January 8, 2018 | LetsRun.com

America’s Only Men’s Steeplechase Champ Has Died

RIP Horace Ashenfelter The FBI agent, who won 1952 Olympic gold against a favored Soviet rival, died Saturday at 94.
*RW: “In A Cold War Confrontation, The American FBI Agent Outkicked The Soviet Police Officer”
*IAAF Tribute

Weekend Action

HSer Katelyn Tuohy Runs 9:05 3k – US#4 ALL-TIME Only Alexa Efraimson (9:00), Katie Rainsberger (9:00) and Mary Cain (9:02) have run faster while in HS.
Laura Muir Opens Her Season Wth 8:37.21 3k Her PR is 8:26.
*Video Interview And Some Race Footage With Muir
Kenyans James Kibet (29:34) And Lilian Rengeruk (19:02) Win Campaccio XC Americans Paul Chelimo (29:38) and Joe Grey (30:16) were 3rd and 9th respectively as European marathon record holder Sondre Moen was 7th in 30:00. Desi Linden was 8th in 20:44.
*MB: Paul Chelimo takes 3rd at Campaccio Cross
World 1,500m Silver Medalist Timothy Cheruiyot And Fellow Kenyan Margaret Chelimo Kipkemboi Win 41st Antrim XC American Trevor Dunbar was 6th – 1 minute behind the winner.
Ethiopians Getaneh Molla (63:01) And Meseret Belete (73:27) Win Safi Half Marathon In a race that came down to a fast last mile, World marathon champ Rose Chelimo was only 4th.
Ethiopians Sweep Top 3 In Men’s (2:11:22) And Women’s (2:26:41) Races At Xiamen Marathon Dejene Debela and Fatuma Sado were your winners.
Navy Men Edge Princeton In 61st Year Of Princeton-Navy Dual Meet
Natoya Goule Runs 1:28.20 600 At Clemson

2017 World And US Rankings

LRC Women’s Marathon: The Incredible Tirunesh Dibaba Is #1; Shalane Flanagan #5 In The Best Year Ever For American Women’s Marathoning Shalane Flanagan cracks the top 5 as we for the first time exclude from our rankings an athlete, Sarah Chepchirchir, not convicted of a doping offense. Jordan Hasay #8.
*Discussion: Tirunesh Dibaba #1, Shalane Flanagan #5, Jordan Hasay #8 as Sarah Chepchirchir Unranked

LRC Men’s Marathon: Eliud Kipchoge Is The World’s Best Marathoner But Geoffrey Kirui Is World #1 Kirui won the World Champs and Boston while Kipchoge was his marvelous self with the fastest time of the year and win in Berlin (and Breaking2).
*Discuss: Men’s Marathon World Rankings: Geoffery Kirui is #1, Eliud Kipchoge #2… Galen Rupp #6

Track & Field News Top 10 Rankings For 2017: Top 10 U.S. Women’s Rankings *Top 10 U.S. Men’s Rankings

Previous LRC Rankings: *WSteeple: Emma Coburn IsWorld Champ, But Beatrice Chepkoech World #1 *MSteeple: Kipruto#1; USA’s Jager #3, Kebenei #4 *M 3K/5K: Muktar Edris Edges Mo Farah, Paul Chelimo #3 *W 3K/5K: Hellen Obi#1, Shannon Rowbury US #1 *M1,500: Manangoi And Centro #1*W1,500: Faith Kipyegon #1, Jenny Simpson #3 In World *Women’s 800 *Men 800

Olympic News

Japan Is Converting Their Toilets For The 2020 Games Almost half the toilets at tourist locations are “squatters” rather than sit-on “Western” models.
Survey Finds That 60% OF Russians Believe They Will Achieve Top-Three Finish At 2018 Winter Games Well if they did, they would be “Olympic Athletes from Russia” rather than Russians, so you know, big difference.
North Korea Accepts South Korea’s Proposal For Talkes About 2018 Winter Games Participation The meeting is set for January 9th at the Peace House in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea.

