$$$ News

• Recommended Read: Outside: Is It Worth It for Shoe Companies to Sponsor Runners? Brooks brand manager Steve DeKoker: “You need people to authenticate your brand. By that, I mean you need the best people in the world validating that your product is legitimate and that your products can perform at the highest level.”
• Usain Bolt Is One Of The Highest-Paid Celebrities Of The Year He’s 88th on the Forbes list, ahead of some actors/singers like Kevin Hart, Britney Spears and Katy Perry. Remember, Bolt was 23rd on the list of highest-paid athletes.

NCAA News *All Weekend Collegiate Action

• Weekend NCAA Preview: Notre Dame Invy, Louisville XC Classic And Dellinger Invite Oregon vs. Stanford (men and women) at Bill Dellinger, Colorado (men and women) and New Mexico women at Notre Dame, NAU men vs. Wisconsin at Louisville.
• Allie Ostrander Making XC Comeback At Louisville Classic After Nearly Two Years Away Ostrander was runner-up at NCAAs her freshman year, but a sacral stress fracture kept her off the grass until now. Ostrander says she’s “had a good summer of training” and is “feeling great.”
• Register-Guard: At Long Last, Oregon Opens Its XC Season The season opener is 3 weeks later than planned after the Oregon Preview was canceled due to poor air quality. Andy Powell also revealed that Kate Murphy will most likely redshirt due to injury.
  *MB: Snowflakes get victory #2 of xc season: Thursday’s Oregon XC meet is cancelled due to air quality concerns
• RIP Hall Of Fame Coach George Dales, 96 Dales coached Western Michigan University to two NCAA team XC titles when coaching there from 1953 to 1970.
• Arkansas Women Primed For Top-10 Showdown At Notre Dame
• No. 5 Arkansas Men Hosting Chile Pepper Festival On Saturday
• Former NCAA Champions Melody Fairchild (3,000) And Tommy Skipper (Pole Vault) Among Latest Inductees To University Of Oregon’s Hall Of Fame

Upcoming Road Action

• Sunday: Leonard Korir And Aliphine Tuliamuk Lead Fields For USATF 10 Mile Championships Hosted By The Medtronic TC 10 Mile Korir will face Shadrack Kipchirchir, Martin Hehir, Futsum Zienasellassie and Christo Landry while the women’s race also has Natosha Rogers, Sara Hall and Shalaya Kipp. *USATF Release
• Sunday: Defending Champion David Kiyeng Faces Strong Opposition At The Kosice Peace Marathon In Slovakia Kiyeng got the surprise win last year in 2:08:58, but this year faces Gilbert Masai (2:09:49) and Richard Sigei (2:08:28). Janet Rono (2:26:03) and Sheila Jerotich (2:28:53) lead the women’s race.
• Sunday: GB’s Dewi Griffiths Looking For Another PR At The Cardiff Half Marathon Griffiths ran 62:53 for 7th at the Great North Run and a 28:27 10K last week and will face defending champ Shadrack Kimining. Violah Jepchumba (66:06) is also back after winning the women’s race last year.
• Saturday: Close Battle Expected At The Hengshui Lake Marathon In China Bernard Kiprotich Too (2:09:47) leads a field that includes six men in the 2:10 range while Peninah Arusei (2:27:17) and Tigist Memuye (2:27:39) are the top women.
• October 29: Germany’s Arne Gabius Targeting A Fast Time At The Frankfurt Marathon Two years ago, Gabius ran a 2:08:33 NR at Frankfurt and this year is looking to go through halfway in 64:15.
• October 22: Uganda’s Alex Chesakit Hoping To Upset The Kenyan And Ethiopian Favorites At The Toronto Waterfront Marathon Chesakit’s PR is 2:13:06, but is hoping to go sub-2:10 in Toronto so he can qualify for the Commonwealth Games after visa issues kept him out of London Worlds.

NCAA / HS News

• Good Read: DyeStat Profile On The Progression Of Returning NCAA XC Champ Karissa Schweizer Last year Schweizer become just the 4th athlete to complete the NCAA triple crown (XC, indoor and outdoor 5K titles) and has bumped her mileage up to 80 miles a week looking to do it again.
• Notre Dame’s Anna Rohrer To Miss 2017 XC Season With Hamstring Injury Rohrer had a procedure to “stimulate the repair of her hamstring” and that will keep her out for a couple weeks, but she’ll be back for track.
  *MB: Anna Rohrer redshirt
• 19-Year-Old India National HJ Record Holder (2.26m) Gets Scholarship At Kansas State Apparently he’s only the third athlete from India to compete in the NCAA.
• MB: Stanford only racing 3 times before regionals?
• MB: 2017 Paul Short XC Run Entries
• DyeStat: HS Sophomore Brynn Siles Enjoying A Breakthrough Season In Colorado Last year Siles could have had a chance to make NXN as a freshman, but was accidentally put in (and won) the open race instead of the championship.
• DyeStat: Sisters Olivia And Jaden Theis Pushing Each Other At Lansing Catholic High School In Michigan

9-1-1 Call Placed After Condo Resident Realized David Torrence Was Dead At Bottom Of Pool Is Released A resident saw Torrence in the pool when she went out to walk her dog at 6:30 am and assumed he was swimming but realized he was dead when she came back. He was staying at a cousin’s place while she was out of town.

What’s Next For The Great Kenenisa Bekele?

