February 17, 2017 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For February 17, 2017

Quote Of The Day

“This effort won’t require a robot or superman drilled to perfection by scientific faith and medicine, but a good, time-tested human heart, blood and sheer resolve.”

– Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge talking about taking on the sub-2 hour marathon this spring.

Week That Was

LRC Week That Was: Women’s 800m Madness, One Runner From Japan Is Better Than All Of American Men Combined In The Marathon The Last 6 Years, Collegiate Milers And More The American 800m women took it to another level this week, and a Japanese runner reminded us the American men’s marathoners have struggled as a whole.

Sprint Stuff

Justin Gatlin Comeback Story Told In New Documentary: “Rise Again, The Justin Gatlin Story” Gatlin talks about depression, suicide and other aspects of his life people “have never seen.” But does he come clean on his doping past? We doubt it. *AP article
18-Year-Old Sprinter Candace Hill Gives Her 11 Tips For Sport And Life She has a pretty good one for social media: “If you don’t want your parents to see something, then don’t post it. Also, don’t text or tweet in the heat of the moment.”
For Usain Bolt Tokyo 2020 “Is Too Far Away” People have been asking Bolt if he wants to go to Tokyo to replace the gold he lost to Nesta Carter‘s doping positive.
For Michael Johnson, Jesse Owens Is The Greatest Ever Sprinter, Not Usain Bolt
Multis: Ashton Eaton Wins Jim Thorpe All-Around Award By United States Sports Academy For Third Time

News From Kenya

Recommended Read:Catching Up With Eliud Kipchoge As He Prepares To Try And Break The 2-Hour Marathon You might assume Kipchoge is at some high tech facility with state of the art equipment, but for him it’s business as usual as he’s in Kenya at a place so low tech you have to fetch your own water to bathe.
Saturday:Geoffrey Kamworor Had A Rough Time After Rio, But Says He’s Ready To Defend His Kenyan National XC Title Kamworor isn’t just thinking about XC though as he looked ahead to track saying, “My dream is to win that coveted 10,000m title from Mo Farah and especially at his home turf … here is no love lost between him and Kenyan.”
Feb. 26th:Wilson Kipsang Revved Up To Reclaim Marathon WR In Tokyo The CR is 2:05:42 by Dickson Chumba and this year’s course is faster with a couple of hills taken out.
More Than A Year Later:Final Report On The Four Suspended AK Officials Finally Forwarded To The IAAF The four (including the late former president Isaiah Kiplagat) are facing a slew of charges including embezzling federation money and accepting and offering bribes.

Mid-Week Action In Ireland

USA’s Christina Manning Highlights Athlone Grand Prix With 7.82 Victory In The 60H The time is an Irish-soil record and 8th on the US all-time list. Distance action included Ryan Gregson‘s 3:56 win in the mile while Johan Rogestedt became the first Swedish man to go sub-4 indoors (3:58.11), Melissa Bishop took the 800 in 2:01.42 and Romania’s Claudia Bobocea set an Irish all-comers’ 1,500 record (4:08.19).
*Kyle Langford Breaks British 600m Record With 1:16.10Erik Sowinski was just .05 behind in second.

US Mid-D Stuff

Friday:NJNY Track Club Going For The 4 X Mile World Record At The Armory The team of Kyle Merber, Donn Cabral, Ford Palmer and Colby Alexander will go for the 24-year-old record of 16:16.67.
*MB:Kyle Merber says HOKA NYNJ team will be going for 4xMile WORLD RECORD!!
Track & Field News Asks If We’ll Hit 500 US Sub-4 Milers In 2017 With 5 new members from this past weekend (11 new members this year) and 484 total, we could hit the mark this indoor season.
Will Leer Now Sponsored By Polar GPS Watches

From Seb Coe / The IAAF

Embed from Getty Images
Seb Coe Hopes IAAF Wins CAS Appeal On Gender / Testosterone Testing For the sake of women’s sports, we can only hope so.
*MB: Coe “hopeful” of IAAF success in CAS hyperandrogenism case, says Semenya has “right to comp
*LRC Hyperandrogenism Archives
Seb Coe Says He’s A Fan Of Usain Bolt’s New Nitro Athletics Concept Coe: “I saw engagement, I saw fun and laughter and that’s what the sport has been missing for a long time.”
*Another Perspective: Athletics Weekly: “Nitro Athletics Fails To Explode” Editor Jason Henderson writes that nothing was “earth-shatteringly innovative,” mocks the over-hyped-ness, and was “left feeling nonplussed.”
This April:Tickets For 2017 World Relays In The Bahamas Go On Sale

