Meet The Guy Who Outkicked Justyn Knight At NCAAs

LRC How Andy Trouard Went From Northern Arizona’s #4 Man In Cross-Country To A National Champion On The Track A couple of years ago, the odds were pretty high that Andy Trouard wouldn’t even be a runner right now – he was planning on becoming a triathlete. Now he’s the NCAA 3,000-meter champion. Here’s how it happened.
*MB: NCAA Champ Andy Trouard sticks out tongue on last turn of 3k and nearly falls

Bonus Material: Podcast With NAU Coach Mike Smith: The Rise Of Andy Trouard And Why You Should Embrace The Hurt In A 5K

NYC Half Is Sunday

Blockbuster Fields Set For 2018 NYC Half Marathon: 2016 Champion Stephen Sambu Faces Dathan Ritzenhein, Wilson Chebet (59:15), Chris Derrick, Abdi Abdirahman, Shadrack Biwott The women’s race has last year’s runner-up Emily Sisson, Vivian Cheruiyot, Desi Linden, Mamitu Daska (66:28), Buze Diriba (66:50), Betsy Saina, Aliphine Tuliamuk and Allie Kieffer.

From The Weekend

• GB’s Laura Weightman Wins Podium 5K In The UK In 15:25 The time moved her to 4th on the UK all-time list.
• 2018 USATF Hershey National Youth Indoor Champs Come To A Close With 29 Meet Records

Assorted Other News

• Usain Bolt Has A Line Of Hot Sauces Available In Australia Usain’s Insane Hot Sauces come in three flavors and are inspired by a Bolt family recipe.
• Irish Hurdler Thomas Barr Welcomes IAAF Decision To End “Ridiculous” National Swapping “If I was to move away to a different country for a year, I wouldn’t think I was French or German just because I was living there for a short period of time. It was a little bit ridiculous that it could happen overnight.”
• BBC: UK Anti-Doping Tells Athletes Not To Refuse Tests Even If Testers Are Using Discontinued Sample Bottles This seems obvious, but maybe they don’t want athletes trying to use that as an excuse to evade a test.
• Trail Runners Find Abandoned Puppies On Barkley Marathons Course The pups were rescued and taken to an animal shelter and one was adopted and named Barkley.

He Already Was The XC Coach Of The Year …

LRC Portland Coach Rob Conner Sends Free T-Shirts To His Supporters On LetsRun.com Coach Conner looked up the guys who backed the Pilots in the Running Warehouse Prediction Contest and sent them free T-shirts. Pretty cool.

LetsThrow.com

• Tom Walsh After Winning His 9th Consecutive New Zealand Shot Put Title: “I’m bigger, faster and stronger than I have ever been.”
• Jamaican Shot Putter Danniel Thomas-Dodd Relishing Her Switch From Sprints To Throws After Winning Jamaica’s First Women’s Global Throwing Medal At World Indoors She started as a sprinter in high school, but says she transitioned to the throws after hurting her groin and not being able to sprint.
• Johannes Vetter’s 92.70m Championship Record Javelin Throw Highlights European Throwing Cup In Leiria, Portugal All five of Vetter’s throws would have been good enough to win the meet. *IAAF Overall Meet Recap
• Germany’s Nadine Muller Wins Her 6th Discus Title At The European Throwing Cup
• World Discus Silver Medalist Daniel Stahl Leads A Swedish 1-2 At European Throwing Cup

Post-Winter Games News

• German Athletes Panel Criticize IOC Decision To Lift Russian Suspension “The given press release by the IOC is no satisfying explanation neither to the public nor to the athletes why this decision was made only a few days after the Games ended.”
• President Donald Trump Claims Pyeongchang 2018 Would Have Been A “Total Failure” Without Him Trump said, “President Moon of South Korea said without Donald Trump the Olympics would have been a total failure. … It’s a little hard to sell tickets when you think you’re going to be nuked.”
• Russian President Vladimir Putin Reveals He Ordered A “Hijacked” Plane Targeting Sochi 2014 Opening Ceremony To Be Shot Down A passenger on the 110 person flight claimed to have a bomb, but it ended up being a hoax and no action was taken.
• International Paralympic Committee Members Say They Feel No Pressure To Reinstate Russia After New Deal With IOC The IPC has done a much better job actually punishing Russia than the IOC.

2018 US 15k Champs – The 40th Gate River Run *Results

MB: Molly Huddle just destroyed Jordan Hasay at 2018 US 15k champs (40th Gate River Run). Leonard Korir beats Chelanga and Hehir Huddle took off just after 4 miles and won by 50 seconds whereas Korir waited until the last mile to dispatch Chelanga.

Interesting News From Outside The US

• Caster Semenya Broke The South African 1k Record On Thursday Night With A 2:35.43
• Justin Gatlin Loses 150m Race In South Africa To Anaso Jobodwana (15.08 To 15.23)
• Journalist Raves About Kenya’s Anti-Doping Chief Japhter Rugut
• American Randy Huntington, Who Is Now Coaching Chinese Track Team, Says Doping Doesn’t Occur There Any More. “At the provincial level, I can’t speak,” he said. “But nobody is cheating at international level any more. If you got caught, it won’t be fun. Your career will be over and your coaches’ career will also be over.”

