October 31, 2017 | LetsRun.com

Usain Bolt’s Departure Was Planned – This Was Unplanned

MB: Van Niekerk ACL TEAR! Wayde tears ACL in celebrity tag rugby game! Van Niekerk had injured himself in a touch rugby game for celebrities on Oct 7. He didn’t realize the severity of the injury until later but has put his honeymoon on hold to have surgery in the US today. He’ll be out 6-9 months.

No Mo Farah At NOP

MB: Breaking News: Salazar And Mo Farah Split Farah will be returning to the UK where he will be coached by Gary Lough – Paula Radcliffe‘s husband.

The Oregonian: Alberto Salazar Says The Decision For Farah Leaving NOP Was Mutual
Mo Farah Used To Make His Wife Sleep In An Altitude Tent With Him; Now They Have One That Splits The Bed From the second video interview in the article.
The Guardian: “Mo Farah Splits With Controversial Coach Alberto Salazar And Returns To UK”
The Independent: “Mo Farah Splits With Alberto Salazar But Denies It’s Due To Doping Allegations”
MB: Nike Oregon Project GOES HOME DEVASTATED!

Post-Conference Champs Editorial

LRC What About The Sport? Portland, You Shouldn’t Be Tanking Your Conference Meet The #3-ranked Portland Pilots didn’t think they could beat BYU at conference, so they trotted out a team that wasn’t their best. Jonathan Gault weighs in and LRC supports his view coaches shouldn’t blow off conference meets.

Frankfurt Marathon Live Streaming Runner Tracking & Results *Frankfurt Stats

Results Shure Tola (2:05:50) And Vivian Cheruiyot (2:23:35) Win As Dewi Griffiths (2:09:49 Debut) And Sara Hall (2:27:21 PR, 2:28:26 Previous) Are Top Non-Africans In 5th The NAZ Elite guys ran pretty well as Scott Smith ran a big 2:12:21 PR (2:14:40 previous), Scott Fauble 2:12:35 (debut), and Matt Llano 2:13:42 (2:12:28 PR).
*IAAF Recap

Frankfurt Message Board Chatter

MB: Official 2017 Frankfurt Marathon Thread
MB: DEWI GRIFFITHS (Wales) 2:09:48 debut in Frankfurt Griffiths, a sheep farmer who ran a 61:33 half earlier this month, went through the half in 63:49 after running the 3rd 5k segment in 14:35. At 35k he was still on 2:08:28 pace.
MB: Scott Smith – over 2 minute PR at age 31.
MB: Can’t deny it, NAZ Elite had a SOLID showing today OP thinks they were better than BTC at Chicago.

Upcoming Distance Action

Women’s Distance News

Kara Goucher, Jenny Simpson And Emma Coburn All To Be Recognized At Colorado Football Game Today Mark Wetmore is thrilled that Goucher is finally getting recognition for her 2007 silver but wishes the IAAF would act faster.”We are very pleased that Kara’s medal has been upgraded. She earned it then and deserves it now. It’s a little disappointing for her to get it so late, but she at least received it in the London stadium in front of a lot of people. There’s a thrower (Adam Nelson) who got upgraded in the food court of an airport.”
Supermom Laura Graham Will Try To Defend Her Dublin Marathon Crown This Weekend After Running 2:37 In Berlin Running two marathons close together isn’t unusual for the mom of FOUR as she won Belfast this year in 2:41 just 8 days after running London in 2:42.
World Half Record Holder Joyciline Jepkosgei In No Hurry To Make Marathon Debut – Says She’ll Do World Half In March She says her marathon debut may not come until 2019.
5th-Fastest Half Marathoner Ever, Violah Jepchumba, Says She’ll Also Run World Half – Then Make Marathon Debut Next Fall

