Mo Farah Races Saturday Morning
*Watch For Free Live At 8 AM ET

LRC Great Edinburgh XCountry Preview: Can Garrett Heath Take Down Mo Farah In Their 2016 Openers? Mo Farah‘s 2016 campaign and his quest for an Olympic repeat begins on Saturday morning in Scotland. He’ll be challenged by 12:57 man Alemayehu Bezabeh as well as two-time Edinburgh winner Garrett Heath. The women’s race includes Kate Avery, Emma Bates and Americans Amy Van Alstine and Rochelle Kanuho. Plus there is a relay race with loads of names – like Bush, Twell, Muir, Leslie, Masters, Jan Hannes and Grice. You can stream the race live on USATF.tv here, starting at 8 a.m.

Thursday’s XC Action: Imane Merga And Alice Aprot Win 59th Campaccio Cross-Country Race World Jr. XC champ Yasin Haji was 2nd and steeple star Jairus Birech was third. Aprot broke the CR ahead of Ruth Jebet and Linet Masai. *Photos
*LRC Archives: Ritz Won This Race Last Year

Free Training Info

• Sonia O’Sullivan’s Free Training Advice For An Olympic Year: Pushing Too Hard Doesn’t Always Pay *Sonia O’Sullivan is interested to see how Ireland does now that Russian and Turk dopers are being cracked down on.
• Photos Of How Many Top European Athletes Train In The Winter Includes a great video of Greg Rutherford doing stairs with his two labs.

A Look Back At The Geniuses Of LetsRun From 2015

LRCLRC $200,015 Running Warehouse NCAA XC Prediction Contest Recap

Brighten Your Thursday With Some Amusing Videos

• MileSplit Vines: The Best Relay Fails – How Not To Hand Off
• Funny Video: Decathlon On Ice You might be impressed with how fast this school mascot can do the 400m on a frozen track.

Portland World Indoor/Outdoor Champs News – Did $400,000 In Donations Buy 2021 Worlds $40 Million In State Support?

• Register-Guard: Oregon Governor’s Top Aide Was Very Much Against Request For $40 Million In State Aid For 2021 Worlds – After $400,000 In Donations Poured In From Phil Knight, Nike And Others, The Governor Was All For It Emails show Governor Kitzhaber‘s administration was initially extremely skeptical of a $40 million state subsidy request by TrackTown USA. However, after Knight, Nike, and UO officials gave nearly $400,000 to Kitzhaber (who has since resigned in scandal) in a six-week period, Kitzhaber was all for it.
• Nike Giving $13.5 Million To The University Of Oregon For Hayward Field Renovations They have given the first half with the second half dependent on further fundraising.
• Public Gets A First Look At The New Indoor Track Set Up In A Portland Warehouse For World Indoors The warehouse has been dubbed the “House Of Track” and will stage several high performance meets before the track is dismantled and moved to the Portland Convention Center for Worlds.

Doping News

• Seb Coe Unveils “Reform Roadmap” With A 10-Point Plan To Rebuild Faith In The IAAF The plan includes doubling the anti-doping budget from $4m to $8m, doubling the international testing pool of athletes to one thousand, creating a separate integrity unit and appointing a CEO. *The Guardian
• NY Times: Finding A Common Thread In The Al Jazeera Doping Report Nearly all of the athletes Charles Sly named are clients of Jason Riley, a fitness trainer and business partner of Sly as they founded a nutritional supplement company together.
• Opinion Piece: Treatment Of German Journalist Hajo Seppelt Says It All About The IAAF Seppelt has received three legal threats from the IAAF. “Basic common instinct tells us that the IAAF should be working with Seppelt and the Stepanovs. That they have been threatened and ignored speaks volumes.”
• Painkiller And Hormonal Medication Remain Legal As New WADA Prohibited List Comes Into Force Thyroid hormonal medication remains permitted, despite calls by USADA and UKAD for it to be banned.
• Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko Will Meet With IAAF Inspection Commission On January 11th

A Little Random, But Interesting

• 2:11 Marathoner Bob Hodge “HODGIE-SAN” Remembers A 20+ Mile New Year’s Day Run With Bill Rodgers
• Athletics Weekly Looks At Athlete Superstitions And Finds Scientists Say They Actually Help Performance They “can distract an athlete from anxiety or nerves.”
  *MB: Pre race rituals & superstitions post here!
  *MB: What did you do the day before and the day of your best race?
• Australia Won’t Ban Athletes From Using Social Media In Rio Many thought they would as they had previously hinted they’d urge people to “tweet or compete” after a swimmer famously said it cost her Olympic gold in 2012.
  *MB: Australians were considering banning all Olympians from social media – decide not to 
• A Bad Year For Sport? Not For Nike And adidas Nike’s stock was up 29% on the year while adidas soared 55%. The article doesn’t mention Under Armour, which was up over 50% mid-year before closing up more than 20%.