More Distance

NAU Looking Ahead To An NCAA XC Three-Peat While Returning Five Of Their Top Seven From This Year Coach Mike Smith: “Sometimes [a team loses its identity] once they become champions. That’s our real test now. There’s this zen saying: ‘Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.’ The way we got there is what we have to keep doing.”
World 1,500 Bronze Medalist Filip Ingebrigsten Gives HIs Tips For Sport And Life Ingebrigtsen says he likes retro sneakers from the 1970s and ’80s, driving fast with manual cars and recommends doing some different for dates like going for a hike and cooking a meal on a “gas-powered portable kitchen.”

Sprint Stuff

Wayde Van Niekerk Successfully Completes One-Month Rehab Program In Qatar Van Niekerk had surgery in October after tearing a knee ligament during a rugby game.
Jamaican Athletes May Face Obstacles Getting US Visas For “Extraordinary Ability” An American immigration lawyer is accusing the the US consulate of rejecting athletes saying they aren’t “extraordinary” enough, even though they don’t have the expertise to make that call.

Looking Ahead To Spring

March 7: London Marathon Champ Daniel Wanjiru Will Take On Mo Farah And Callum Hawkins At The Big Half With PRs of 59:20 (Wanjiru), 59:32 (Farah) and 60:00 (Hawkins), it’s setting up to be a great race.
*MB: It’s on!! Daniel Wanjiru will race Mo Farah (and Callum Hawkins) at Big Half in March – 7 weeks before London clash
Eliud Kipchoge Reveals He’ll Focus On The Win And Not The WR At London “To go out purely fighting to break the record is not ideal.”
World Marathon Champ Geoffrey Kirui Is Passing Up Commonwealth Games To Focus On Defending His Title At The Boston Marathon
Northern Ireland Names Team Of 12 For Commonwealth Games The team includes Olympic marathoners Paul Pollock and Kevin Seaward and European 1,500m bronze medalist Ciara Mageean.

Let’s Start 2018 Off With A WR

LRC No Excuses: 1-Degree Temps (-13 C) Don’t Prevent Japan’s Yuki Kawauchi From Breaking World Record For Most Sub-2:20 Marathons Kawauchi, who has 25 career sub-2:12s, now has 76 sub-2:20s, one more than American legend Doug Kurtis.
*Kawauchi Admits He Had Doubts When He Was Struggling Early “When I saw my 5 km split it was the first time in a race I’ve ever thought, ‘Why am I doing this?'”

Jan. 2 Action: Toyo University Leads Defending Champ Aoyama Gakuin By 36 Seconds After Day One Of Hakone Ekiden Very impressive considering their entire senior class is out with injury.

Dec. 31/Jan. 1 Action – It’s Nice To Be Undefeated For 2018

RRW Saucony’s Molly Seidel (21:24) And Skechers’ Reid Buchanan (19:08) Win 2017 NYRR Midnight Run Seidel beat Sarah Pagano by 8 seconds whereas Buchanan dominated and won by 50 seconds over Daniel Winn. *Results
Germany: Konstanze Klosterhalfen Ends 2017 With A 15:34 Road Win/1,500 Finalist Hanna Klein Ends It With 32:28 CR 10k
Australia: Australia’s Next “Superstar” Mid-D Prospect – Matthew Ramsden Wins NY’s Mile
Spain: Kenya’s Erick Kiptanui (27:34) & Ethiopia’s Gelete Burka (30:55) Win Madrid’s 53th San Silvestre Vallecana
Italy: World 5,000m Champ Muktar Edris Wins Third Boclassic In 28:45 Agnes Tirop won the women’s race in a 15:30 to break the 27-year-old course record.
France: Switzerland’s Julien Wanders (28:02) Ends 30 Years Of African Dominance By Winning Houilles 10k Kenya’s Stacey Ndiwa won the women’s race in 31:35.
Japan: Asahi Kasei Defends Its New Year Ekiden Corporate National Title Bedan Karoki was sensational on the 2nd leg as he passed 18 people just four weeks after running Fukuoka.
Ritsumeikan University Wins Fifth-Straight Women’s National University Ekiden At Mt. Fuji This race was held earlier in the week.

