November 9, 2016 | LetsRun.com

Week That Was

LRC New York By The Numbers, Laura Thweatt = Molly Huddle = Emily Sisson?, Ben Zobrist Cross-Country Stud, And Never Ever Give Up We take a look at NYC by the numbers, remind you that Laura Thweatt debuted in NY last year almost as fast as Molly Huddle did this year, ponder if Emily Sisson is the next Molly Huddle, and are impressed by Ben Zobrist‘s running skills.

(Mostly Russian) Doping News

Russia Still Not Coming Around: Russian Olympic Committee President Alexander Zhukov Attacks “Pure Nonsense” Of WADA TUE System In a long speech, rather than acknowledge Russia’s doping problems, Zhukov spent most of the time criticizing WADA.
New Russian Bill Would Jail Athletes For Up To Three Years For Manipulating Their Doping Samples A government sports official said, “This will stop and sober up athletes and show that falsification is not worth doing for athletes to become medal holders for a while.”
Zhukov Complains The UK Anti-Doping Agency’s Drug Testing In Russia Is Inefficient And Can’t Handle Number Of Samples Apparently it’s harder to do a large volume of tests when you’re actually trying to catch cheats. *USA Today article
Japanese Report Warns Tokyo 2020 Anti-Doping Program Needs More Trained Officers The report says there are only 15 doping-control officers in the country’s only WADA-accredited lab while 200 are needed for the Games.

International Distance News

Good Read: RIP 95-Year-Old Jack Braughton, One Of Britain’s Oldest Olympians In 1948, Braughton’s Olympic experience comprised of taking a morning off of work, hopping on a bus to the Olympic stadium, finishing 8th in his 5,000m heat and hopping on the bus back home.
Sunday: Canadian Running Magazine Profile On Great Britain’s Tsegai Tewelde, Who Escaped Political Crisis In Eritrea 8 Years Ago And Will Shoot For The Win At The Beirut Marathon Tewelde, a landmine blast survivor as a child, sought asylum in Scotland when he traveled for 2008 World XC Champs. Now he’s a GB Olympian and looking for a sub-2:10 in Beirut.
Next Sunday Delhi Half: Eliud Kipchoge Leads The Men; World Half Champ Peres Jepchirchir Gunning For Mary Keitany’s CR (66:54) Jepchirchir faces Worknesh Degefa (66:14) and Mary Wacera (66:29) while the men’s race also has 2012 Olympic champ Stephen Kiprotich.
Isaac Kipkoech (62:51) And Edith Chelimo (1:11:02) Win Foundation Baringo Half Marathon In Kenya

2016 TCS NYC Marathon Results Mile-By-Mile Leader Splits: Men And Women

LRC Mary Keitany Three-Peats In Dominant Fashion, Wins By Monstrous 3:35 (updated) Keitany’s margin of victory was the largest since 1984 as Sally Kipyego was second and Molly Huddle third in her debut.

LRC Molly Huddle Very Impressively Finishes 3rd in New York in Her Marathon Debut – Is A Low 2:20s Coming Soon? No one in the race fan a faster final 5.2 miles than Huddle.

LRC Mary Keitany’s Three-Year-Old Daughter Gives Mom All The Racing Advice She Needed: “Good Luck And Try Not To Fall Down”

MB: Official 2016 TCS New York City Marathon Live Discussion Thread

NYC Women On The Message Board

Recruiting News

NYC PreRace

LRC “We Are Clean” – Dr. Gabriele Rosa Talks About Turning Stanley Biwott And Jemima Sumgong Into Marathon Stars And Doping In Kenya The 74-year-old is thriving after coming out of a mini-retirement. Want the inside scoop on doping (or the lack thereof) in Kenya? Read this.

Complete Coverage In Our 2016 NYC Marathon Special Section

The Past, Present And Future Of Sprinting

+1 For The Sport: Usain Bolt Spearheading New Nitro Athletics Track Meet In Melbourne, Australia This February Bolt will captain the “Bolt All-Stars” as six teams of 24 athletes compete for the overall team title in a slew of traditional and unique track events.
*IAAF Article This will be Bolt’s first-ever race in Australia.
New York Post: “Usain Bolt’s Halloween – Women, Twerking And A Drug Test” Bolt had a typical “Bolt like” holiday, sending out pictures of himself with some female friends as well as a doping control form.
Andre De Grasse Hopes Bolt Reconsiders Retiring After 2017 “I love racing with him and he makes me better.”

Looking Ahead On The Roads

December 4: Former WR Holder Patrick Makau Returns To Fukuoka To Shoot For A Hat-Trick Victory Makau has won the past two years, but will face two others with sub-2:05 PRs, including World silver medalist Yemane Tsegay (2:04:48) and James Kwambai (2:04:27). Field also includes Yuki Kawauchi, Eritrean record holder Yared Asmerom, Poland’s Henryk Szost and 2012 Olympic 10,000 bronze medalist Tariku Bekele in his debut.
December 4: Olympic Champ Jemima Sumgong Vs. Two-Time World Champ Edna Kiplagat At Montferland Run 15K In The Netherlands

NCAA XC Regionals Are Friday

LRC America, You Are Not Done Voting – 2016 NCAA XC Regionals Fan Poll Voting Now Open! America you’ve got some voting still to do. 2016 NCAA XC Regionals Fan Polls voting now open.

