2016 Boston Media Day

LRC The Inside Scoop From The Top Pros At The 2016 Boston Marathon – Who’s Scared Of The Heat, Who Loves It And What American Hopes To Break 2:10 You had better read this article about what the top pros have to say about the race as we know that sadly no other news organization is going to interview most of the pros from Africa. Plus Joyce Chepkirui reveals in an exclusive that she feels she would have won the 2016 United Airlines NYC Half Marathon had Molly Huddle not made contact with her.

LRC Catching Up With Olympians Amy Cragg, Desi Linden And Ryan Hall In Boston John Hancock rolled out the red carpet for some of America’s best marathoners, past and present, and we got to talk to three of them today. Cragg and Linden talked about their Trials recovery and Rio buildups while Hall spoke about what life is like with four young girls in the house and coaching his wife Sara as she prepares to run the London Marathon next week.

LRC 2012 Boston Marathon Champion – And Kenyan Member Of Parliament – Wesley Korir Says Kenya Is On Track To Meet May 2 WADA Deadline Korir says the risk/reward ratio for doping needs to be changed in Kenya and has asked WADA for special permission to allow Kenya to criminalize doping (the WADA code says countries can’t impose additional penalties on top of those established by WADA).

Judge Hears USOC Motion To Toss Out Nick Symmonds’/Run Gum’s Lawsuit The judge is expected to decide in the next 2 weeks whether the suit moves forward or not.

On The Roads Sunday *Watch: Hamburg Free Live Stream @ 2:30AM ET

• Sunday: Ethiopia’s Dubai Winner Tesfaye Abera (2:04:24) And African 10,000 Record Holder Meselech Melkamu (2:21:01) Lead Deep Fields At The Hamburg Marathon Abera faces five fellow sub-2:08 men while Melkamu is up against the defending champ Meseret Hailu (2:21:09) and several other sub-2:30 women.
  *Watch: Free Live Stream Sunday At 2:30AM ET
• Sunday: Nagano Marathon: 2:08 Man Laban Mutai Is The Favorite While Tanzania’s 59:56 Half Runner Fabiano Joseph Hopes The 6th Time Is A Charm Joseph has a World Half title to his name, but has only managed 2:13 in the full in five attempts. Peru’s Pan Am Games doper Gladys Tejeda (2:28:12) is the favorite in the women’s race.
• Sunday: Six Sub-2:11 Men And Three Sub-2:30 Women Highlight Field For Lodz Marathon In Poland Kenyan 2:05 man Albert Matebor will try to become the first to defend his title while Ethiopia’s Magarsa Askale Tafa (2:21:31 PR) wants to get her first victory in 9 years.
• May 29: Ethiopia’s Aberu Mekuria Wants To Defend Her Title And Go Sub-2:25 At The Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon

Olympic News

• Rio 2016 Golf Venue Will Have Animal Handlers To Carry Alligators Off The Course They will also be there to chase off capybaras, the world’s largest rodents.
• Rio 2016 Olympic Schedule With Day-By-Day Highlights Opening ceremonies are August 5th; track starts on August 12th.
• Budapest 2024 Chairman Dismisses Claims The City Is An “Outsider” And Defends Delay In Official Launch Budapest is definitely “different” when compared to LA, Paris and Rome and is considered the least likely to win the bid.
• Budapest 2024 Unveil Logo As They Officially Launch Their Olympic Bid
• West Ham United Soccer Team Will Pay $3.5 Million Per Year To Rent London Olympic Stadium

More Boston/ Marathon Cheating News

• Recommended Read: Marathon Cheating More Prevalent Than You Think – Investigation Reveals At Least 47 Runners Cheated Their Way Into The 2015 Boston Marathon Inspired by the Mike Rossi story, a runner and “math geek” named Derek Murphy started a blog and Facebook group dedicated to catching race cheaters, and using a special algorithm, race photos and results sites, he found a bunch.
• Canada’s National Post Leads Story On Race Cheating With Quote From LetsRun.com Co-Founder Robert Johnson Rojo says he won’t be offering a $200,000 challenge to the Canadian triathlon cheater.
• Defending Champ Lelisa Desisa Looking For His Third Win In Boston After running an impressive five marathons in 1 year (NYC, Dubai, Boston, Beijing, NYC), he realized he needs to scale back and only focus on two a year.
• Roberta “Bobbi” Gibb, The First Woman To Run Boston, Sculpting Her Own Statue To Honor Her Historic Run The modest Gibb says she’s “really embarrassed doing a sculpture of myself” and would prefer to do a generic woman.