Outside NCAA Coverage

• Good Read: Michael Saruni Looks To Follow Former Teammate Emmanuel Korir With 800m Crown To Make It Back-To-Back Wins For UTEP UTEP coach Paul Ereng also thinks Saruni can break the 1:44.84 indoor collegiate record which Ereng set himself back in 1989.
• Highlights From The NCAA Indoor Press Conference Quotes from Josh Kerr, Sydney McLaughlin, Karissa Schweizer and the top coaches.
• Sydney McLaughlin Wants To Help Kentucky Win Their First Team Title After running the #2 all-time collegiate 400 to win SEC Champs (50.52), she has a real shot at the record, but says she’s focused on scoring points for the team.

Weekend Road Action: Huddle Vs. Hasay Over 15k

• Saturday: Molly Huddle Vs. Jordan Hasay Highlights USATF 15K Champs Hosted By The Gate River Run The women’s race also has Molly Seidel, Emily Infeld and interestingly, Olympic triathlete and Ben True‘s wife, Sarah True. The men’s race has Leonard Korir, Jared Ward, Sam Chelanga and Ryan Vail.
• Sunday: Galen Rupp Running The Roma-Ostia Half Marathon; Shooting For A PB And The American Record Rupp will face Stephen Chebogut (2:06:57 in Paris last year), Justus Kangogo (59:31 in Rome last year), Emmanuel Kipsang (60:14), Dino Sefir (2:04:50 from 2012) and 2015 World marathon bronze medalist Solomon Mutai. The women’s field is led by Rebecca Chesir (68:21) and Amane Beriso Shankule (68:43).
  *MB: Rupp racing half marathon this weekend in Rome! What will he run?
• Sunday: Jonah Chesum Returns To Defend His Title At The Barcelona Marathon Last year, Chesum was a pacer who stayed in the race to win in 2:08:57. He faces two-time London winner Tsegaye Kebede and a couple of other sub-2:09 Ethiopians. Ethiopia’s Worknesh Alemu (2:30:04) and Italy’s Fatna Maraoui (2:30:50) lead the women’s race.
• Sunday: JRN Preview: Japan’s Marathon Season Wraps Up At The Nagoya Women’s Marathon Kenya’s 2:20:21 woman Lucy Kabuu and Valary Jemeli (2:20:53) top the entry list which includes a bunch of Japanese women in the mid 2:20s.

Euro $$$ News

• London Olympic Stadium Tenant West Ham Soccer Team Make $60.5 Million Profit For The Year
• Denmark Donates $70,000 To WADA

Upcoming On The Roads

• March 24: 10 Strong British Team Named For World Half Champs Gemma Steel and Charlotte Purdue lead the women’s squad.
  *Spain Names Team For World Half Champs
• April 8: Kenya’s Gilbert Kirwa (2:06:14) And Germany’s (Formerly Kenya’s) Defending Champ Fate Tola (2:25:14) Lead Fields For The Hannover Marathon Kirwa will face Cheshari Jacob (2:07:46) and Poland’s Henryk Szost (2:07:39).
• April 22: Nancy Kiprop Will Return To Defend Her Title At The Vienna City Marathon The field will have four women who have gone under 2:25.

Much, Much More On The Late Roger Bannister

• The Guardian: How Roger Bannister And Australian John Landy Raced To Break The Four-Minute Mile An interesting look at the rivalry and Landy explains how he didn’t want his sub-4 to be a paced effort like Bannister, he wanted to run it himself.
• Did A Sheffield Paint Factory Worker Ken Wood Beat Bannister To The First Sub-4 By 29 Days? Wood claimed he ran 3:59.2 in a training session at Sheffield University, but “never really mentioned it to anybody.” Wood did eventually run sub-4 in an official race and went to the 1956 Olympics. *Discuss
• The Guardian: Roger Bannister, A Gentleman Who Almost Didn’t’ Run Race That Defined Him Bannister famously almost called off the effort due to bad weather, but his coach convinced him: “If you pass it up today you may never forgive yourself for the rest of your life.”
• Sp!ked.com Takes A Look At Some Controversy Surrounding Bannister’s Sub-4 Bannister was criticized for having pacers and this author claims that the record would have been broken earlier if it wasn’t for the rules of amateurism.
• Bring Back The Mile’s “Tribute To A Titan”
• Sir Roger Bannister – A Life In Pictures
  *Bannister Video Obituary
  *Video Of Bannister’s Sub-4
• Some Of America’s Greatest Milers Share How They Will Remember Roger Bannister Jim Ryun, Alan Webb and others pay their respects to the late Bannister.
• MB: LetsRun.com Visitors Pay Their Respects to Roger Bannister
• David Epstein: “Magical Mile Was Just One of Sir Roger Bannister’s Myriad Accomplishments” Bannister would call up Epstein the last few years and talk to him.
• Olympic Legend Steve Ovett Wonders When The First Woman’s Sub-4 Will Happen Probably the same day a man runs 3:30.
• NY Times Obituary on Roger Bannister
• BBC: Lord Coe and Steve Cram hail ‘inspirational’ athlete after his death
• Bannister Quote On The Final 200m: “I drove on, impelled by a combination of fear and pride.”

Ritz And Emily Sisson Speak

LRC A Reinvigorated Dathan Ritzenhein Talks NYC Half, Hansons-Brooks, L-Carnitine, And His Upcoming Return To The Marathon When asked if the supplementation practices of the NOP is one of the reasons why he left, Ritz replied in part. “I guess we all do things over the course of time that you can look back on and say, ‘I wish I had done this or I wish I had done that differently,’ but I’ve always tried to compete with as much as honor and dignity as I can and I’ll continue to do that.” Plus Emily Sisson talks about when she’ll make her 26.2 debut.
*MB: Ritz Talks NYC Half, Hansons-Brooks, L-Carnitine, And His Upcoming Return To The Marathon in Boston.