International Distance News

• How Far Do You Think Mo Farah Will Run On Christmas? Some other random tidbits, including Farah wanting his son’s middle name to be “Arsenal” after the UK soccer team, but his wife saying no.
• IAAF Personal Bests Q&A With Geoffrey Kamworor Kamworor says his best friend is Eliud Kipchoge, whom he’s known for ten years and trained with for the last five.
• Canadians Respond Negatively To The NCAA’s Move From 1,500 To Mile Tweets from Justyn Knight, Jeremy Rae, Sheila Reid, Nicole Sifuentes and Nate Brannen.
  *MB: Sheila Reid is losing It – Hilarity Ensues – Says switch from 1500 to mile is “male nostalgia”
• Asbel Kiprop Says Hicham El Guerrouj Is His “Mentor And A Friend” El Guerrouj has said that he believes Kiprop is the only person capable of breaking his record and could even go under 3:25.
• Past Winner Tirfi Tesaye Added To Field For Dubai Marathon Next Month She won Dubai in 2013 and has a PR of 2:20:18 from when she won Berlin 2014.

A Slow Racing Weekend

• After Finishing 2nd Or 3rd Four Previous Times, Fionnuala McCormack (Briton) Finally Wins Iris Lotto CrossCup In Brussels In the men’s race, Bahrain’s Aweke Ayalew beat Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola by one second.
• Former African Jr. XC Champ Caroline Chepkoech Wins AK/KCB Series XC Meet As Steepler Virginia Nyambura Is 6th Stephen Arita won the men’s race.
• Athletics Weekly Weekly Round-Up A Scottish record and victory for 12-hour and 24-hour ultra runs on the track were a highlight.

African Stars On The Comeback Trail Making News

• Kenenisa Bekele Talks About His Dreams Of Marathon Gold, His Comeback From Injury And How Mo Farah Can’t Touch His World Records
• Haile G Says Favorite Moment Of His Career Was When He Crushed 5k WR By 11 Seconds In 1995 *Video
• After Missing 2015 With Spinal Injury, 2013 World Steeple Champ Milcah Chemos Has Resumed Training Even with Chemos back, we still think Jenny Simpson should switch to the steeple if she wants to contend for gold.
• Faith Kipyegon Will Begin Her 2016 Campaign With XC Meet In January The 21-year-old Kipyegon actually competed at the 2012 Games, just weeks after slaying Mary Cain at World Juniors.
• Recap Of Final Athletics Kenya XC Meet For 2015

Congratulations, You (The LetsRun.com Visitor) Have Now Been Featured In A Major National Magazine

Outside Magazine Goes Gaga Over LetsRun.com’s Forum Posters – “LetsRun.com’s web vigilantes are some of the Internet’s most tenacious sleuths. Cheat at your own peril.” We’ve always said the visitors to this site are a) very smart and b) our greatest asset. This feature proves it.
*MB: Congrats. LetsRun.com messageboarders (‘web vigilantes’) get feature in Outside Magazine
*MB: Did Mike Rossi (viral marathon dad) cheat his way into Boston?

Year In Review

• SPIKES Looks At The Most Interesting Personalities Of The Year In The Sport For 2015 From Nick Symmonds getting banned to Aries Merritt getting a transplant, it was quite a year. If only they’d had the guts to put Hajo Seppelt or Lamine Diack in there.
• Jessica Ennis-Hill Hopes This year Is Not Just Remembered For Drugs Ahead Of Sports Personality Of The Year Awards It’s all we’ll remember – see below.
• Runner’s World: Four Stories That Hit Track And Field Hard This Year And Will Continue On In 2016. 1. NOP investigation. 2. IAAF investigation. 3. Russian investigation. 4. Nick Symmonds getting booted.

