February 22, 2017 | LetsRun.com

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Young Phenom Report Card: Alexa Efraimson, Konstanze Klosterhalfen, Casey Clinger, Cameron And Tyrese Cooper, Plus Jeremy Wariner Does The 1,200 We span the globe and recap the week in running.

2017 Abbott World Marathon Majors Kick Off In Tokyo This Sunday

Andrew Bumbalough Ready For His Marathon Debut In Tokyo Sounds like he might be shooting for 2:11+.
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.
A Look At Some Of 2:07:48 Marathoner Arata Fujiwara’s Training In Iten Kenya Before Tokyo Marathon
Olympic Champ Jemima Sumgong’s Training Partner Sarah Chepchirchir Running Tokyo

More Pro Distance News

Shannon Rowbury Isn’t Letting Just Missing A Medal In Rio Bog Her Down As She Dreams Of Making A Fourth Olympic Team In 2020 Rowbury hopes to have one last shot at an Olympic medal (possibly in the 5K) in Tokyo when she’ll be 35.
Australian Olympian And Former NCAA Champ David McNeill Wins B&E Hobart Run The Bridge 10K In CR 28:57 Makda Harun Haji won the women’s race. *Full Results
Mo Farah Preparing For Emotional Farewall At London 2017 Worlds After running his last indoor race this weekend, Farah said, “I got emotional at the end having to say goodbye, so I don’t want to think about what it will be like in London.”

Sprints, Jumps And Throws

Pole Vaulter Sam Kendricks Spent Some Time in Virginia Doing Army Reserve Training and Mentoring Local Vaulters
Kiwi Eliza McCartney Squaring Off in Pole Vault Twice This Week in Auckland
Olympic 400H Champion Kerron Clement Looks Back On The Greatest Challenge Of His Career Clement talks about coming back from groin surgery in 2012 to just barely make the team at the US Trials and says making the Olympic final that year “after all the adversity … felt like a million dollars.”
NZ News Hub: “Tom Walsh Vs. Ryan Crouser: An Insight Into Shot Put Rivalry” The two are friends on and off the track as Walsh recalls having to “scull eight pints” after losing a bet and Crouser talks about plans to go fishing and hunting with Walsh.
Podcast Q&A With US’s Olympic TJ Silver Medalist Will Claye Get some inside info on the only man since 1936 to medal in the LJ and TJ at the same Olympics.
Usain Bolt’s Parents Honored With Special Award As Bolt Wins The Gleaner Man Of The Year

2017 World XC Is Going To Be Awesome

Kenya’s Team Is Loaded Leonard Barsoton Stuns Favorites Bedan Karoki And Geoffrey Kamworor At 2017 Kenyan XC Championships Barsoton stormed from 3rd to 1st in the final 500 but the Kenyan team is loaded as Kamworor and Karoki both made it.
*Bedan Karoki Opts Out Of Kenyan World XC Team He wants to focus on training for his marathon debut in London.

14:43 5ker Irene Cheptai Surprises Herself And Wins Kenyan XC Women’s Title She won by more than 5 seconds and was more than a minute ahead of 6th. Defending world champ Agnes Tirop and Olympic 1,500 champ Faith Kipyegon also made the team.

Recommended Read Barsoton’s Japanese Coach Celebrates By Drinking A Tusker Beer And Reveals He’s Got A Plan For Barsoton To Dominate Tokyo 2020 Barsoton, who runs for Nissin foods in Japan, has other ideas. “My plan for this year is to win the World Cross-Country Championships in Kampala and also the 10,000 metres title on the track at the World Championships in London.”
Asbel Kiprop Is Named To Kenya’s World XC Team For the 1st time, the IAAF is having a 4 x 2k mixed gender relay at World XC.
Richard Kimunyan And Sandra Chebet Win Junior Races Chebet totally dominated the girls race.

Olympic News: Budapest May Be Out Of 2024 Race

Down To Two? Budapest 2024 Chairman Close To Admitting Defeat After Petition Gathers 250,000 Signatures For A Referendum On The Bid Budapest 2024 has suspended operations while uncertainty surrounds the bid and there is talk of withdrawing. *BBC Article
LA 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremony Could Be Earlier In The Day To Encourage More Athletes To Attend Many athletes often skip because the opening ceremonies end so late (the Rio Opening Ceremony went from 8PM to 11PM with athletes not getting home until 2AM).
Tokyo 2020 Golf Club Warned BY IOC Vice President To Welcome Female Members Otherwise Tokyo 2020 will have to choose a new venue.

