October 27, 2016 | LetsRun.com

NCAA XC Previews

Fan Polls LRC Nation Says Colorado Women, Northern Arizona Men are Strong #1s, Colorado Men Will Lose First Pac 12 Title We’ve tabulated your votes in our national and conference polls.

LRC Part II: What To Watch For At The Big 12, Big 10 And Ivy League Meets? The No. 9 Oklahoma State men will look to make it 9 straight Big 12 titles on Saturday, while the No. 18 OSU women will look to upset No. 12 Baylor and No. 15 Iowa State. At Big 10s on Sunday, the men’s race is wide open with No. 14 Michigan battling No. 18 Wisconsin and No. 19 Indiana, but the highlight is a showdown between No. 6 Michigan and No. 9 Penn State in the women’s race.

LRC Part I: What To Watch For On Friday At The ACC, PAC-12, Big East, Big Sky, Mountain West And West Coast Meets? Conference action kicks off Friday with showdowns at PAC-12s (No. 2 Stanford men vs. No. 3 Oregon & No. 7 Colorado; No. 1 Colorado women vs. No. 2 Washington & No. 5 Oregon), ACCs (No. 6 Syracuse men, No. 3 NC State women), SECs (No. 5 Arkansas men vs. No. 11 Ole Miss) and the West Coast meet (No. 4 BYU men vs. No. 12 Portland). The Big East, Big Sky and Mountain West meets are all on Friday too.

LRC NCAA XC Fan Polls – Get Your Votes In By Noon Thursday We want your national top 10 and/or favorite conference picks.

*Etrain’s Predictions For The ACC, PAC-12, BIG 10, IVY (HEPS), BIG 12, SEC, BIG EAST, MOUNTAIN WEST, WEST COAST

Sex & Drug News

Sex Greg Rutherford Biography Reveals Extent Of “Bedroom Hopping” At Major Athletics Championships … And How Accreditation Was Billed “A P ***y Pass”
*MB: Discuss
Drugs We 100% Agree: Donovan Bailey: “I think for one you should press reset and get rid of all the records which were on the books if there has been a doping issue.”
Drugs 2007 World Steeple Champ Ekaterina Volkova Popped After 2008 Beijing Re-Test And Will Lose Bronze The bad news is the 4th placer also was Russian. If all the dopers were eliminated, Jenny Simpson might win a medal.
Moscow Times: Russia “… is giving international sports authorities the middle finger.”
Andy Murray Says He’s Never Used A TUE And That Athletes Should Have To Admit They Got A TUE Immediately After Getting It

Random News

A Look At The Candidates Who Are Running To Succeed Seb Coe As British Olympic Association Chairman
Olympic Discus Silver Medalist Melina Robert-Michon Can Drive A Tractor And Milk A Cow And we guess that fact is supposed to make the field events popular.
IAAF Wants Kenya’s World Under-18 Preparations Hastened
Top Kenyan HS Stars Are Getting Ready For KCPE And KCSE National Examinations

Upcoming Road Action

Next Saturday: Defending Champions And Olympians Donn Cabral And Alexi Pappas To Lead Field At 2016 Abbott Dash To The Finish Line 5K Cabral will face Eric Jenkins, Will Geoghegan, Kyle Merber and Johnny Gregorek while the women’s race has Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal (14:57), Marielle Hall and Ashley Higginson.
November 13: “Dreadlocked” Ethiopian Sisay Jisa Mekonnen Looking To Make A Comeback At The Beirut Marathon Jisa ran a 2:06:27 debut 4 years ago, but hasn’t broken 2:11 since as he’s struggled with poor performance and injury. Now he hopes to make a comeback in his first marathon in over 2 years.

Trans-America Record Goes Down

Ultrarunner Pete Kostelnick Smashes Trans-American Record, Averaging 72 Miles A Day For 6 Weeks Along the route, Kostelnick battled snowstorms, 35 mph winds and having his support van totaled, but he managed to break the 36-year-old record by more than four days.