Thursday News Of Note

• 16-Year-Old Sprint Star Candace Hill Goes Pro, Signs With Asics And Gets NYTimes Profile Hill ran 10.98 last year. She’s the latest sprint star to sign out of the traditional Nike camp. De Grasse signed with Puma, Bromell with New Balance and now Hill with Asics. Hill will be wearing Nike at every Olympics she competes in. Too bad USATF didn’t bid out that contract.
  *MB: Candace Hill becomes the youngest US track athlete ever to go pro, signs with Asics
• Marquis Dendy And Jenna Prandini Win Bowerman Award As Top Collegiate Track Athletes Of Year A guy who failed to make the final at Worlds in the LJ/TJ beat out a gold medalist in the PV as they only consider the collegiate season.
• 2-Time London Marathon Winner Tsegaye Kebede Will Make Dubai Marathon Debut On January 22

Important Doping News

• We 100% Want This To Happen UK Govt. Is Considering Making Doping A Crime Doping is basically theft to the tunes of millions of dollars in major sports.
• In Annual News Conference, Vladimir Putin Addresses “Poison” Of Doping Putin says Russia will eradicate the problem but says it’s unfair to suspend everyone. “Those who are guilty – the coach, the organizer, the athlete – they should be held responsible. Those who have nothing to do with it should not answer for those who are violating something. It’s not fair and it’s not right …”

Cross-Country News Of Note

• Full British Team For Great Edinburgh XC Race On January 9th Is Released Mo Farah is the headliner.
• Foot Locker 12th Placer Hannah DeBalsi Is Sports Illustrated’s High School Athlete Of The Month (Long Profile) She’s bound for Stanford next year.

Here We Go Again?

LRC USATF Releases Qualifying Standards For 2016 OIympic Track And Field Trials – Will We Have Yet Another Controversy As A Result? The Olympic Trials standards are out and we’re already worried there may be a huge controversy next summer. USATF’s guidelines only list an “approximate field size” and USATF had told LetsRun.com that the “sport chairs have the option to fill it out to that field size if they wish.” That’s ridiculous. Make it clear now.

International News

• Blanka Vlasic’s Words Of Wisdom We loved this one – “Don’t underestimate the power of defeat.”
• 45-Year-Old Kelly Holmes Wants To Compete Again – At 10k – “I’d love to get back to competing, probably 10k.” Not at a big time elite level, obviously. “I miss the thing of not having real targets anymore, so that challenge. I’m not necessarily missing the elite side of it, just the fact that I would love to have something that I could set a target for and then the training would become more exciting.”
• Hakone Ekiden Entry Lists And Rankings Japan’s biggest sport event is January 2nd and 3rd.
• Final Athletics Kenya Cross-Country Race Of The Year Is Saturday

Week That Was

LRCThe High School Season Ends With A Bang At Foot Lockers, The Dallas Marathon Impresses, Galen Rupp Blitzes A Holiday Half, Bill Walton & Meb, And Ryan Hall's Olympic Chances

Will Rupp Run The Trials?

MB: Galen Rupp solo 1:01:20 half marathon in Portland
*Rupp Says He Hasn’t Made A Decision About The 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials “I’m keeping my options open … I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
*LRC Will Galen Rupp Do The Olympic Marathon Trials?

Sunday Dallas Marathon Duo To Rio Relay Presented by AT&T

LRC The Greatest American Starting Line Of 2015 Was In Dallas For The Marathon Relays: Meb, Deena, Ryan Hall, Leo, Centro, Molly And More, Video And Recap What a star-studded field in Dallas. Interviews with Ryan Hall, Abdi, Chelanga, Ward, Puskedra, Leo, Centro, Robby, Ryan Hill, and Deena, Bersagel, and Becky Wade.
More LRC: Leo, Centro, Ryan Hill, And Robby Andrews Talk Mid-D, Pro Sports And World Indoors After Dallas Relays Good news for track fans as all 4 want to do World Indoors.
*Becky Wade TV Profile Her mom says, “If you had asked me the most athletic of my children, Becky would not be at the top of that list.”

From Tragedy To Triumph

LRC Feature The Miracle In The Black Hills: A Coach, A Fallen Teammate And A Season For The Ages In July, Black Hills State’s Gage McSpadden was struck by lightning and tragically killed at the age of 21. The team’s dream of a first-ever NCAA appearance, one that McSpadden had guaranteed, appeared to be shot. No one will ever forget how they responded.