Outdoor Track From NZ

Ryan Crouser Wins Big Shot Competition Over Tom Walsh Christchurch With Massive 22.02m Walsh briefly set a Kiwi all-comers record of 21.46m in the 2nd round.
Walsh And Crouse Are Now Going To Go Pig Hunting Before Having A Re-Match Next Sunday
Crouser Was Only Hoping To Be Consistent In The 21s

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.

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.

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 2009 The LetsRun Phenomenon

Wednesday Distance News

Linden-Flanagan-CraggSt-Boston15 Shalane Flanagan Pulls Out of 2017 Boston Marathon With Fracture In Her Back Desi Linden and Jordan Hasay now carry female American hopes with Galen Rupp on men’s side.
*Flanagan Talks To Runners World With More Details On Her Injury: “Never take a Ferrari off road.” She got injured running on a treadmill due to the snow in Portland.

Laura Muir To Attempt 1,500/3k Double At European Indoor Champs Next Weekend Full British team named.
Asbel Kiprop Is Back Running Cross-Country, Running 4 X 2,000m Relay At World Cross In Uganda Kiprop said, “My first (world) cross-country was the worst.” The crazy thing is he won the world junior title in Mombasa but it was so hot he hated it. World Cross in Mombasa was the most interesting event LRC’s Wejo has ever been to.
Kyle Merber Talks About Breaking 4 X Mile World Record, Getting Engaged Sorry, ladies. Track and field’s most entertaining twitter follow is off the market.
Cas Loxsom Gets IAAF Profile: “I’m as close as you can be to a 600-metre specialist.” Cas wants to win USA Indoors and run Word Relays in the Bahamas.
Molly Huddle Blogs About Her New York City Marathon Debut And What It’s Like Being A Pro In NYC
Bram Som (Coach Of Olympic Champ Faith Kipyegon) Talks About Being One Of The Top Pacers In The World

This Is A Great Bet

Screenshot 2017-02-22 at 00.35.47 Former 3:37 1,500m Man Colin McCourt, Who Now Weighs 207 Pounds., Has Bet With His Buddies That Will Pay Him $1,700 If He Breaks 16 Minutes For 5k This Year He has to tattoo their names on himself if he doesn’t do it.

College News

Good Read: The Denver Post: After Capturing Their 24th Men’s National XC Title, Adams State Has Their Eye On The “Triple Crown” In the fall, the team borrowed a motivational tool from LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers which used a puzzle to represent the collective contributions of the team.
GR #2: Nice Article On The University Of Florida Track Team And Their Head Coach Mike Holloway Holloway says, “I’m a strong believer that the better person you are, the better potential you have to be a good athlete.”
Interesting Financial Analysis: Only Three Teams At LSU Turned A Profit Last Year … XC/Track Was Definitely Not One Of Them The football team made a $55 million profit, basketball $2.3 million, baseball $1.5 million and XC/track lost $4.5 million.
Things Tighten Up In Top 5 Of NCAA DI Men’s Rankings Florida stays ranked #1, but aren’t projected far ahead of the new #2 Arkansas.
Some Shifting In Top 5 Of NCAA DI Women’s Rankings Oregon remain on top as Arkansas moves up to 2nd.
High School: Illinois’ Katelynn Hart Runs 10:21 2-Mile To Break The National High School Freshman Record The previous freshman record dated back to 1998.
Event-By-Event Top-10 Marks Of The Collegiate Weekend

IOC Members Are Opposed To Thomas Bach’s Plan To Award The 2024 And 2028 Olympics At The Same Time There are rumors that Bach wants to award 2024/2028 to LA and Paris at once, but several influential IOC members disagree.

58-Year-Old Brit Becomes First To Achieve 40-Year-Span For Sub-3 Hour Marathons Steve Smythe ran his first marathon in 2:54 in 1976 and this weekend ran 2:56 to break the record for longest sub-3 span. (His PR is 2:29:42, set in London in 1981.)

More European News

GB Sprinter Richard Kilty Blames False Start At British Indoor Trials On Stolen Spikes As He Had To Race In Borrowed Shoes Kilty thinks he may have been purposely sabotaged by a rival who took his spikes from the call room. *2nd Article
Jessica Ennis-Hill’s Former Coach Toni Minichiello To Be Reprimanded After Swearing At A Female Athlete The anonymous athlete says her former coach screamed at her, saying, “You’re not allowed on this track, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off.”
Ukraine’s 1980 Olympic 800m Champion Nadiya Olizarenko Has Died At 63 “Following A Long And Serious Illness” She represented the Soviet Union and is still #2 on the all-time 800m list at 1:53.43.

