International Distance: Does Farah Have Any Chance At Komen’s Record?

• Mo Farah Considering Taking A Stab At Daniel Komen’s 7:24.90 World Indoor 3,000 Record At The Glasgow Indoor GP In February Last year he set the world indoor 2-mile record, but the 3,000 record is at a whole different level.
  *MB: Mo Farah 2 tackle world’s indoor 3k in Glasgow Feb20th
• IAAF Weekend XC Roundup: Former World Silver Medalist Mercy Cherono And Uganda’s Thomas Ayeko Win In Amorebieta, Spain Vincent Rono and Damaris Areba won in Kenya as track studs Isiah Koech and Paul Kipsiele Koech were 8th and 14th while Paul Tanui DNFed.
• Wilson Kipsang Reveals That He’ll Run A February Half Marathon As He Builds Up For A Spring Marathon (Almost Certainly London)

US Distance Runners Dreaming Big In 2016

• Marathoner Stephan Shay Talks More About How He Moved From A 9-To-5 Job Into Living In A Vintage Van By The Beach For the last year, Shay has been living by the California beach in a restored vintage 1966 RV. He made the move after losing his full-time job, but has turned it into a pretty satisfying life.
• Liz Costello Says Her Resolutions For The New Year Are To Nap More And Improve Her Racing Tactics The US champs 7th placer dreams of making Olympics in the 10K.
• Video Interview With Annie Bersagel About Training For The Marathon Trials She had knee surgery in June and was on crutches for 6 weeks, so has had to substitute with a lot of cross training in her buildup for the Trials.
• Video Interview: Donn Cabral Talks About His Outlook For 2016 Cabral never planned on making the 2012 team when he was younger, so 2016 is the year he’s “thought about since he was a kid.”

Weekend High School Action

Latest Doping Stuff: Mo Farah Takes Some Shots

• Mo Farah Calls Out Spain’s Alemayehu Bezabeh For Doping; Says He Wants Lifetime Bans For Drug Cheats Bezabeh beat Farah at the 2009 Euro XC Champs and was later banned for 2 years for doping.
• Steve Magness Criticizes Seb Coe, Saying His Relationship With Nike Put Him In Denial Magness thinks Coe and others at the IAAF ignore what they don’t want to hear and spend too much time in “politician mode.”
• IAAF Will Face More Criticisms From WADA Report This Week, But They Won’t Be Banned Dick Pound: “Like all organisations, there’s an effort to try to distance the organisation from the conduct that occurred … I’m sorry, but these are not people unrelated to the IAAF … this is an IAAF problem. It’s not just a couple of bad people.”
• IAAF Urges Any Witnesses With Knowledge About Extortion Of Moroccan Or Turkish Athletes To Come Forward
• GB Marathoner Disillusioned By Doping Scandals And No Longer Advises Young Runner To Aim For “Hollow” Olympics The 2008 Olympic 6th placer was satisfied when she ended her career, but now looks back in disgust at the areas where she was cheated.

LetsRun.com Debates

LRC LetsRun.com Debates: Is It Time To Panic For Mary Cain? How Many World Records Will Be Set In 2016? Mary Cain‘s 1,500 PR was set in May of 2013. Is this a make-or-break year for her? We analyze that question in great detail and talk about Ajee Wilson and wonder how many world records will go down in 2016?

Doping News

• Dick Pound Says That IAAF Officials, Including Seb Coe And Sergey Bubka, Should Have Acted Quicker To Change Its Outdated Governance Structure “They had a [19th-century] constitution in a 21st-century organisation.”
• Mo Farah On Doping Problems: “I want to be able to race against clean athletes.” He also said, “I’m getting bored of [questions about Salazar].” *Guardian Article
  *Farah Backs Seb Coe To Clean Up The Sport “He’s doing a great job. Obviously it’s going to take time, but he’s all up for it.”
• Dutch Olympic Discus Champion Ria Stalman Admits To Using Steroids Ahead Of 1984 Los Angeles Games
• WADA Confirms That IAAF Bribes And Blackmail Extended Behind Russia And Included Asli Cakir Alptekin Alptekin won 1,500 Olympic gold, but should have been banned before the Games based on her blood profile.

Will History Be Made?

LRCTirunesh Dibaba Is "Training Well" And Planning On Going For Unprecedented 3rd Olympic 10,000 Gold In Rio

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.