International Distance News

Mo Farah To Run The 10,000m At The Ostrava Golden Spike Meet This June This will be the first time Ostrava will have a 10K since Kenenisa Bekele set a world record there in 2004.
Recommended Watch:Freak Accident Costs Runner 800 Heat Win At Irish Indoor Collegee Championships An elastic crossbar from the pole vault flung onto the track and tangled up his legs like “Spider Man attacked him” as the commentator said.
Good News:Canadian Marathon Runners Get New Lease On Life With New Worlds Standards Athletics Canada re-released the world standards, making them equal with the IAAF times (2:19 and 2:45 for the marathoner) rather than the super strict A+ standards they’ve used in the past which at times were faster than the Canadian national records.
Former British 800 Champion Marilyn Okoro Has Started Off Well In 2017 After Years Of Struggles Okoro, who is now the track coach at the University of Central Florida, rab a 1:25.89 600m, just missing the British record by .08.
After A Rusty Start, Ireland’s Ciara Mageean Hoping To Make Improvements Leading Up To Euro Champs

The 2017 NYRR Millrose Games Millrose Results On 1 Page Post-Race Video Player

LRC 800 Madness At Millrose – Ajee Wilson (And Her Training Partner Charlene Lipsey) Breaks American Record, Sammy Watson Gets Mary Decker’s High School RecordAjee Wilson and her new training partner both had huge PRs to dip under the old American record as Sammy Watson broke the high school record. Updated with video from Wilson and Watson.

LRC Rest Of Millrose Recap: Jenkins And Hassan Win Wanamakers, True Wins 2 Mile Showdown, Centro Struggles And A High Schooler Is #5 In The World In The Pole Vault Courtney Okolo breaking the American record at 500 doesn’t even get in the headline.

*Post-Race Interviews
*RRW:Ajee Wilson Sets American Indoor 800m Record At NYRR Millrose Games

On The Boards:

The Final Meet Of The 2017 IAAF World Indoor Tour Is Saturday In Birmingham *TV & Streaming (8am ET)

LRC 2017 Müller Indoor Grand Prix Preview: Laura Muir Goes For UK 1K Record, Sifan Hassan Vs. Hellen Obiri In 3K & The Return Of Mo Farah Saturday morning cartoons can wait. You need to make sure you’ve got a few hours on Saturday to watch this meet (8:00 am ET US) as the end of 2017 IAAF World Indoor Tour is a dandy. The US records in the women’s 1000 and 3000 very well could go down and yet we don’t think Kate Grace or Shannon Rowbury will win their races.
*MB: Is the fix in? Andrew Butchart suddenly has to withdraw from Birmingham GP – Mo Farah’s path to victory just got way easier

Kim Collins Will Have His 50th Appearance On British Soil He’ll race the 60m against US’s world leader Ronnie Baker and European champ Richard Kilty.
GB Sprinter Diana Asher-Smith Breaks Foot In Final Training Session Before Birmingham GP
GB’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson Pulls Out Of LJ With Hamstring Strain
GB’s Laura Muir Shooting For The UK And Maybe Even World 1,000m RecordKelly Holmes has the UK mark at 2:32.96 and Maria Mutola‘s WR is 2:30.94.
Update On IAAF World Indoor Tour Standings Going Into The Final Event In Birmingham

Podcast Central

Carrie Tollefson Does Podcast Q&A With Emma Coburn Coburn talks about her coaching change from Mark Wetmore to her fiance, her 2016 season and her photo shoot for the ESPN Body Issue.
Podcast With Former Decathlon WR Holder And 1996 Olympic Champ Dan O’Brien Some interesting stuff as O’Brien talks about his no height at the ’92 Trials, rivalry with Dave Johnson, setting the WR and a lot more.
Podcast With Tyler Mulder: “The Fastest Man In Iowa” Mulder talks about the Drake relays, Olympic trials, the OTC and training with Nick Symmonds.
Carrie Tollefson Podcast Interview With Gabriele Grunewald Grunewald, now a 3-time cancer survivor, talks about her recent surgery for liver cancer, training with her husband and 2017 racing schedule.