Footballers In The News

• Nice Article On Former Double World Jr. Gold Medalist Margus Hunt, Who Is Thriving For Cincinnati Bengals In case you aren’t aware of Hunt, read up on him below as he’s a FREAK.
  *MB: Margus Hunt – 6-8, 280lbs – More raw Decathlon talent than Ashton?
  *MB: How many of you have heard of Margus Hunt? Elite T&F athlete who looks to be going to the NFL
• Bills WR Marquise Goodwin Will Attempt To Qualify For 2016 Summer Olympics Goodwin, who only has 3 catches over the last 2 years, was a 2-time NCAA champ who competed in 2012 in the LJ. He also wants to do World Indoors.

Doping And Rio $ News

• Spanish Agency To Investigate Whether Athletes Jumped Fence At New Year’s Road Race In Spain Reports on Facebook said athletes were jumping the fence to avoid doping controls at the San Silvestre Crevillentina 10km.
• Rio Olympic Stadium Is Without Water Or Electricity After Not Paying $225,000 In Utility Bills
• Swiss Anti-Doping Says It Won’t Work With IAAF Until WADA Doping Investigation Concluded

RIP To A Local Legend

• Recommended Tribute: WP: “Charlottesville Mourns A Moving Landmark, ‘Running Man’ After He Is Hit By An SUV” 55-year-old Philip Weber was a local legend in Charlottesville and known to most only as “Running Man.” He earned his fame from running miles and miles on the roads every day since the 1980s, always shirtless and in short shorts regardless of the weather.
• NBC29 WVIR Video: Community Remembers Charlottesville’s “Running Man”
• Great Profile/Video On “Running Man” From This November Weber lived a simple life and got by with not much money so he could spend more of his time running. He put thousands of miles on each pair of shoes, repairing them as he went with duct tape and Shoe Goo.
• MB: Charlottesville Runners – Did you know ‘Running Man’? Killed by SUV?

Indoor Stuff

• Kenya Will Be Choosing Their World Indoor Squad By Committee Rather Than Trials Might be hard to choose runners in January based on “current form.”
• Roof Of Texas Tech Indoor Training Center Collapses Due To Heavy Snow Thankfully, no one was hurt and the building was actually scheduled to be torn down and replaced this spring.

LetsRun.com’s Look Back At 2015 *Year-End Rankings

Wejo A Look Back At 2015: Tsepo Mathibelle Is My Athlete Of Year, Evan Jager’s 8:00:45 Is My Race Of Year, Plus My Unknown Person Of Year And One Regret Wejo hands out high praise to two unknowns – one literally and one figurative. The anonymous source at the IAAF for Hajo Seppelt‘s work is is Person of the Year and Tsepo Mathibelle, who blew up at Worlds, is his Athlete of the Year.

Rojo: The Year Of Doping And Corruption, No One Is Too Big To Fall, Domination By Stars On The Men’s Side And New Faces On The Women’s Rojo is far from depressed by the doping/corruption scandals of 2015 as it shows no person is too big to fall. He has high praise for Hajo Seppelt and Vitaly and Yuliya Stepanov, looks at the domination by stars on the men’s side and new faces on the women’s side, plus the emergence of Eric Jenkins and Emily Sisson.

Gault Kipchoge’s 2:04:00 Without Insoles, Dibaba’s 3:50:07, Bolt > Gatlin, The Greatness Of Montaño, Symmonds, Farah And Cheserek What a year: Eliud Kipchoge ran 2:04:00 with his shoes falling apart, Genzebe Dibaba ran 3:50.07 with both her shoes, Bolt defeated Gatlin, and Montaño, Symmonds, Farah, and Cheserek kept winning.