and Japhet Korir headline the men’s field.
- Peter Kirui, Nicholas Kemboi And Emily Chebet Are Running Hapalua, Hawaii’s Half Marathon, On Sunday
More Sprint News
- Great News:Yohan Blake “Says “Training Is Going Really Well” And He Wants To Double At Jamaican Champs We’ll soon find out if this is true or just an attempt to get the appearance fees for Blake, who has missed most of the last two years due to injury, back up.
Michael Johnson Just Finished Filming A New Nike commercial, Will Wear Golden Shoes- South African Cornel Fredericks Has Injured Achilles, Out 4-6 Weeks, Won’t Compete In South African Champs The 48.14 400H man is medal threat if healthy.
- One We Missed:2015 Stawell Gift Was Last Weekend In Australia – Race RecapMurray Goodwin, the son of a former Aussie 800 champ, got the men’s win as Grace O’Dwyer, the daughter of a former runner-up, won the women’s title.
- China’s 17-Year-Old Wu Yuang Runs 47.33 400m He ran 48.40 indoors as a 16-year-old this winter.
The Boston Marathon Is Coming
Q&A With Former WR Holder Patrick Makau, Who Talks About His Marathon Buildups, Including Mileage And Hill Work Makau has ambitions of eventually getting back his marathon WR.
*5 Things You Didn’t Know About Makau Before he ran marathons, he started off digging boreholes to bring water and electricity to his community in Kenya.- Q&A With Joyce Chepkirui Ahead Of The Boston Marathon Her marathon PR is only 2:30, but she has a 66:19 in the half. She’s also cousins with Geoffrey Mutai.
- Carrie Tollefson Does Quick Video Interview With Meb Keflezighi
- Champions Return For Boston 2015:Joan Samuelson, Lisa Rainsberger, Gelindo Bordin, Amby Burfoot Among Those To Run Boston Marathon, While Six Champions To Race In B.A.A. 5K
Boston Bombing Trial Updates
- Jurors Begin Deliberating Charges Against Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev After Lawyers Make Their Closing Arguments
*Victims Present In Court For Closing Arguments - Oops:Running Times Published A Poorly-Phrased Tweet Last Week About Finishing The Boston Marathon “In One Piece” It didn’t get the best reaction on Twitter as the Boston bombing trial is going on, but it was swiftly deleted.
Weekend HS Action *Arcadia Results
- Arcadia (The Stanford Of HS Distance Running): DyeStat Highlights: Jesse Reiser Wins Boys 3,200 In 8:52 As Top 19 Total Go Under 9 Minutes Dani Jones won the girls race in 10:09.58. Michael Norman ran 45.91 in the 400. *Results
- Allie Ostrander Quadruples At Meet In Alaska With 9:59 3,200, 2:12 800, 4:49 Mile And Another 2:17 800
International Track/Road Results
Usain Bolt Wins First 200 Of The Season With 20.20 In Jamaica He wasn’t thrilled with it, saying it didn’t feel smooth and he was hoping for under 20 seconds. 2nd place was Nesta Carter (20.60). Elaine Thompson ran a world lead in the women’s 100 with 10.92. *MB:Bolt runs 20.20- Full UTech Classic Recap:Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Ran 22.96 In The 200 To Beat Sherone Simpson By .01 400 hurdler Keliese Spencer was 2nd in the 800 (2.08.44).
- Kenyan World Relay Trials In The Books: Asbel Kiprop, Olympic 800 Bronze Medalist Timothy Kitum And WJ Champ Alfred Kipketer Lead 30-Strong Squad In the men’s 4 x 400, Botswana beat Kenya by .01 with 3:04.87. On the women’s side, Nigeria dominated in 3:31.27 (Kenya was 3:35.83).
*Women’s Squad Of Relative No-Names, With Eunice Sum And Janeth Jepkosgei Not Included AK head Isaiah Kiplagat seems to be sending a message as he said, “We cannot have people waiting to be added to the team because they are champions. We will take this largely unknown team and they will perform.” - Gemma Steel And Japhet Korir Win Great Ireland Run 10K Steel beat Ireland’s Fionnuala Britton by 4 seconds while Korir won with 28:15 in windy conditions. Leonard Komon was back in 4th (28:28). *Full Results
*Elite Mile Won By UK’s Johnny Hay In 4:12 As Mark English Drops Out At 1,200
*Fionnula Britton Says She’ll Skip 2015 World Champs To Focus On Marathon Training
Sports And Politics
Have You Ever Attended World XC? These Guys Have And They Tell You What It Was Like
Recommended Read: The Race Of A Lifetime: Blog By One Of The American Super Fans At 2015 World XC The duo were treated as celebrities and had their picture taken roughly 500 times, but their cheering couldn’t stop the African domination. “As the races continued, it became clear that East Africa hadn’t come to compete. They’d come to dominate.”