Road News: NYC Is Next Week

Lelisa Desisa Hopes To Apply Breaking2 Lessons Towards New York You might take it for granted that the world’s best are experts on basic training principles (like running workouts at an even pace), but Desisa says he learned a lot about pacing, speed work, nutrition and recovery from the Breaking2 project.
Betsy Saina Hoping For A Big Break In NYC After DNFing In Her Marathon Debut In Tokyo For her buildup, Saina left the US to train in Kenya and get advice from Edna Kiplagat and Mary Keitany.
GB’s Andy Vernon Is Leaving The Track For The Roads After The 2018 Season Vernon is thinking of making his marathon debut in NYC next year.
November 5: Course Record Holders And Defending Champs Buze Diriba And Tyler Pennel Return For The EQT Pittsburgh 10 Miler The men’s field is led by Worlds steeple 5th placer Stanley Kebenei and Boilermaker 15K champ Silas Kipruto while Diriba will face World Half bronze medalist Mary Wacera in the women’s race.
Eliud Kipchoge And Mary Keitany Could Land AIMS Best Marathoner Award Hat Trick The winners will be announced next month.

NCAA News: Conference Champs Weekend *Conference Championships Central

Good Read: DyeStat: Justyn Knight Approaching This XC Season With A New Level Of Confidence After Making 5,000 Final At Worlds Knight says he went “fanboy” when he introduced himself to Mo Farah after the 5,000 semis in London.
Register-Guard: Oregon’s Lilli Burdon Has Gone From A Mid-D Only Specialist To A Thriving Distance Runner She’s been UO’s #2 runner, but as recently as track season didn’t even want to run 5,000 on the track.
Register-Guard: Former Prep Star Tanner Anderson Has Stepped Up In His Junior Year For The Ducks Anderson has contributed in the past, but has broken out this season, leading Oregon with a 17th place individual finish at Pre-Nats.
USTFCCCA Conference Champs Weekend Preview There are 31 conference championships this weekend.
Matt Centrowitz Has Been Helping At UO Practices This Fall While Returning To School To Finish His Degree Centro left Oregon after his junior year to go pro.
SEC Conference Title No. 50 On The Line For Arkansas
The Stanford Daily: Stanford Gears Up For PAC-12 Champs

Until 2017 TCN New York City Marathon

Alicia and Ryan Shay

LRC Digging Deep: The Legacy Of Ryan Shay Ten Years After His Death At Olympic Marathon Trials 10 years ago this week, Ryan Shay died suddenly at the Olympic Marathon Trials in New York. We look at his legacy a decade later. *Donate To Ryan Shay Foundation

LRC 2017 NYC Marathon U.S. Men’s Preview: Can Meb Close Out His Career As The Top American? Or Will Jared Ward, Abdi Abdirahman Or Shadrack Biwott Stop Him? 4 real high quality American men that will battle in NY this weekend – past champ Meb Kefelzighi, Olympic sixth placer Jared Ward, the ageless Abdi Abdirahman and Shadrack Biwott, who has been top 5 in his last 2 majors.
*MB: Who will be the top American man at 2017 NYC Marathon? Meb, Abdi, Jared, or Shadrack?

Fantastic Read Tim Layden: Meb Keflezighi’s Impact On US Distance Running Meb sums up things nicely with, “My story is the American Dream.” Article includes scoop on Meb’s final workouts from Mammoth Lakes.

RRW: Fifteen Years Ago, The TCS NYC Marathon Put Women First In 2002, NYC moved from a mass mixed start to having the elite women go on their own earlier so they’d get their fair share of the spotlight. While common now, it was revolutionary at the time.

NCAA / High School News

One Of The Best Weekends Of The Year – NCAA XC Conference Championship Weekend Live Results & Schedule TV & Streaming

MB: OFFICIAL 2017 NCAA Conference XC Champs Discussion Thread

LRC 2017 NCAA Cross-Country Roundup: Interesting Stories And Stats From Friday’s Action What a crazy, fun, and exciting day. We try to cover it all – whether it was USC forfeiting at PAC-12s, #2 BYU perfect scoring #3 Portland, Colorado State winning title #1, Colorado losing title #1, Columbia going from last to first, Arkansas winning again, Lamar winning a nail-biter, Syracuse winning a laugher, or Alabama going 1-2-3 and losing.