MB: Pete Kostelnick began his transcontinental record attempt today (September 12) This thread follows the whole journey.
Hoka One One Press Release From When He Had Less Than 400 Miles To Go Kostelnick consumed 13,000 calories a day during the run.
Kostelnick’s Facebook Page

Doping / Corruption News

IAAF Ethics Board Unable To Prove Qatar 2017 World Championship Bribe Allegations UKA chairman Ed Warner claimed that the Qatar bidding team was giving out “brown envelopes” before the final vote and claimed he heard this from Seb Coe. Coe denies it and the IAAF Ethics Board found no evidence.
*The Guardian: “IAAF Find No Evidence Seb Coe Knew Of Alleged Qatar ‘Brown Envelopes'”
The Least They Can Do: IOC Provide Stepanovs With Consultancy Work And Training Grant After a meeting with Thomas Bach, the Russian whistleblowers will be anti-doping consultants for the IOC and Yuliya will receive a scholarship towards her education.
IOC Sends Set Of Questions To Russia About Their “Anti” Doping Work Between 2010 And 2015 In case the IOC hasn’t been taking the multiple WADA reports seriously, we’ll go ahead and give them a heads up: it was bad.

More Weekend Results

RRW: Jim Spisak And Liv Westphal Win Boston Mayor’s Cup Cross-Country As Mary Cain Finishes 3rd Cain was 15 seconds behind Westphal as Amy Van Alstine finished 2nd. Talking about leaving NOP, Cain said it was “only natural” when she decided to live in NY.
IAAF: GB’s Dan Lawson And Sweden’s Maria Johnson Win IAU 24-Hour European Championships Over 24-hours, Lawson ran 261.843km (162.7 miles) and Jannson 250.647km (155.7 miles), which translates into 8:51 and 9:15 pace respectively. France men and Poland women won the team competition.
Toilet Maker Coroporate Team Toto Claims Princess Ekiden Throne to Qualify For National Corporate Women’s Ekiden

Distance News

Good Read This Is #1 NAU’s Coach Eric Heins’s Last Year As A College Coach As He’s Quitting So His Wife Can Enjoy Her Dream Job And He’ll Have More Time For His Family *Discuss
Ben Rosario Enjoys Being The Underdog But Ultimately He Wants NAZ Elite To Be A “Big Dog” (Video)
IAAF Middle And Long Distance AOY Voting Closes At End Of Week If Almaz Ayana doesn’t win the women’s award, there is no justice.
Since Uganda Is Hosting World XC In March, They Aren’t Messing Around – 49 Athletes Ordered To Start Training Next Week
Osaka Marathon Is This Weekend – A Look At The Elite Fields The World’s 7th largest marathon is an oddity as it has an elite field that’s not great, but just good enough to ensure there isn’t a Japanese winner.

Ultrarunners In The News

The NYT Times Pumps Up Pete Kostelnick’s Trans-American Record: How To Run Across The Country Faster Than Anyone? Much praise for the support crew which was almost killed along the way.
*Photos From Pete Kostelnick’s Record Run
2011 Ultrarunner Of The Year Dave Mackey Makes Tough Decision To Amputate Injured Left Leg During a long run in 2015, a 300-pound rock he stepped on shifted and pinned him underneath.

Teen Sprint Phenoms In The News

Mid-Distance News

Recommended Read: Jim Ryun Tells All In An Extensive Interview If you don’t know a lot about the former WR holder and first sub-4 prep (or even if you do), this is a great read as Ryun shares a ton of insights starting from the beginning of his career through present day.
The Oregonian: “Alberto Salazar Wishes Mary Cain The Best” Salazar said he agreed with her decision and that the last 6 months John Henwood has been writing her workouts and Salazar was only advising.
MB: Matt Centrowitz Almost dies in theme park accident Centro wasn’t actually involved in the accident, but tweeted that he had only gotten off the ride 15 minutes before an accident killed four people.
BBTM: Who Has The Fastest Married Couple Mile PR Combo? Will Leer and Aisha Praught recently got married, but they are only 3rd on the list which is led by Shannon Rowbury (4:20) and her husband Pablo Salares (3:54).
Q&A Catching Up With Nick Symmonds, Who Talks About His Career In General And Dealing With Missing The Olympic Trials Symmonds says when he pulled out of the Trials he was in a “deep depression for a day,” but that was a big improvement over his 2014 injury where he was in a deep depression for 3 months.

Other Doping / Corruption News

Thumbs Down: Adidas To End Sponsorship Of German National Anti-Doping Agency They will now lose $327,000 from their annual budget.
Former Lamine Diack Adviser Habib Cisse Released From Police Custody Cisse was arrested in connection to Diack’s Russian doping cover-up, but was released as his lawyers argued he wasn’t a “flight risk.”
IPC To Provide Specific Criteria For Lifting Of Russian Paralympic Ban By “Mid-November”
Other Legal: Request To Have Case Against Ryan Lochte Dropped Rejected By Brazilian Judge Lochte will likely pay a heavy fine of more than $11,000.