Proof – Size Doesn’t Matter
A Look At The Rise Of St. Kitts And Nevis – Population 46,000 – As A Sprint Power
Proof – Doping (Sometimes) Has Consequences
Good Read: Should Runners Who Have Served Drug Bans Be Welcomed At Races?
MB: Good for him: Christian Hesch says he should never be eligble for prize money again
The Next IAAF Head?
Good Read: Mike Rowbottom Breaks Down Sergey Bubka Vs. Seb Coe For IAAF Head
Bizarre, But Interesting
Man Breaks World Record For Running Around The World – Did It In 621 Days Running 26 miles per day for 621 days in a row is impressive, particularly since Kevin Carr didn’t have a partner and pushed all of his equipment. He beat the old record by a few hours.- Researchers: Super-High Mileage Won’t Kill You (And Is Good For You) 25 mpw does seem to be better for you, though.
Research Paper: Distance Running May Be An Evolutionary “Signal” For Desirable Male Genes
*Why Super-Fast Marathon Men Get All The Women
*Why Long-Distance Runners Make The Best Partners
Why Is There A Track In Narita Airport Terminal 3? Designer Naoki Ito Explains
*MB: Pretty Sweet: Tokyo’s Narita Airport Terminal 3 has indoor track lanes to take you between gates.
Australian Discus Record Holder Benn Harradine Wants To Hold A Meet In An Airport Hangar He’s got some good ideas to make meets more interesting – including no distance races.
Justice In Uganda?
Great News:Ugandan Coach Peter Wemali Faces Arrest – After 3 Girls Testify They Were Raped “Wemali is like any other person in this country and if he has committed rape, defilement and assault like these young girls are testifying we are going to have him arrested and charged,” said a police commander. “He (Wemali) lured me to his house one day and raped me. I feared to scream because there was a panga and knife in the house. He also had a pistol,” said a victim.
Distance News
May 30:Genzebe Dibaba Leads Stacked Field For 2015 Pre Classic 5,000 As She Faces Vivian Cheruiyot, Molly Huddle, Sally Kipyego And Faith KipyegonKim Conley, Jordan Hasay, Laura Thweatt, Marielle Hall also in field.- Father Of The Year: New York Olympic Trials Hopeful Bryan Morseman Wins Three Marathons In 8 Days To Make Money To Pay For His Son’s Spina Bifida Treatments He ran 2:24:40, 2:32:39 and 2:24:10, winning $5,750.
*MB:Man wins 3 marathons in 8 days. Uses prize money for son’s illness - Missed Results From The Weekend:German Miler Homiyu Tesfaye Wins Osterlauf 10K In 27:54 Ethiopian Sutume Asefa Kebede won the women’s race in 31:49 while the half marathon was won by Abraham Yano (61:06) and Maryanne Wangari Wanjiru (71:12). At the Giro Media Blenio 10K, Victor Chumo (28:19) got the win.
- Evan Jager Gets New Website; Doing Open Twitter Q&A Today From 3-4PM ET
- Hoka One One Middle Distance Classic (Formerly Oxy) Set For May 14th The meet will be streamed live on USATF.tv. *Meet Site/Info
News From Kenya
Another Big Name Going Down?Kenyan Press Reporting That A “Fairly Famous” Marathoner Has Failed A Drug Test They say this athlete has won two major marathons in the last year (although it’s unclear if they mean WMM).
*MB:Another prominent Kenyan gets popped?- Respect The Distance:Florence Kiplagat Out To Overcome Her Marathon Fears At London 2015 “I have a mental or psychological problem when it comes to marathon. One has to run 42km before finishing, it is so tiresome. I always lose hope towards the finish but this time, I will try to do my best.”
- Kenyan World Relay Squad Looks To Be Led By David Rudisha And Asbel Kiprop The full teams will be decided at a trial meet this week which includes 80 athletes, but some big names, including Eunice Sum and Mercy Cherono, were already left out.
- 42-Year-Old Former WR Holder Catherine Ndereba Running Her First Marathon In More Than 3 Years At The Nagano Marathon Next Weekend April 19th She ran 2:35:08 in her last marathon to finish 22nd in Nagoya.
- World XC Champ Agnes Jebet (Tirop) Now Focused On Winning World Champs She’ll work on her speed by running the 1,500 at the Shanghai DL meet on May 17th.
Throws News
- High School Javelin Record Holder Haley Crouser Among Several Athletes Leaving The Oregon Track Team Also distance runner Ryan Pickering.
- Official At Meet In New Jersey Impaled In The Heel By A Javelin Firefighters had to cut the javelin with a saw before he could be put into an ambulance. His injuries weren’t considered life threatening.
LetsRun.com Founders Named as Two of “The 50 Most Influential People in Running”
Runners World Honors You and the Brojos
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American Strong: The Untold Story of How American Teamwork Helped Meb Keflezighi Win Boston
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A Real Running Hero:
The Flo Groberg Story
Flo Has Now Won the Medal of Honor