US Indoor Pro & Collegiate Action All NCAA Results Ocean Breeze Grand Prix Results

Patriot League: Navy Men, Bucknell Women Win Patriot League Titles It was Navy’s fifth straight indoor title. A meet highlight was American’s Liam Purdy winning the 800 despite losing one of his shoes.
Arkansas: Lexi Weeks Soars To NCAA Pole Vault Lead With 4.60m
MB: Jeremy Wariner Drops Out 600m Into A 1200m Race In Canada You won more prize money the longer you lead and Wariner was ahead at the 200m and 400m splits.
Ocean Breeze Grand Prix: Robby Andrews Takes Down Andrew Wheating In other action at the first pro meet on Staten Island, Shaquille Walker beat Brannon Kidder in the 600 and Rolanda Bell won the mile.
Atlantic 10: VCU Women Take Atlantic 10 Indoor Crown
*George Mason Men Win Their First Atlantic 10 Indoor Title
Conference USA: UTEP Women Win Their Third Straight Conference USA Indoor Title Michael Saruni won the 800/mile double (recent 600m WR setter Emmanuel Korir didn’t race).
*Middle Tennessee Men Win Conference USA Crown For First Time
50 World And American Records Go Down At USATF Masters Indoor Champs

Friday:

Important Tokyo News

2020 Olympics May Be Stifling Hot Shocking Study: Tokyo 2020 Will Be The Hottest Olympics In History – Athletes Face Risk Of Sroke And you can thank NBC for this fact as in 1964, heat wasn’t an issue as they were held in October.
*MB: Press Report: 2020 Olympics will be the hottest in history

Tokyo Marathon Is Next Weekend And Brett Larner Takes An Incredibly In-Depth Look At Its New Course The old finish of Tokyo has been hated by everyone for years. Now they’ve got a new course and new finish.

US Distance / Training Group Updates

Jordan Hasay Interview: “On The Road To Boston” Hasay says it was a big transition just doing her first 20-mile run, but now says she’s “done 20 mile workouts at close to marathon pace that feel pretty easy.”
Cristian Soratos Didn’t Enjoy His Time With The Big Bear Track Club Soratos and his girlfriend, former Arkansas All-American Stephanie Brown, had an “acrimonious” split with the club and moved together to Montana where they are now coached by Montana State’s Lyle Weese.
*MB: So what’s the deal with Big Bear TC?
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.
Assistant Coach Pete Julian Takes On Bigger Role With The Oregon Project Julian is now the lead coach for Shannon Rowbury, Eric Jenkins and Japanese distance runner Suguru Osako.
The New Jonathan Marcus-Led High Performance West Group In Oregon Has Leaned Down This Year The team has been cut from double figures to seven (including Tara Welling) as Marcus said, “We want to take an ‘Alberto Salazar-Oregon Project approach.'”
Atlanta Track Club Adds Seven To Elite Team, Including Olympic Marathon Trials 7th Placer Maegan Krifichin And Jim And Joe Rosa

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.
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.

Centro Sr.’s Book Gets Some Publicity

Matt Centro’s Sr Gets Q&A In Washington Post About His Biography And His Son’s Olympic 1,500m Gold

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 Review Legendary Athlete, Father And Coach Matt Centrowitz Just Published An Autobiography – We Suggest You Read It

Some Brief Doping News

How Did Chaunte Lowe Find Out She Won An Olympic Medal? … Via Facebook Eight Years Later Lowe talks about going from 6th to 3rd after three dopers were caught in 2008 retests. Adam Nelson says winning a medal years later is “like winning a lifetime achievement award after you died.”
Probably The Least Of Her Worries: Doper Mariya Savinova Could Also Be Stripped Of Her 2011 European Athlete Of The Year Award Her coach could also lose his coach of the year award.

2017 Müller Indoor Grand Prix Full Results TV & Streaming

This One Lived Up To The Hype LRC 2017 Müller Indoor Grand Prix Recap: Mo Farah And Laura Muir Get European Records, Cas Loxsom And Ben Blankenship Get World-Leading Wins The final IAAF World Indoor Tour event of the year was a great meet as it featured European records for Laura Muir and Sir Mo, world leads and wins for Americans Cas Loxsom and Ben Blankenship, plus a Kenyan record for Hellen Obiri and Aussie record for Ryan Gregson.