XMAS Comes Early For Meldonium Users

LRCMeldonium Amnesty? WADA Issues Notice That Many Of The 172 Athletes Who've Tested Positive For Meldonium May Get Off; Maria Sharapova May Not Be One Of The Lucky Ones

Previous Doping News

• Deadspin Article Slams WADA For Not Doing Something About The Lack Of Anti-Doping In Ethiopia Sooner Kenya is getting a lot of attention and pressure leading up to the Olympics, but Ethiopia has until November to get testing done.
• Ethiopia Fires Entire Anti-Doping Committee Ethiopia’s team doctor had apparently previously warned of doping issues and said the committee “didn’t perform well.”
• Romanian Sprinter Elena Mirela Lavric Tested Positive For Meldonium At World Indoors Romania could lose their 4 x 400 bronze medal as Lavric ran on the second leg.
• Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko Calls Meldonium A “Trap Drug”

Boston Is Less Than A Week Away

LRC What’s It Like Being The Husband Of A Potential American Marathon Star? We Talk To Dillon Gracey Before Neely Spence Gracey’s Debut In Boston Dillon Gracey tied for 3rd in our $20,016 LRC Running Warehouse USA Indoor Prediction Contest. We used that as an excuse to talk about Neely’s debut in Boston and being the husband of an American star.

Neely Spence Gracey Ready For Boston “Training has been great and she’s healthy and ready to go.” From the interview above.

LRC Two Aspiring Coaches Triumphed In Our Running Warehouse USA Indoors Prediction Contest We give props to two of the guys who finished ahead of Dillon in the LRC Running Warehouse Prediction Contest.

Women’s Distance News

Post-Weekend NCAA Updates

• Shaquille Walker Is Men’s NCAA Athlete Of The Week After Running 1:44.99, The Second-Fastest Time Ever By A Collegian In The Month Of April Southern Illinois’ DeAnna Price is the top woman of the week after throwing 72.48m in the hammer, moving her to third on the all-time list.
• Another Week, Another New NCAA DI No. 1 Men’s Squad Texas A&M moves from 3rd to 1st with Florida and Oregon 2-3.
• Arkansas Women Stay #1 Ranked Team In Updated DI Rankings
• Event-By-Event Top Collegiate Marks From The Weekend

US Distance News

• MB: Sara Hall Is Running The London Marathon In Two Weeks
• Bobby Mack Wins Rock ‘N’ Roll Raleigh 1/2 Marathon In His Last Race As A Pro In Front Of His Hometown Crowd
  *Discuss: Bobby Mack Retires
• Jeff Benjamin Writes About Sitting In On A NJ-NY Track Club Workout This Past Winter
• Hey, Boston: Meb To Speak At Boston College On Wednesday

Trailer For New Roger Bannister Documentary: “Bannister: Everest On The Track” It’s available tomorrow on iTunes and Amazon.

News From Rio

Doping Updates

• Dick Pound Says Those Running For High Sporting Office Don’t Get Elected “If They Make Waves, Or Turn Over Too Many Rocks” Pound’s crusade against dopers and corruption has made him unpopular with some, but those that appreciate honest sport celebrate him.
• And We Thought USATF Was Bad For Hiring Dennis Mitchell: Belarus Has Doper Vadim Devyatovskiy As Their Federation President Devyatovskiy won his appeal with CAS against a lifetime ban from the sport after what would have been his second ban for a 2005 Worlds re-test.
• Valerie Adams Has Some Harsh Words For Russia; Wants Them Banned Through Rio “People talk about ‘the innocent athletes’ but it’s bigger than that. If you don’t hold a chicken by its neck and tell it to stop, then you’ll never sort the situation out.”
• Larry Eder Asks, “Is It Time To Let The Alberto Salazar Pursuit Go?” Eder writes, “My humble suggestion is as follows: until there is proof, let it go. The damage has been done.”

2016 Rotterdam Is Sunday

LRC Ayele Abshero And Tsegaye Kebede Targeting Olympic Berths In Rotterdam Watch it live for free on LetsRun.com at 10 a.m. local (4 a.m. ET/1 a.m. Pacific).
*Watch Vienna Live At 4am ET As Well

Profiles We Enjoyed

Meet NCAA DIII 10,000 Record Holder Ian LaMere, Who Is On Fire In 2015-16 LaMere, who is working a full-time job this spring (co-op), won the DIII XC meet by a record 39 seconds and then ran a DIII record of 28:38 at Stanford (14:32-14:06) – winning by 17 seconds. Next up, a crack at the DIII 5,000 record o f 13:50.
*MB: Ian LaMere New DIII 10k Record
*MB: Where does D3 champ Ian LaMere finish in the D1 race?

Athletics Weekly Catches Up With Super Coach Dan Pfaff A great read as Pfaff implies Greg Rutherford is a “genius,” talks about doping and sweeping the LJ podium in Rio.

Spikes Looks At The Friendship And Careers Of Chris Giesting And Patrick Feeney The HS rivals were teammates at Notre Dame and now are roommates after college, both running on the gold medal-winning 4 x 400 team at World Indoors.