Jumps And Multis News

Outside Magazine Quick Q&A With Ashton Eaton Some training info and some random interesting insights like his biggest fear, the athlete he most admires (it’s David Rudisha) and whether he values his gold medals or WRs most.
IAAF First Impressions Interview With Latvian World Heptathlon Bronze Medalist Laura Ikauniece-Admidina Ikauniece-Admidina’s original goal in T&F was to beat her mother’s national sprinter records, but she focused on the multis and never did. The first time she DNFed a heptathlon was after getting hit in the head with a discus.
37-Year-Old Olympic HJ Champ Ruth Beitia Not Slowing Down As She’s Looking Ahead To European Indoor Champs And 2017 Worlds Interesting insights from her Euro AOY award acceptance interview include she retired for a short time in 2012 before coming back and she’s also a politician in the “People’s Party” in Spain.
Olympic.org Review Of The Jumping Events At The Rio Games

Mary Cain Leaves NOP

LRC Mary Cain Leaves Nike Oregon Project – John Henwood (Not Alberto Salazar) In Charge Of Her Training She’s still only 20 and now a full-time student at Fordham.

RRW: “Rejuvenated” Mary Cain Explains Coaching Change Cain says the decision was primarily about location (since she doesn’t plan on leaving NY anytime soon), but that she enjoys Henwood’s hands on approach as he even runs some of her workouts with her.

Discuss: Mary Cain leaves Oregon Project

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Props To Notre Dame And Molly Seidel, A 51-Year Losing Streak Comes To An End, Is Mary Cain = Georgie Clarke?, And Shannon Rowbury Day In San Fran We drop down to highlight some DII conference action, talk about Mary Cain staying home, Molly Seidel staying in college, and of course drugs.

Rita Jeptoo’s Officially Gets A 4-Year Ban

Good News: Rita Jeptoo’s Doping Ban Is Extended To 4 Years; She’ll Be 37 When Eligible To Return Jeptoo tested positive when there was only a 2-year minimum, but CAS said she qualified for the longer ban because of “aggravating circumstances … as it was obvious to the panel that the athlete used rEPO as part of a scheme or plan.”

Abbott World Marathon Majors Awards Edna Kiplagat Series 2013-2014 Women’s Title The press release says she still wins the $500,000 prize purse, but no mention if they are going after Rita Jeptoo for her her doped winnings.
Bank of America Chicago Marathon Awards 2014 Women’s Title To Mare Dibaba Dibaba ran 2:25:37 in 2014 finishing about a minute back from the now officially DQ’d Rita Jeptoo.

Super Fan Polls Are Back – A Vote You Can Be Proud Of

LRC LetsRun.com NCAA National And Conference Fan Polls Now Open – Who Is The National Top 10? Who Comes Out On Top This Weekend? National and conference voting now open.

LetsThrow.com

Interesting Podcast With Top Greek Shot Putter Nick Scarvelis Scarvelis had a similar path to Greek citizenship as Alexi Pappas and he speaks on that, USATF vs Team Greece support and his take on Rio.
*LA Times Pre-Rio Article On The UCLA Alum Scarvelis
Akron All-American Decathlete Stars World’s First Javelin Trick Shot Video
IAAF Profile On Czech Republic’s Rio Javelin 8th Placer Jakub Vadlejch Vadlejch had a breakthrough 2016 to make his first global final in Rio and his coach thinks he’s more talented than former world champ Vitezslav Vesely.

Canadian Running News

Andre De Grasse Is Back At USC Fulfilling The Promise He Made To His Mom De Grasse took a break from campus to focus on the Olympics, but now is splitting his time between LA and Arizona (where his coach is) so he can finish his degree this December.
Cam Levins Gives An Update On His Injury Status After Failing To Qualify For Rio Levins said he’s still three to four weeks away from running after having surgery on his ankle/foot.
Canadian Distance Runners React With “Outrage” To Athletics Canada’s Tough World Championships Marathon Standards The IAAF standards are 2:19 and 2:45, but Canada sets the bar at 2:12:50 and 2:29:50. Even worse, Athletics Canada didn’t release the standards until 4 days before their national championships.
*Canada Running Magainze Article