Mo’s Certainly Not Ducking The Competition In This One

MB: Are you ready for this? Farah vs. Kamworor at 13.1 at World Half. Farah targets World HM Champs in Cardiff!  Earlier today, Farah committed to racing the World Half. We can’t wait for his battle with Geoffrey Kamworor.

What A Week – Week That Was

WTWWhy Ryan Hall Is The Best (Natural-Born) U.S. Marathoner Ever, Sammy Wanjiru's Wife Is Amazingly Good, U.S. 1,500 Medal Chances Take A Hit And The Returns Of Ajee Wilson And Laura Roesler

Three Recommended Reads On Current And Former Stanford Runners

• Post-Retirement Q&A With Ryan Hall He says his fatigue was so bad sometimes he’d go out for 30-minutes runs and have to walk home. “It was just such a hopeless, helpless feeling. It was the walk of shame.”
• SPIKES Talks To Garrett Heath About His XC Win Over Mo Farah And How His “Beast” Size Is A Disadvantage On The Track “When you watch Andrew Wheating, he’s always in lane two or lingering in the back, while all those little guys are manoeuvring around and have that advantage of moving freely.”
• Profile On Twins Jim And Joe Rosa Who Hope To Represent Puerto Rico At Rio 2016 The two hardly ever run together on long training runs because they get too competitive and run too fast.

LetsSprint.com

• Jamaican Commentator (Jokingly) Claims He Should Be Given Some Credit For Usain Bolt’s Success Because He Bashed Him Back In 2005 This journalist hypothesizes that his criticism of Bolt motivated him to win medals and sets records all these years.
• Lolo Jones And Marquise Goodwin Announced For Millrose Games Jones says she’s shocked she’s ready to compete so soon after having back surgery. Goodwin will race Andre De Grasse in the 60m.
• IAAF “First Impressions” Q&A With Nigeria’s 2013 LJ And 200 Medalist Blessing Okagbare Okagbare shares her life’s firsts including first sport, first race and first date.
• Usain Bolt Says He Wants To Stay Involved In The Sport After Retirement

More Pro Distance Stuff

• Nick Willis Runs 3:55.56 Mile To Set The Stadium Record At Historic Cooks Gardens In New Zealand
• UK’s 3:58.66 1,500 Runner Laura Muir Is Obsessed With Animals And Studying To Be A Veterinarian Muir’s love for animals even extends to rats and at one point she owned six of them.
• Muir Opened Her Season With A 2:01.11 800 Last Weekend At Scottish Nationals
• 35-Year-Old GB 800 Runner Jenny Meadows Is Retiring After This Year The former Euro champ hopes to make the Olympic final for the first time as her last race.
• Ethiopia’s Meselech Melkamu (2:21:01 PR) Added To Field For Friday’s Dubai Marathon She was runner-up here 2 years ago and is also the second-fastest women’s 10,000 runner in history.
• Next Month: Nicole Tully, Marielle Hall, Leah O’Connor, Heather Kampf And Kerri Gallagher Will Feature In Armory Track Invy 3,000 Also Sheila Reid and Wisconsin’s Sarah Disanza.

Nike Running Specialty Account Exec DQed From Louisiana Marathon For Receiving Assistance On The Course She was given nutrition and liquids by someone on a bicycle despite being warned by a marshal that it was against the rules.
*MB: Louisiana Marathon cheating ‘winner’ DQ’d

Caitlyn Jenner To Publish a Memoir About Her Transformation

Justin Gatlin Video: Pizza, Hot Dogs And “Girls In Short Shorts” Are What Got Justin Gatlin Into Track

Stacked Men’s Field For London

Return Of The Champions: Eliud Kipchoge Returns To The London Marathon To Defend His Title Against Wilson Kipsang, Dennis Kimetto And Kenenisa Bekele Field also includes World champion Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, Tokyo champ Endeshaw Negesse (2:04:52), 2:04:55 man Stanley Biwott and Rotterdam winner Abera Kuma (2:05:56).
*MB: London Marathon elite men’s field looking good.

More On Ryan Hall’s Retirement *LRC Top 6 Moments In Ryan Hall’s Career *LRC 30 Minutes Of Video With Ryan From December

• Sara Hall Blogs On Ryan’s Retirement: “An Incredible Ride: Thanks Ry” “He has been genuinely joyful and at peace ever since the decision. It was clear to him, and there were no second thoughts.”
• Recommended Read: The Running World Reacts And Shares Stories About Ryan Hall Some very heartwarming stuff in here. Quotes from Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Webb, Alicia Shay, Bill Rodgers and more.
• RRW Flashback: Hall Wins 2006 USA Cross-Country Championships David Monti writes that when he saw Hall get third in the 4K on day 1 and come back and dominate the 12K on day 2 that is when he “realized that Ryan Hall was a truly special athlete.”
• Chris Chavez For Sports Illustrated: “Hall Retires, Ending A Long Run Of Glory And Struggle”
• Sometimes Coach Jack Daniels Reflects On Hall’s Career “Ryan was just born with certain advantages over a lot of other people. He has the perfect body for distance running and he had the desire to do it.”
• 2007 RRW Flashback: Hall Shatters Half Marathon Record & Wins U.S. Title

NCAA: Super-Fast Collegiate Mid-D Action *All NCAA Results

Pro: UW Preview: Kim Conley Runs 9:01.31 To Win 3,000m Over Canada’s Nicole Sifuentes (9:05.31); Trevor Dunbar Wins Mile/800 Double Conley was originally only supposed to rabbit the race, but felt good so stayed in.