Sprint Stuff

The NY Times Examines Sprinting In The NFL And Explains Why Track Speed Doesn’t Equal Game Speed “Combine speed is overrated” as some NFLers will tell you because the fastest straight sprinters aren’t necessarily the best on the field.
Good Read: IAAF Profile: Jasmin Stowers Eager To Make Her Mark At Birmingham World Indoors Stowers isn’t taking 2018 as an “off” year as she’s wants a world indoor medal/Diamond League title. But first, she’ll need to make Team USA, something she’s never done despite being 2nd, 4th and 2nd fastest sprinter in the world the last 3-years.

Justin Gatlin Spotted At His Former Coach Brooks Johnson’s Training Camp In Orlando, Florida
Trinidad And Tobago’s World 200m Bronze Medalist And 4 X 400 Champ Jereem Richards Says His Greatest Achievement Has Been “Passing College Algebra” Richards says he had a much easier time winning 200m bronze as even though his coach couldn’t sleep & his sister was throwing up, he “wasn’t nervous at all.”

Stars In The News

Good Read Former 5,000 WR Holder Dick Quax Opens Up About His 4-Year Battle Against Cancer, His 1976 Olympic Silver And His WR
Andrew Wheating Exit Interview: A Look Back At His Career And Retirement (CITIUS MAG Podcast)
Joshua Cheptegei Recalls His 1st International Race – A 28:24 Performance On The Roads In India He was thrown into the deep end as the race winner was Geoffrey Kamworor.
Usain Bolt Continues His Ridiculous Talk About Playing In Premiere League “It’s going to be hard because my career has been so great but if I could win a Champions League or something, it’ll be close to anything I achieved in athletics.”
41-Year-Old Kim Collins Hasn’t Retired – He’s Ready For His 14th Indoor Season
Omar McLeod Says He’s Thrilled He Switched Coaches Mid-Season Last Year To Eldrick Floreal – Also Says He Won’t Do Commonwealths As It’s Too Close To World Indoors
Fast Running: Could Mountain Star Kilian Jornet Run A 2:10 Marathon? We’ll answer that – no way.
Did You Know? Pat Tiernan Played Cricket Until 2012

Andrew Wheating Retires

LRC Former Oregon Great Andrew Wheating Retires At Age 30 – A Look Back At The Highs And Lows Of His Career Tons of glory as a Duck and a 3:30.9 1,500m before he even signed his Nike contract. A look at his career. Discuss: ANDREW WHEATING RETIRES
*Favorite Andrew Wheating Moment?

Good Read: Runner’s World Q&A With Andrew Wheating On His Retirement Asked if he would change anything about his career he said, “No, honestly I wouldn’t. The things that happened in my career happened, and they made me who I am today. I’m thankful for what happened and what didn’t happen and I have no regrets on how it turned out.”
Register-Guard: Wheating Decides To Hang Up His Running Spikes For Good Wheating’s message to his competitors: “To my competition, I hated every single one of you … for 4 minutes or less. But I loved you just as much when the race was over. … Keep the flame stoked and don’t ever stop believing in your potential. I’ll see ya behind the stands.”
Ken Goe Article
Wheating’s Facebook Post Announcement

Another Mid-D Guy Is Also Retiring: Brooks Beasts’ Former NCAA 3rd Placer Shaquille Walker Retires From Track At 24 Years Old Walker said running was interfering with other things in life and he’ll now focus on spending time with his family and pursuing a career as a dentist.
*MB: What? Shaquille Walker would rather be a dentist than an Olympic medallist and Danny Mackey thinks he could have set the AR?