Galaxy Of Stars, Including Ellen van Langen, Gabriela Szabo, Haile G, Patrick Sang And Seb Coe, Attend Gala Honoring Jos Hermens
*MB: Professor at Jos Hermens’ gala says sub-2 hour marathon could happen with 5 years

Interesting Reads From Friday

• Korean Olympic Committee Holds Special Session But In The End Decides Not To Let 2:05:13 Marathoner And EPO User Wilson Loyanae Erupe, Who Provided Proof He Was Given EPO To Treat Malaria, Run For Them At Rio Olympics We didn’t know that EPO was prescribed for malaria.
• Kiwi Rod Dixon – The Most Versatile Runner Of The 20th Century, Who Will Be In NY For The Next Few Weeks – Is Now On A Mission To Stop Childhood Obesity Dixon says he was challenged by Sir Edmund Hilary to be more than just a runner.
• 120 Years Ago At The First Olympic Marathon In April 1896, All Of The Runners Were Given Two Beers 3 Hours Before Race Time *Discuss
• Want To Understand The Tim Noakes / Low Carbohydrate Controversy In South Africa? Then You Must Read This Article By Ross Tucker After you do so, discuss the topic on our message board.
• Q&A With Kim Smith After Her First Track Race Since 2013 Smith says she’s focused on the 10,000 for Rio even though she wanted to run the marathon as NZ wants to see a sub-2:27 marathon. Ridiculous. Let her run whatever she wants.
• This Year’s Weirdest London Marathon World Record Attempts How about running the entire 26.2 dressed as a dinosaur?
• Brazilian Police Arrest 10 People For Scalping Olympic Tickets On Social Media Sounds like scalping is illegal in Brazil.
• Meet Spencer Barden – The 43-Year-Old Who Recruits All Of The Athletes For The Big British Track And Field Meets Barden, a former 3:39/13:41 guy, is proud that the Glasgow indoor meet is regularly ranked as the #1 indoor meet in the world.

The Week That Was

WTW German Fernandez Does The 10k, Meet The Breakthrough Athlete Of The Year: Violah Jepchumba, Plus Martin Lel’s Brother, NCAA Leaders Galore, Leo Manzano Struggles But Says All Is Well, Pregnancy Photos And More Martin Lel‘s brother is making a name for himself, so is Violah Jepchumba and Stephanie Bruce. Plus German Fernandez does the 10k, the college track season heats up and more.

More Distance News

• Irish 800 Runner Mark English Is Now Being Coached By Steve Magness English missed World Indoors with a stress reaction, but is back running on the alter-G.
• Video Interview: Ken Goe Catches Up With Sally Kipyego, Who Is Healthy Now After Missing Indoors With A Knee Injury Kipyego also talked about how she is disappointed with the Kenyan government for not meeting the WADA deadline and feels they let the athletes down.
• Random Q&A With Mo Aman, Who Says He Loves Learning Languages, Solving Sudoku Puzzles And Watching Basketball

The Hot Drug Topic In 2016 Is Meldonium

• Meldonium Suspected As The Reason For A Bunch Of Russian Athletes Withdrawing From Competition The entire under-18 Russian hockey team was replaced by younger players the day before they were set to fly to the US for the World Championships.
• Some Experts Say There’s Little Evidence Meldonium Enhances Performance However, most agree that it is pretty clear is that athletes were taking the drug with performance enhancement as the goal, not therapeutic use. And that is enough to ban it.
• No Clear Answer On How Long Meldonium Stays In The System A doping expert said he’d expect it to be out of your system in a few days, but said there hasn’t been studies on if long-term use could affect this.
• About 40 Russian Athletes Under Investigation For Meldonium Use Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko: “The main task now is to stabilize the situation and minimise our losses. The second task it to assist those Russian athletes under investigation.”
• International Biathlon Union Delays Doping Decisions On Athletes Who Tested Positive For Meldonium

Scary Stuff Tim Noakes, Author Of Classic Book Lore Of Running, Is On Trial In South Africa For Tweeting Low-Carb, High-Fat Advice To The Mother Of An Infant Noakes’s views on diet have become very controversial after he wrote a top-selling book, The Real Meal Revolution, and he could now lose his medical license.

News From Down Under: Aussie Olympic Trials In The Books

Boston Updated

LRC Geoffrey Mutai Pulls Out Of 2016 Boston As He Doesn’t Hit His “Training Goals” – 2:20 Marathoner Amane Beriso Added To Women’s Field Mutai has struggled since winning NYC in 2013.

Catching Up With The US’s 2016 Marathon Squad

• Good Read: Jared Ward Has Used Small Incremental Gains Each Year To Improve From Decent College Runner To Olympian Ward runs 120 miles a week (in 6 days) and says believes was built for the marathon. After the Trials, he celebrated with a Mexican cruise and now says he is approaching his Rio buildup just like every other race.
• Good Q&A With Desiree Linden On Her Approach At The Trials, Recovery Since, And Some Other Random Personal Info Linden celebrated after the Trials with a vacation in Bali. Here she talks about approaching the Trials like a “checklist,” her favorite Olympic sports, and love of music.
• Insightful 20-Minute Skype Chat With Meb Keflezighi Meb says that Sydney was his most memorable Olympics and that he’s excited his kids are old enough that they’ll remember Rio.
• More Catching Up With Meb Keflezighi The runner who has been most inspirational to Meb is Haile Gebrselassie.

NCAA Updates