MB: Official 2017 Muller Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix Live Discussion Thread
MB: Mo Farah goes home VICTORIOUS
MB: Mo Farah would’ve butchered Andy Butchart 2day

Multiple European Indoor Championships In The Books

Konstanze Klosterhalfen Storms To German Indoor 1,500m Title With 4:04.91 (#2 All-Time On German Indoor List) 19-year-old Alina Reh won the 3K in 8:53 over world bronze steeple medalist Gesa-Felicitas Krause.
Ruth Beitia Wins Her 16th Spanish National Indoor HJ Title With 1.96m Other national champs highlights include: Pascal Martinot-Lagarde 7.52 60H in France, Piotr Lisek 5.83m PV and Adam Kszczot 1:47.56 in Poland.
Albania’s Luiza Gega Sets National 1,500m Record To Prove She’s A Euro Medal Contender She ran 4:06.66 at the Istanbul Athletics Cup.
Klaudia Siciarz Breaks Under-20 60H Record In Poland With 8.00 Seconds Elsewhere, Christophe Lemaitre won the French 60m indoor title as Omar McLeod set the Jamaican indoor 200m record with 20.48 at the Arkansas Qualifier.
Irish Indoor Champs Recap: Phil Healy (400 – 53:.49) And Ciara Neville (60m – 7.43) Highlight The Sprints Ciara Mageean won the women’s 3K as Fionnuala McCormack finished 3rd. *2nd Article
British Universities & Colleges Sport Indoor Champs Recap

Some Incredible HS Performances

So Sick: Casey Clinger Just Ran 8:54 At 4,500 Feet Of Altitude! He crushed the field and won by 25+ seconds. When you convert it for altitude, he’s not too far off Craig Virgin‘s legendary American HS record.
Unreal: HS soph Tyrese Cooper ran a ~~20.44~~/45.45 double today but the 200 didn’t count as he got DQd for celebration Update: We’ve watched the video and there is no way that was a 20.44.
HSer Cameron Cooper Of Michigan runs 1:49.82 – #2 time all-time indoor for US HSers

Pro Road Action

Kenyan Erik Titus Whacks 8 Minutes Off PR – From 2:15:43 To 207:43 CR – At Seville Marathon And it’s not like he had a great half marathon PR either (1:02:26). In the women’s race, Spain’s Paula González defended her title with a big PR of 2:28:54.

Interesting Reads

Recommended Read Millrose 3,000 Winner Kate Van Buskirk Was So Sick For The Last Two Years With Spondyloarthropathy That She Couldn’t Even Turn Over In Bed At Times “One of the hardest parts was that I was in so much pain just in my regular life that I was just in survival mode. I thought: I don’t even care if I can never run again, I just want to be able to walk or move without pain at some point. Because it was so severe.”
This Is Getting Ridiculous It’s Almost March And Nike Still Hasn’t Released Details Of Sub-2 Project, Still Continues To Work Runner’s World For Free Publicity The idea that a sub-2 is going to happen in any shape or fashion that is close to legitimate is a joke.
Len Johnson Reviews The Nitro Athletics Series: Did You See Engagement, Fun And Laughter? A good read on what it all meant. The key thing is the meet was free to watch on TV in Australia and got good ratings as 1.4 million watched the first broadcast.
Vice Sports: Does The US Just Cheat Differently Than The Russians?
*MB: Interesting Vice Sports Article On US Doping History – Article Mentions Al Sal And Nike Oregon Project
World XC Is Coming Up – Craig Virgin Recalls His Two World Titles From 1980 And 1981
17-Year-Old Ciara Neville Of Ireland Heavily Favored To Win National Title At Irish Nationals For good reason – she’s the co-Irish national record holder at 7.30.
*MB: Move over Candace Hill: 17 yr old Irish white girl Ciara Neville runs 7.30 for 60m
Ryan Crouser Says He’s “Light Years” Ahead Of Where He Was At This Time Last Year, Is Ready For Sunday’s Big Shot Event In New Zealand He’ll face Tom Walsh, Jacko Gil, Ryan Whiting and others.
*Walsh Is Super-Motivated After Not Winning Last Two Years
Former Prep Phenom, Now Masters USA XC Champ, Melody Fairchild, Gives Out Her 6 Keys To Running Fairchild was the first US prep to break 10:00 for 2 miles.
~~Sebastian Coe, Steve Ovett, Steve Cram, Sergei Bubka, Daley Thompson, Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Flo-Jo, JJK~~ Saïd Aouita Was Pat Butcher’s Favorite Athlete To Write About And Watch Aouita was before our time but we imagine he was amazing to watch if you put your blinders on.
11 Months After Being Declared Non-Compliant By WADA, Spanish Govt. Is Finally Working On New Legislation To Make Its Doping Agency Compliant

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.”

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.