International Distance News

Laura Weightman Breaks CR At Armagh International 3K Road Race With 8:59 VictoryBen Connor won the men’s 5K race in 13:55 as 77-athletes went sub-15:00.
IAAF Profile:Poland’s Rising 800 Star Joanna Jozwik Is Having A Stellar 2017 Jozwik is undefeated so far this year with three wins, two world leads and a Polish indoor national record of 1:59.29.
Seb Coe Talks About The Nitro Athletics Elimination Mile Coe analyzes the tactics and says he would have loved to race one back when he was competing.
March 5:Ethiopia’s Endeshaw Negesse (2:04:52) And Vincent Kipruto (2:05:13) Lead Field For Lake Biwa Mainichi Marathon Rio Olympian Satoru Sasaki leads the Japanese contingent in what is the last Japanese selection race for worlds.

Ethiopian News: Lilesa Family Reunites

Feyisa Lilesa Reunites With His Family For The First Time Since Protesting At The Rio Marathon Finish Line Lilesa and his family will head to Flagstaff where he has been staying on a special visa. Lilesa still has hopes he’ll one day return to Ethiopia, but doesn’t have high hopes it’ll happen before Tokyo 2020. *2nd Article
*LRC Archives:The Bravest Olympian in Rio – Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa Risks Death But Speaks Out About Killings of Oromo Protesters in Ethiopia After Earning Olympic Silver in Marathon

*Haile Gebrselassie Talks To Ato Boldon About His New Life As Head Of The Ethiopian Athletics Federation Geb also speaks on the possibility of the 2-hour marathon and proclaims that he thinks Ethiopia has untapped talent in the long jump.

Drug News

Nesta Carter Officially Files His Appeal To CAS Over Jamaica’s Stripped 2008 Olympic 4 X 100 Gold This is Carter’s individual appeal, but the rest of the relay squad could file their own separate appeal.
Russia To Punish Athletes Who Don’t Return Their Olympic Medals So far only 1 medal out of 23 has been returned and officials say they will kick athletes off the national team if they don’t return them. However, this won’t have a major effect as many are retired or banned from competition.
Legal PED: New Research Suggests Gargling Mouthwash Can Give A Performance Boost To Endurance Athletes Marathon runners in the study saw a 5% improvement when using during a 7.9-mile time trial.
*MB:Swishing mouthwash new “performance enhancer” for endurance athletes
IOC Reiterate Russia Not Guaranteed To Particpate In 2018 Winter Games Despite Receiving Invitation All countries were sent an invite as part of the “one-year to go celebrations,” but Russia’s eligibility won’t be determined until later.
Two Clean Sport Initiatives Launched At International Forum For Sports Integrity Meeting A lot of talk, but will there be any action?

Sprints And Jumps

Usain Bolt Wins Record-Equalling Fourth Laureus Sports Award Bolt joins tennis star Roger Federer as the only athletes to have won it 4 times. Gymnast Simone Biles won the women’s award.
Sanya Richards-Ross Expecting Her First Child
US’s Olympic Long Jumper 4th Placer Jarrion Lawson Shares His Tips On Sport And Life Lawson talks life on the circuit, cooking, fashion and dating.
Usain Bolt Talks About His Decision To Retire: “I’ve just done everything I wanted to do in the sport.”
Renaud Lavillenie Ends His Indoor Season To Let His Hamstring Injury Heal

Doping Updates

Lance Armstrong Faces $100 Million Lawsuit By The Federal Government After Judge Denies His Request To Have The Case Thrown Out Of Court The US Postal service paid only $32.3 million to sponsor Armstrong’s cycling team, but under the False Claims Act, they can reclaim damages up to three times that. *2nd Article
*MB:Lance Armstrong handed defeat by federal judge
Russian Athletics Federation Files Requests With The IAAF For 16 More Athletes To Compete Neutrally That brings the total to 41.
International Paralympic Committee Says Russian Ban Should Continue The IPC Taskforce working in Russia says officials have not “specifically addressed” or “properly rebutted” the findings of the McLaren report.
Egyptian Javelin Thrower Ihab Abdelrahman Gets 2-Year Drug Ban It has taken 6 months for his B-sample to officially come back and the case will drag out even longer as he’s appealing to CAS.
Maybe He’ll Learn Something:Thomas Bach To Open Second Edition Of International Forum For Sports Integrity