LRC 2016 Men’s NCAA XC Regionals Preview: Find Out Who’s Projected to Qualify for NCAAs, and Why Oregon & Colorado Could Be the Keys After Regionals are held on Friday, will a couple of Cinderellas (Bradley/Middle Tennessee) be dancing at the Big Dance for the 1st time ever? How many ranked NCAA teams will be left out of the Big Dance? Will the West Region get 5 or 8 teams in? We break down and preview each region and you who will qualify for NCAAs should the current USTFCCCA Regional Rankings hold.
*LRC Who’s In? Who’s Out? 2016 NCAA Regional Projections Assuming Everything Goes According To Form

Track News: Two US Greats Hang ‘Em Up

Three-Time Olympians Sanya Richards-Ross And Reese Hoffa Retire From Track And Field Richards-Ross ends a career where she won 5 Olympic medals (4 of them gold) while Hoffa retires with an Olympic bronze and a world outdoor title.
Good Read/Watch: Ato Boldon Interviews US Teenage Sprint Sensation Noah Lyles Who At Only 18-Years-Old Finished 4th In The Olympic Trials 200m Lyles walks through his amazing 2016, his rivalry with his brother and how fast he thinks he can run in the long-term.
2016 IAAF World Athlete Of The Year Finalists Announced Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and Wayde van Niekerk for the men. Almaz Ayana, Elaine Thompson and Anita Wlodarczyk are the women finalists.
Max Siegel, Michelle Carter Among Ebony Magazine Power 100
IAAF First Impressions Q&A With European 100H Champ Cindy Roleder

Post 2016 TCS NYC Marathon Elite News *Results

Daily Relay: From LA To NYC, Tyler Pennel Shows He Might Be One Of The Next Top US Marathoners 5th place in the Olympic Trials after making the race with a big move, Pennel bounced back from 2 months off with a sacral stress fracture to get 8th in NYC.
Lanni Marchant Pleased To Get 7th In NYC With The Fastest Time Ever By A Canadian Woman In 2:33:50 Marchant did a quick turn around from Rio where she did the 10,000m-marathon double.
*Veteran Canadian Marathoners Lanni Marchant And Reid Coolsaet Snubbed By Athletics Canada Funding Despite being two of Canada’s best marathoners, they were overlooked in favor of younger athletes.

Good Read: NY Times: Michael Wardian Sets Record As Fastest Person To Finish All Six World Marathon Majors Races In One Year Wardian’s average time from Tokyo, Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago and NYC was 2:31:09. *RW Article
Meb Keflezighi Says He Will Retire After The 2017 NYC Marathon
Post-Race Article And Video On Olympic Champion Triathlete Gwen Jorgensen Jorgensen said she was disappointed with the race although admitted she knew coming in she “didn’t prepare properly.”
Toni Reavis’ NYC Marathon Photo Essay Reavis was watching and snapping pictures from one of the lead motorcycles.
Galen Rupp Likely Passed Up A Lot Of Money This Year In The Marathon While Rupp surely received big bonuses from Nike for winning the Trials and Olympic bronze, with appearance fees and prize money, he might have been looking at between $300,000 and $500,000 if he had ran NYC.

NYC Men Results Mile-By-Mile Splits

LRC Ghirmay Ghebreslassie Wins, Abdi Abdirahman Of The US Third With Five Americans In Top 10 (updated) Age may be just a number as Abdi had a career-best finish at age 39! Ritz was a DNF.

LRC Defending Champion Stanley Biwott Drops Out Just Before 15k

NYC Men On The Message Board:

Non-NYC Action

Olympian Leonard Korir (47:13) And Buze Diriba (51:38) Win Pittsburgh 10 Miler Korir won in a close race over Kenya’s Kimatui Cheruiyot while Diriba’s run was the second-fastest women’s 10-mile ever on US soil. Emily Sisson was 2nd in 52:03.
This Sunday: Former Winner Hillary Yego Returns To Lead Field For The Athens Marathon Penina Wanjiru (2:36 PR) leads the women’s race.
Laura Muir Wins Scottish Short Course XC Title
This Sunday: IAAF XC Permit Series Starts This Sunday In Spain At The Cross De Atapuerca
*Meet Preview

More NYC Coverage

Recommended Read: “A Former NYC Marathon Champion-Turned Cabbie Struggles To Get His Family Out Of Strife-Ridden Ethiopia” Tesfaye Jifar won NYC with a CR in 2001, but now he works up to 16 hours a day as a cab driver in Boston, waiting for his wife and children to get their visas approved to join him in the US.
The NY Times Breaks Down The NYC Marathon Course Mile-By-Mile
Running Cartoon In The New Yorker: “A Somewhat Accurate Guide To The Marathon”
Top Americans Share The Hardest Workouts They Did Ahead Of The NYC Marathon Check out these impressive workouts by Molly Huddle, Dathan Ritzenhein, Kim Conley and more.
Why Did American Men Run Faster In New York Decades Ago? Five of the nine fastest US times were in the 1980s or before and the other four are Meb Keflezighi‘s. Bill Rodgers, Alberto Salazar and Ken Martin theorize why.
Good Read: AP: “NYC’s 5-Borough Marathon Reaches Milestone 40th Anniversary” NYRR chairman of the board George Hirsch talks about giving “under the table” payments to Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter since back then you had to maintain your “amateur” status.
NYC Course Record Map See the breakdown of Geoffrey Mutai‘s 2:05:06 from 2011 in terms of pace, elevation and position on the course.

More NYC

Recommended Read: The New Yorker: George A. Hirsch Gives A First-Hand Account Of The Founding And Running Of The First NYC Marathon Frank Shorter having to hitchhike and Bill Rodgers having to get his car out of a police impound after the race are just a couple of the interesting insights into the “first five-borough” marathon.
Pretty Cool: 2:17 Marathoner (15th Place In Boston) Harbert Okuti Is A Psychology Researcher Studying The Mental Side Of The Marathon Okuti will get some first hand research done on Sunday as he shoots to break 2:17 in NYC.