LRC Super Fan Polls: New Mexico Edges Oregon On Tiebreaker To Be #1, NAU #1 On Men’s Side The LRC faithful have spoken and we’ve got their national and conference votes.

ACC: Syracuse Men and Justyn Knight Roll *NC State Women Cruise Paige Stoner of Syracuse won the women’s title.
*MB: Bold prediction: USTFCCCA say V. Tech might beat Syracuse at ACCs. Really?
Ivy League: Princeton Men Win For 8th Time In Last 12 Years With Just 28 Points *Columbia Women Win After Finishing Last In 2016
PAC-12: Colorado Men Lose (To Stanford) For 1st Time Ever, #1 Oregon Women Upset By Colorado Race is so good it will be broadcast on PAC-12 network live for 1st time ever.
*Stanford Recap
SEC: #27 Arkansas Men Win 8th Straight Over #16 Ole Miss *#6 Arkansas Women Win 5th Straight With 35 Points The Alabama men were second after going 1-2-3,
West Coast: #2 BYU Goes 1-2-3-4-5 On #3 Portland *#4 San Fran. Women Win With 20 Points
*MB: BYU Perfect Scores #3 Portland: most dominant performance in WCC History!!!

Saturday

American: UConn Women, Tulsa Men Win
Big East: Villanova Women, Georgetown Men Win
Big Sky: NAU Sweeps It’s the 11th straight win for the NAU men but a message board poster is more impressed with BYU.
*MB: BYU 1, NAU 0 based off of respective conference performances
Big 12: Iowa State Sweeps As OK State Comes Up Just Short In Bid For 10th-Straight Men’s Title On the men’s side, it was Iowa State 40, Texas 41 and OK State 44.
*MB: Iowa State Wins BIG 12’s. Poke choke 2nd! Whaaat
Patriot: Army Men Win 1st Outright Patriot League Title Since 2001, Bucknell Women Win
Southern Conference: FURMAN PERFECTS SOCON w/ 23:57 AVG The women won handily as well.
American: MB: Emmanuel Rotich wins ~~the American conference meet with a 4:13 last mile after running off course~~ We’ve received word that no wrong turn was made. *Results
All Results

Sunday

Big 10: Michigan Men Win Wisco went 1-2 but Kevin Sullivan‘s Wolverines are the champs.

More Message Board NCAA Talk

Beer Mile WR Goes Down

Canada’s Corey Bellemore Runs New Beer Mile WR With 4:33.6 Bellemore broke his own WR during the halftime of a San Francisco Deltas professional soccer game. Track and field journalist Cathal Dennehy broke the Irish national record in 4th place with 5:25.2.

Doping Stuff

USA Today: IOC Will Make Decision On Russian And The 2018 Winter Games At December Executive Board Meeting *InsideTheGames Article
Increase In Adverse Analytical Findings Reported By WADA In 2016 Testing Report The number rose from 1.26% in 2015 to 1.60% in 2016.
Monday And Tuesday: Rehabilitation Of RUSADA Among Topics To Be Discussed At iNADO “Making Anti-Doping Better” Symposium

Is Drug Testing A Waste Of Money?

Ciarán Ó Lionáird Complains That Sport Ireland Has Continued To Drug Test Him After He’s Already Retired Ó Lionáird gives a bit of a rant about how he thinks drug testing is a waste of money that could go to athletes. “I proved I completed clean, but even if I didn’t, nothing about their behaviour suggested they would have been able to catch me if I was (doping). I still feel like you could micro-dose and get away with it, because people are.”
*Irish Examiner: Ó Lionáird Has Continued To Be Tested Because He Has Not Formally Issued A Retirement Notice To Sport Ireland

Week That Was

LRC WTW: The Year Of The Women’s Half Marathon, A Premature Celebration, And An Introduction To Fancy Chemutai And Sondre Moen 2017 has been a revolutionary one for women in the half marathon. We look at that, Fancy Chemutai and Sondre Moen, and a premature celebration and runners going off course.