MB: America’s newest star has arrived!! True frosh Donavan Brazier runs 1:45.93 in first-ever collegiate 800!! (link fixed) No rabbits, legitimate track and he’s just .05 off of the American collegiate record. Unreal.
*Texas A&M Article Brazier: “Now my goals are starting to go up a little bit. When I first got here I just wanted to make the travel team.”

• Top 10 College Marks From The Weekend Per Event
• MB: Penn State’s Brannon Kidder breaks collegiate record in men’s 1000 with 2:18.26
• MB: Raevyn Rogers also ran really fast today – 1:26.34 for 600m That’s faster than the CR but it was run on an oversized track.
  *Register-Guard Article
• Pole Vault: Arkansas Freshman Lexi Weeks Clears 14-9 To Win Arkansas Invy That vault would have been good for 2nd place at NCAAs last year. Her twin sister Tori was second with 13-9.25.
• Sprint: Houston’s Cameron Burrell Runs World-Leading 6.55 In The 60m

Boston Marathon Bomber Loses Bid For New Trial; Ordered To Pay Victims $101 Million In Restitution The restitution order is symbolic as he is in jail with no money to pay.

Olympic Scandals A-Brewin’

• Bad Taste Or Do They Not Watch The News? Rio Organizers Use Image Of Oscar Pistorius To Advertise 2016 Paralympics
• IOC Looking Into Possible Tokyo 2020 Olympic Bid Bribery The WADA report mentioned that Lamine Diack‘s vote might have been bought for $5 million in sponsorship money.
• Another Plagiarism Controversy Brewing? Japanese Architect Denies Copying Original Tokyo Olympic Stadium Design Which Was Scrapped Sources say while the stadiums look stylistically different, there are are some similarities “too unusual to be coincidental.”

Ryan Hall Has Called It A Career

LRC Ryan Hall Has Retired – We Remember The Six Most Glorious Moments Of His Amazing Career Picking the greatest moments from his amazing career wasn’t easy but we’ve got our six favorites. Ryan, you will be missed.

LRC: 30 Minutes Of Video With Ryan Hall From December: “I’m not going to be someone who hangs on. When I know my body has had enough then (I’ll retire). I’ll always run and always love the sport.”

• Amby Burfoot: Ryan Hall Dared To Be Great
• Toni Reavis Reflects On Hall’s Great Career “Good luck with it, Ryan. And thanks. We’ll not see one like you again soon.”

More Should Coe Stay Or Go?

• NYT Columnist (And Lauren Fleshman) Thinks Coe Should Get 2nd Chance “With so much corruption in international sports, there would be no guarantee that Coe’s successor would be blemish-free.”
• Radcliffe Thinks Coe Can Reform The Sport “I do believe he’s someone who cares deeply about our sport and will fight to put those changes in place.”
• Matt Lawton: Lord Coe Still Standing After Athletics’ Darkest Day
• Daily Mail: Lord Coe Breaks Bread With The Powerful. … So How Could He Know Nothing About Arguably The Greatest Sporting Scandal Of The Modern Age?
• Phil Hersh: In Surreal Turn, Condemnation Of IAAF Leaders Exempts President Sebastian Coe
• Independent: Astonishing That Lord Coe Did Not Hear The Whispers
• Independent: Lord Coe Declared Fit To Clean Up Athletics – But Was He Part Of The Problem?
• Telegraph: Lord Coe Admits To Failings

News From Oregon

• Outside Magazine: “Can Galen Rupp Pull Off A 10,000 And Marathon Double In Rio?” They argue “it wouldn’t be that crazy” and remind you that back in 2012 Alberto Salazar predicted that Mo Farah would do that double for Rio.
  *LRC’s Take: Will Galen Rupp Do The Olympic Marathon Trials?
• Vin Lananna Says TrackTown USA Won’t Ask Lawmakers For $15 Million To Upgrade Hayward Field Ahead Of 2021 Worlds “We’re going to have to fundraise it. It may slow the project down.”
• Good Read: The Oregonian: “Track Town Trips Over World Champs Funding Request” An in-depth look at the funding situation in Oregon and why organizers cut back their request for funds by more than a third, “admitting they miscalculated the level of political support for the event.”
• Brianne Theisen-Eaton Hopes Portland Will Be Scene Of First Global Title Right now she’s Mrs. Silver as she’s finished runner-up in three consecutive World Championships (two outdoors, one indoors).
• Register-Guard Roster Breakdown: “What To Expect From UO Men’s Indoor Team” Eric Jenkins was a key loss, Edward Cheserek is a key returner, Matthew Maton is a key newcomer.
• RG UO Women’s Roster Breakdown Jenna Prandini going pro was a big loss.

2016 Boston Marathon Field Announced

LRC Three Quick Thoughts On The 2016 Boston Marathon Field Both defending champs will be back. In terms of PRs, the men’s field is a little stronger than last year.

*MB: 2016 Boston Marathon field announced.
*MB: Neely Spence Gracey running Boston – good idea?

Neely Spence Gracey Skipping Olympic Trials To Debut At Boston Marathon