Olympians Speak On US Travel Ban

The Guardian:“Life As A Muslim-American Olympic Champion” Olympic 400H champ Dalilah Muhammad reacts to Donald Trump‘s travel ban, saying, “It’s insane what’s going on and what America is becoming. It’s frightening and a little scary.”
*MB:Olympic champ Dalilah Muhammad: “It’s insane what America is becoming”
Hassan Mead Says He Was Heartened By Protests Of Trump’s Travel Ban Mead has been blocked from flying before because he was born in Somalia and had to cancel a training trip to Australia in 2015 when they bolstered their national security.

Training Group Updates

Andrew Wheating Goes Solo, Leaves OTC Elite Wheating still gets advice from Mark Rowland, but thinks he’s better off training on “my time instead of having a regimented every-day schedule.”
Ken Goe:Some Fan Favorites No Longer Are Part Of OTC EliteMac Fleet, Jordan McNamara, Tyler Mulder, Aisha Praught, Alexi Pappas and HJer Jesse Williams are all off the roster.
*MB:Thoughts on Nijel Amos joining OTC?
*MB:Tom Farrell leaves OTC?
GB’s Olympic 800 Finalist Lynsey Sharp Writes About How She’s Improved Since Joining Terrence Mahon’s Coaching Group Sharp gives a lot of credit to Mahon for her improvements since 2012 (from not making the Olympic final to finishing 6th in 2016).

2016 Was A Record Year For Us In Terms Of Traffic – Thanks For Visiting

An Inside Look At How LRC Operates How a Ragtag Crew Of Almost Journalists Created Running’s Most Controversial Website Author Charles Bethea embedded himself with us during the US Olympic trials and got a behind-the-scenes look at how we operate. His article in Outside magazine includes some really nice quotes from Tim Layden, “… their best quality is that they don’t give a shit about offending people,” and Nick Willis, “It gave me a ton of inspiration. LetsRun is one of the primary reasons high-quality coaching and training have improved in America.”
*MB: Long Article on Letsrun… in Outside Magazine

Enjoyed The Article Above?Then Check This Article On LRC’s Founding From Marathon And Beyond In 2009The LetsRun Phenomenon

Upcoming US Action *All Weekend College Coverage

Today Starting At 3PM: Quest for World and American Records at Friday’s Artie O’Connor College Invitational at The Armory NJ-NY Track Club will go for the 4xmile WR while Sydney McLaughlin will go for the HS national 300m record.
February 18:Andrew Wheating Vs Robby Andrews, Mac Fleet And Mikey Brannigan Highlights Ocean Breeze Grand Prix On Staten Island
*Full Entry ListsBrannon Kidder and Shaquille Walker are in the 600, Charles Jock in the 1000, Justine Federonic in the women’s mile.
2017 Bring Back The Mile Tour Announced Five road miles starting with the Grand Blue Mile as part of Drake Relays in April and finishing with the Navy Mile in DC in October.

Mo Farah Headlines

Mo Farah Attends Renaming Of St. Mary’s University Track In His Honor Farah trained at St. Mary’s from 2001 to 2011 before moving to the US.
Mo Farah Stars In Dubai Tourism Video Farah takes viewers on a 360-degree virtual running tour.
Arsenal Soccer Team Manager Gets Support From Mo Farah After He’s Bashed In The Press And By Fans For Crushing Loss

Olympic News

Recommended Read:NY Times: “Legacy Of Rio Olympics So Far Is Series Of Unkept Promises” Less than 6-months after the Games, many sites have been abandoned despite government promises there would be “no white elephants” left behind.
Swiss IOC Member And Ski Federation President Doesn’t Think Donald Trump Will Hurt LA 2024’s Bid ChancesGian Franco Kasper: “I don’t let myself be influenced by Mr. Trump. For me it’s about the concept and what the organizers offer.”
Olympic Discus Champ Christoph Harding Calls For Resignation Of Thomas Bach And Says The Olympics Will “Slowly Die By 2040” Unless Major Changes Are Made Harting is still angry that his countryman Bach didn’t ban all Russian athletes from Rio.
Olympic Columnist Neil Wilson Asks “Are The Days Of The Olympics Numbered?” Wilson thinks the greater danger to the Olympics is the rising costs and lack of interest in hosting.