News From Over The Pond

IAAF Profile: Taste Of Success Has Given Young GB 1,500 Star Jake Wightman Hunger For More Recently Wightman was in Las Vegas for a meeting and got weird looks when he was running a tempo run on the Strip at 6AM on a Saturday.
Greg Rutherford Leads 75-Strong England Team For 2018 Commonwealth Games *Full England Roster
Team GB Continues To Be A Joke: Won’t Send Any Male Marathoner To Commonwealth Games Jonny Mellor ran 2:12:57 (63 seconds faster than the qualifying time), but wasn’t selected. “If every country adopted the mindset that they only took medal contenders to the championships, the Games would suffer because you’d only have three competitors in each event.”
Diana Asher-Smith Says CWG Gives Extra Motivation For The Early Season “There’s absolutely no excuse not to do every single rep and every single step to the best of your ability.”
Retired GB High Jumper Jayne Nisbet Writes Book About Eating Disorders, Hoping To Help Her Fellow Athletes “My story is proof that there is life after an eating disorder and shows those struggling that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
GB Sprinter Adam Gemili Thinking Of Going For Triple Gold (100, 200, 4 x 100) At Next Year’s European Champs

African News

Haile Gebrselassie Talks About His First Year As President Of The Ethiopian Athletics Federation “I found that breaking records is hundred times easier than leadership.”
World Half Marathon Record Setter Joyciline Jepkosgei (64:51) Wants To Run The World Half Champs And Then Move Up To The Full Marathon She plans to make her debut late 2018 or early 2019.
SPIKES Q&A With Wilson Kipsang Kipsang talks about how he approaches his running as a self-coached athlete.
Eliud Kipchoge Thinks The “Limit For A Human Being” In The Marathon Is Between 1:58 And 1:59
Top Half Marathoner Violah Jepchumba (65:22) Sets Her Sights On A Fall 2018 Marathon Debut Jepchumba is #6 all-time in the half.
Nigeria Athletics Federation In Crisis As Board Members Moving To Remove Its President
November 12: Tigist Girma To Defend Beirut Marathon Title; Targeting 2:28:00 Edwin Kiptoo returns to defend his title in the men’s race as well.

Need A Job?

BAA Hiring A New High Performance Coach
*MB: Terrence Mahon out at BAA – to return to California at end of 2017
The IAAF Is Hiring A “Director Of Platforms And Distribution” You will be expected to play a key part “in helping to set the strategic direction of the organization.”

More Weekend Action

Kenyan Marius Kimutai (2:08:33) And Ethiopian Shuko Genemo (2:27:02) Battle Strong Winds To Get Convincing Victories At The Ljubljana Marathon In Slovenia
Irishman Loses His National Marathon Title To A Kenyan Kenyan Benard Rotich won the Dublin Marathon in 2:15:53 while his countryman Freddy Sittuk finished 4th (2:16:05). Sittuk was eligible for the national championships because he’s been running for an Irish club for years. Meanwhile Gary O’Hanlon, who finished 11th in 2:18:53, was disappointed to find out after crossing the line that he hadn’t won the national title. *Results
Jemal Yimer (59:16) And Edith Chelimo (1:05:58) Get Comfortable Victories At The Marseille Cassis 20K
Meijo University Women Win First National University Ekiden Title Since 2005
Phillip Reid (65:51) Wins Rock ‘N’ Roll Los Angeles Half Marathon
Athletics Weekly: Quality Races At British Masters XC Relays

A “Dreams Become Reality” Running Story

Recommended Read: Check Out This Excerpt From Brandon Hudgins’ Book On How He Battled Against Vasculitis To Achieve His Dream Of Competing At The Olympic Trials In this excerpt from his book, Going the Distance: The Journey of a Vasculitis Patient on the Road to Olympic Glory, Hudgins walks through his decision to quit his job to chase the standard for the 2016 OT. Hudgins has gotten a lot of love over the years on the boards and was the LRC quote of the day a couple of years ago when he first went sub-4.
*Press Release On The Book *Buy It On Amazon