LRC Jos Hermens: Kenenisa Bekele Must Become More “Professional” If He Is To Realize Marathon Potential  Agent Jos Hermens thinks Kenenisa Bekele is capable of much more in the marathon if he can focus on training and not be distracted by his business empire. “Eight marathons, two wins, that’s not Kenenisa Bekele. … What do you want to be, businessman or professional runner?”
*MB: Great insight from Jos Hermens on Kenenisa Bekele

More Post-Berlin:

• Toni Reavis: “Mother Nature Says Nein In Berlin” Reavis says rather than focus on the missed WR, enjoy the great duel that emerged between Kipchoge and Guye Adola.
• Former Boston Winner Amby Burfoot Questions How Slow The Conditions Were In Berlin Burfoot points out how many of the elites still ran PRs even in the conditions and argues that 2:02:57, when it is broken, won’t be “busted by a big margin.”
• 2017 Berlin Marathon Stat Blitz Kipchoge’s top 5 marathon average is now 2:03:47, but that is still slower than Wilson Kipsang‘s, which is 2:03:45.
• Kenyan Op-Ed: “Kipchoge Helped Save Face For Kenyan Sport” Kipchoge’s run is a lone positive while Kenyan sport admins and politicians keep dropping the ball.
• MB: So are we gonna talk about Kipsang’s drop or what???

Anti-Doping News

• Update On The Doping Re-Tests From The 2008 And 2012 Games Analyzing the numbers, there have now been 190 positive tests from 2008 and 2012 with Russia and track and field dominating the top offenders list.
• Russian Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov Says Russia Is Aiming To Make Their Anti-Doping Program “One Of The Best In The World” He even said Russia was willing to help other countries deal with their doping problems. How altruistic of him.
• UK Anti-Doping Calls For Importation Of PEDs To Be Made Illegal UKAD is concerned that it is not only athletes using PEDs, but amateurs who do it for image reasons.
• WADA Provisionally Suspends Paris Anti-Doping Lab Due To “Analytical Issues”
• USADA Delivers Education Awareness Course To Athletes/Coaches At Arizona State University

Video And Article: Justin Gatlin Reflects On NFL Tryouts With The Saints And Buccaneers Gatlin says his nickname was “Gold Medal” and that he thinks 400m runners make better wide receivers than 100m sprinters.

Marathon Course Revealed For 2018 Commonwealth Games In Australia

NCAA XC

• UNH’s Elinor Purrier And Colorado State’s Jerrell Mock Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Purrier got the win at the Coast-To-Coast Battle In Beantown while Mock won Roy Griak for the second year in a row.
• Week 3 Men’s Updated XC Regional Rankings
• Women’s Updated Regional XC Rankings
• MB: The Great NCAA XC Tailgate
• MB: Losing my girlfriend in college..
• MB: USF women’s XC team is hard to like

Berlin Women

LRC Kenya’s Gladys Cherono Wins Her Second Berlin Marathon In 2:20:23 There were a ton of PRs in this one as the opening pace was hot (69:40).

• RRW: Eliud Kipchoge, Gladys Cherono Triumph At Soggy Berlin Marathon
• Video Highlights

Non-Berlin News

• USADA Chief Travis Tygart Urges IOC To Ban Russia From Winter Olympics
• France Will Compete In 2018 Winter Olympics After All There was talk they’d pull out due to security concerns.
• Interesting Read A Look Back At The History Of The Chicago Marathon In the first year, it cost $10 to enter and three people were burned when the cannon used at the start misfired and burned them.
• Good Riddance Unreal: Former 2012 Olympic Champ Asli Cakir Alptekin Gets Popped For Drugs For 3rd Time – Banned For Life
• Give Her Another WR No Woman Had Ever Broken 50 Flat For 10 Miles But Based On Analysis Of The Video It Looks Like Joyceline Jepkosgei Ran 49:05

Pre-Race Berlin Coverage

LRC History Lesson A Look Back At The Men’s Marathon World Records Set In Berlin The last six world records in the men’s marathon (and 7 of the last 9) have all been set in Berlin. We take a look back at those historic races.

RRW Get the Inside Scoop On The Pacemaking That Might Make A World Record Possible At Sunday’s BMW Berlin Marathon Nike’s Sub-2 event taught us pacemaking is CRITICAL to running fast. There is some big pre-race drama as Bekele and Kipchoge won’t agree on what pace should be the goal.

• Kenenisa Bekele Says It’s Been Raining In Ethiopia So His Training Hasn’t Been Perfect – “I would put it at 90%.” He’s been running between 160km and 180 km per week (100-112 mpw).
• Adidas’s Wilson Kipsang Has His Own Special New Shoe Which He Says Is Amazing – adizero Sub2 He wore them in Tokyo and broke the course record by nearly 2 minutes. Adidas has held the marathon WR for 10 straight years.
  *MB: Memo to Nike fanboys: Adidas adizero Sub2 is the real deal. Adidas has held WR for 10 straight years
• Interesting: NY Times: Berlin Will Show Us If Barriers Are All Just Mental After Bannister broke 4:00, psychologists think sub-4s became common. Will Kipchoge’s 2:00:25 do the same in the marathon? Answer: No.
• Jos Hermens Won’t Be Surprised If Top 3 Break WR
• Berlin Marathon (And LetsRun.com) Gets Article In Wall St. Journal

Before Berlin On Sunday, A Look Back

LRC Classics #1 A Look Back At A Race For The Ages: Eliud Kipchoge Takes Down Kenenisa Bekele & El Guerrouj At The 2003 World Championships In 5,000 14 years ago, three of the greatest distance runners of all-time squared off at 5,000m and hardly anyone realized it.