In Case You Are Feeling Overly Hot And Steamy On Valentine’s Day

LRC Could A Cooling Wristband Be The Key To Athletes Who Struggle In The Heat? For years, scientists have been working on solutions to keep athletes cool before, during and after competition. We took a look at the dhamaSPORT, a new cooling wristband used by multiple U.S. Olympians in Rio which will also be used by several members of Team USA at the upcoming World Cross Country Championships in Uganda.

UK News

Former Olympic 400 Champ Christine Ohuruogu Blogs About The Challenges She’s Faced In Her Career Talking retirement she says, “I don’t know whether I’ve made the right decision to carry on (with the sport), but I’ve just got to roll with it.”
GB Weekend Round-Up:Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake Ran The Fastest Indoor 200 By A Brit In 19 Years He won the Tyson Invy 200m in 20.49.
Video:GB Sprinter James Ellington Does His First Interview Since His Motorcycle Crash Ellington talks about the crash and recovery since.

Japan Distance News

Yuki Kawauchi Takes Almost 7 Minutes Of The CR To Win Ehime Marathon In 2:09:54 The previous CR dated all the way back in 1965.
Yuki Kawauchi Joins Elite Group Of Men Who Have Broken 2:10 In The Marathon 11 Or More Times Kawauchi is one of only three non-Africans on the list of 15 men and has the slowest PR by about a minute.
Japanese Media Headline:“Japanese Men Stuck Behind The 2:09 Wall Seven Minutes Behind The Rest of the World” The article laments that Japanese marathoners struggle to hit to 2:09 while the “world standard is at the 2:02 level.”
Abiyot Abinet (61:21) And Ai Utsunomiya (70:47) Win Japan National Corporate Half Marathon Titles At the Karatsu 10-Miler, 19-year-old Shota Onizuka got an upset win in 46:36 over a field that included Japan #2 all-time 5,000/10,000 runner Tetsuya Yoroizaka.

Post-Weekend NCAA Stuff

Amherst College Coach Erik Nedeau Resigns After 20 Seasons For “Personal And Family Reasons” This comes a month after the XC team was suspended due to a sexist/racist email chain.
*MB:Amherst Cross Country Team Suspended Following Email Chain
Ken Goe Asks What More Does Edward Cheserek Have To Prove In Order To Win The Bowerman Award? Cheserek has been one of the final three finalists three times, but never won it.
Colorado’s Zach Perrin Ran A 15-Second 3,000m PR With A Broken Arm At Husky Classic Perrin fell at the start and they called it back and he decided he still wanted to race despite the pain.
*MB:CU Buffs runner breaks arm and still runs 15s 3k PR. Wetmore calls him a hero
Top-10 NCAA Marks From The Weekend One we missed: Michigan’s Erin Finn ran 15:34 at the SPIRE Meet.
Big Changes To The Top 10 In Week 4 Of NCAA DI Men’s Rankings Florida and Oregon stay 1-2 with Arkansas and Texas A&M moving up to 3rd and 4th.
Updated Women’s DI Team Rankings: Oregon Stays #1, Georgia Overtakes Arkansas For Rank #2

“If Matt Centrowitz writes a book, you buy it and read it.”

LRC Exclusive LetsRun.com Exclusive: Read Chapter Two of Matt Centrowitz’s New Book “Like Father, Like Son” LetsRun.com doesn’t beat around the bush. Neither does Matt Centrowitz. He’s so confident you’ll like his book, he’s letting you read a whole chapter for free. Purchase the book now and come back at the end of February and participate in the first ever LetsRun.com Virtual Book Club.

LRC Legendary Athlete, Father And Coach Matt Centrowitz Just Published An Autobiography – We Suggest You Read ItAn autobiography by a man who failed every single class in middle school and was in trouble with the law but went on to set an American record in the 5k, make two Olympic teams and raise a son who broke America’s 108-year Olympic drought in the men’s 1,500 has a lot of potential. Add in the fact that he roomed with Bruce Jenner and skipped school to hang out with Steve Prefontaine on the day he died and you’ve got a must read. Purchase Like Father, Like Son: My Story on Running, Coaching and Parenting now and be a part of the 1st-ever LetsRun.com Virtual Book Tour in one month.