Men’s News That Makes The Cut

59:47 Man Sondre Moen Talks Briefly To Alberto Stretti About His Epic Race Last Weekend He reveals he ran the 2nd half alone but that Canova told him to go out with the leaders.
Eliud Kipchoge Says Sub-2 Marathon Will Happen “Any Minute Now” At Press Event In Hong Kong
Q&A with 1952 Olympic 100 Champ Lindy Remigino, Who Is Being Inducted Into USATF Hall Of Fame Amazing to think that they inducted someone banned from doping – Mary Slaney – long before an Olympic 100 champ. Interesting fact – Remigno’s son ran 1:49 in HS.
Euro 5,000m Champ Ilias Fifa Temporarily Released From Prison After Doping Arrest He must check in with the judge twice a month and can’t leave Spain.
Commonwealth Games 200m Bronze Medalist Jason Livermore Of Jamaica Given 2-Year Ban He has PRs of 10.03 and 20.13.
Greg Rutherford Is Unsure About Tokyo 2020 – Says It All Depends If His Body Holds Up

Non-Distance News

Recommended Read: Bleacher Report On Sydney McLaughlin: “The Track Phenom Who Chose College Over Riches” Liam Boylan-Pett profiles McLaughlin, who’s enjoying freshman year at the University of Kentucky, McLaughlin: “I wanted the experience of being a college kid. To walk on a campus, live on my own, get experiences to mature as a person and in the sport.”
GQ’s List Of The 50 Greatest Living Athletes Four track athletes made the list, but none of them distance runners.
2018 Won’t Be Down Year For Sally Pearson, Who’s Chasing Double Glory At World Indoors And A Home Commonwealth Games
Meet 17-Year-Old Molly Caudery, England’s Youngest Commonwealth Games Athlete Caudery won pole vault silver at the European U20 Champs this summer and is currently visiting colleges in the US (FSU and Kentucky).
Sweden’s World Discus Silver Medalist Daniel Stahl Gives His Tips For Sport And Life “Discus is not life or death. It is just a sport.”
GB National 110H Champ Dave King Aiming For A CWG Medal After Not Making It Out Of The Heats At Worlds

North American Marathoner News

Donations Pour In To Compensate Canadian Marathon Champion For His $1,250 Celebration Trevor Hofbauer had an extensive finish line celebration which likely cost him the $1,250 bonus for going sub-2:18 (he ran 2:18:06). But Hofbauer doesn’t have to live in regret because a crowd-funding campaign racked up to more than $2,500 to make up for his missed time bonus.
*MB: Canadian Runner loses $1,250 due to celebration
Good Read: Sports Illustrated: “Ahead Of The 2017 NYC Marathon, Shalane Flanagan Isn’t Done … Yet” Read: Flanagan feels she is missing a WMM win from her career and is approaching NYC like it’s her last chance, because while that isn’t her plan, it could be. Flanagan also touches on the NOP investigation and Chicago performances.
Recommended Listen: Cloud 259 Podcast Interview With Puerto Rico’s Beverly Ramos Ahead Of The NYC Marathon (Interview Starts At 4:35 Mark) Ramos discusses the struggles of living and training in Puerto Rico without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and trying to break her 2:36 NR in NYC. *Full Interview Transcript
Carrie Tollefson Does Podcast Interview With Jared Ward Ward talks about balancing training with work and family life as well as his goals for the NYC Marathon.

Olympics Stuff

Scary: British Olympic Association Preparing Winter Games Evacuation Plans In Case Of North Korea Attack The BOA head says though that it is just a contingency plan and that he was much more worried about violence at Rio 2016 than any threats in South Korea.
Alan Abrahamson: “Enough Already With The Pole Dancing” There has been talk about the possibility of pole dancing one day getting in the Olympics, but Abrahamson writes, “The chance of pole dancing becoming an Olympic sport is the same as me beating Justin Gatlin in a 100-meter sprint.”
Boston Mayor Criticized For 2024 Olympic Bid As He Tries To Win Re-Election His challenger argues Boston “wasted a whole year” on the bid effort.
InsideTheGames: “What should the IOC be saying to local people in order to win a referendum?” Nick Butler writes the speech that he thinks IOC president Thomas Bach should give.
Tokyo Plays Down Water Pollution Fears Rio 2016 promised to clean up their water too …