The Commonwealth Games Are In Three Months

Team England Sprinters James Dasaolu And Ashleigh Nelson Withdraw From 2018 Commonwealth Games No reason is given in the article.
Hurdlers Alicia Barrett And Jessica Turner Added To Team England For Gold Coast 2018 CWG Where were added in place of Dasaolu and Nelson.
Irish 100m Record Holder Amy Foster Says Commonwealth Exclusion From Northern Ireland Team Has Left Her “Heartbroken” Her exclusion was a surprise as she had hit the qualifying mark on multiple occasions.
Scottish Hammer Thrower Chris Bennett Hopes Not To Repeat Mistakes From 2014 CWG Bennett finished last in the final 4 years ago and is hoping for a medal this time around.

The Action Gets Hot Next Week

LRC American Record Alert: The 2018 Houston Half Marathon Is Going To Be Incredible Next weekend’s Houston half is LOADED. There are six sub-60 men in the field but the women’s field headlines with Molly Huddle vs. Jordan Hasay – and they are far from guaranteed to win.

Starting Off 2018 With A Bang

January 14: Ten Past Champions Headline Super-Deep Fields For 2018 Chevron Houston Marathon And Aramco Houston Half Marathon In the women’s half, Molly Huddle and Jordan Hasay take on US soil record holder Mary Wacera (66:29) and Edith Chelimo (65:52). Alex Korio Oloitiptit (58:51) leads a men’s half field with Olympic silver medalist Feyisa Lelisa, Callum Hawkins, Stephen Sambu, Diego Estrada, Sam Chelanga, Luke Puskedra and Bernard Lagat. In the men’s marathon, defending champ Dominic Ondoro takes on Bazu Worku (2:05:25) while last year’s women’s half winner Veronicah Nyaruai Wanjiru makes her marathon debut against Mamitu Daska (2:21:59).
January 26: Some Great Races Set For Dr. Sander Invitational (Formerly Armory Invy) With Clayton Murphy Vs. Robby Andrews In The 800 And Kate Grace And Lauren Johnson In The Mile Craig Engels is in the men’s mile and Ajee Wilson and Charlene Lipsey in the women’s 800. Courtney Okolo leads the sprints, Ryan Whiting the throws and NCAA champs Karissa Schweizer and Ariana Washington are also competing.
February 3: Genzebe Dibaba Returns To The Meeting Karlsruhe 1,500 To Take On German Mid-D Stars Konstanze Klosterhalfen And Gesa Felicitas Krause Dibaba set the indoor WR at 3:55.17 at this meet four years ago.
February 6: World 1,500 Champ Elijah Manangoi And World PV Champ Sam Kendricks Added To Fields For The Dusseldorf Indoor Meet The men’s 800, meanwhile, has World silver and bronze medalists Adam Kszczot and Kipyegon Bett.

2017 Is Over

Who Were the Most USADA Drug-Tested Runners of 2017? Galen Rupp topped the list at 16 times while Shalane Flanagan and Ajee Wilson were the most tested females with 12 tests.
Interesting: Toni Reavis – Marathoning 2017 By The Numbers Reavis compares the number of sub-2:10s since 2010 and breaks them down by country. At a glance, besides Eliud Kipchoge‘s 2:00:25, it looks like the marathon has hit a bit of a plateau.
IAAF 2017 End-Of-Year Sprints Review Usain Bolt bombed, Wayde Van Niekerk delivered while Tori Bowie and Dafne Schippers impressed for the women.
2017 Diamond League Review – Part 1 Highlights from Doha through Paris. *Part 2 DL Review Lausanne through Brussels.

The World’s Biggest XC Fan

LRC Meet Mr. Cross-Country, The Sport’s Biggest Fan Cross-country’s biggest fan, Michael Mahon, resides in Massachusetts, where for the past 33 years he has traveled to over 1,747 career meets, bag of cans in tow. And he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
*Michael Mahon – Mr. Cross-Country – Share Your Favorite Story Here

Stat Geeks, This Is For You

Bring Back The Mile Lists The 1st Sub-4 Mile Recorded By The 71 Different Countries To Have Produced A Sub-4 Man No country has yet produced a sub-4 woman.

Random

Runner’s World‘s 6 Reasons To Get Psyched About Track In 2018 The article says Paul Chelimo is a funnier version of Steve Prefontaine.

More Distance Stuff

Good Read: The Malibu Times: David Torrence’s Memory Sprints On Torrence’s mother is trying to accomplish some of her son’s goals like helping young runners in Peru. “Whatever David wanted to do, I’m doing for him. That’s what keeps me going. It’s so hard to lose my son, my friend, my coach, my inspiration. It’s been tough, but I’m really proud of all his accomplishments and the impact he had on the whole world.”
Toni Reavis Analyzes Women’s Marathoning Trends From 2010 Through 2017 A lot more countries share a piece of the pie with the women compared to the men, but Ethiopia beat out Kenya with 77 (35%) of the sub-2:30 women in 2017 (Kenya had 72, Japan 16 and USA 12).
USTFCCCA: Which Collegiate Indoor Records Could Fall In 2018? Could Karissa Schweizer take down Emily Sisson‘s 15:12 mark in the 5,000 and could Josh Kerr beat Edward Cheserek‘s 3:52?
Women Share What It’s Like To Run While Pregnant They share the benefits and drawbacks to running while preganant and share how they deal with the people’s reactions to it.

Saturday And Sunday

Saturday: Paul Chelimo And World 5,000 Champ Hellen Obiri Headline Fields For San Giorgio SU Legano XC Meet Chelimo is up against Norway’s 2:05 man Sondre Nordstad Moen while Obiri faces 2015 World XC champ Agnes Tirop and Desiree Linden.
Saturday: World 1,500 Silver Medalist Timothy Cheruiyot And Ireland’s Former Euro XC Champ Fionnuala McCormack Headline At Antrim XC Meet In The UK *Athletics Weekly Preview Andy Vernon and Gemma Steel lead Team GB.
Sunday: Laura Muir Will Kick Off Her Indoor Season At The GAA Miler Meet In Glasgow With A Mixed Gender 3,000 The race will serve as the Scottish 3,000m national championships.
Sunday: Former Champions Meseret Mengistu (2:23:25) And Fatuma Sado (2:24:16) Will Clash At Xiamen Marathon In China Ethiopia’s Ayele Abshero (2:04:23 PR from 2012) leads the men’s race with Deribe Robi (2:05:58).

Distance News

Recommended Read: NYC 5th Placer Allie Kieffer Blogs About Her Physique/Weight: “My Weight Has Nothing To Do With How Good A Runner I Am” Kieffer says she’s faced comments about being “too big” for a runner her whole career and at one point it pushed her to cut too many calories and get a stress fracture. She says that now, “I feel lucky that I’m no longer so young and impressionable.”
*MB: Allie Kieffer responds to comments about her weight/physique — SELF magazine article
2016 Foot Locker Runner-Up Nevada Mareno Transfers From Stanford To NC State She joins a team that includes sisters Wesley and Ryen Frazier whose father coached Mareno for part of her HS career.
*MB: It’s OFFICIAL! Nevada Mareno transfers to N.C State

2018 Winter Olympics Start Next Month In South Korea

Line Of Communication Opens Between North And South Korea For The First Time In Two Years This after Kim Jong Un said in his New Year’s Day speech that he hoped North Korea would compete at Pyeongchang 2018.
US Senator Suggests We Should Pull Out Of 2018 Winter Olympics If North Korea Participates
U.S. Skating Officials Brush Aside Talk of Boycotting Olympics US Figure Skating officials welcome North Korea’s precipitation saying, “It would be the safest place in the world.” By that, we take it they assume Kim Jong Un wouldn’t bomb his own Olympic athletes.
Neutral Russian Parade Uniforms For Winter Games Approved By IOC Apparently the IOC said the colors couldn’t be “exactly the same” as the Russian flag, so they’re going to be darker. What a harsh punishment.
IOC Asks Russia To Change Color Of Bobsleds Uniforms And Sled To Be More Neutral The IOC detected “Russian national motives” in the proposed design, so the sleds will now be burgundy instead of red.