March 19, 2018 | LetsRun.com

NYC Half Watch Replay On ESPN3 Pro Results

LRC Final Ben True Outkicks Dathan Ritzenhein To Win 2018 NYC Half In His Half Marathon Debut, Buze Diriba Edges Emily Sisson For Women’s Title Ritz may not have gotten the win but he was happy with the result: “This was a great simulator for Boston for me. This was a perfect, perfect pre-race for that.”
*NYRR Release: Record-Breaking Day Features Ben True Becoming The First American Male Winner *RRW Recap
*MB: Official 2018 United Airlines NYC Half Live Discussion Thread
*MB: BEN MF TRUE

More NYC Action: Malcolm Richards (2:19:01) And Lindsey Scherf (2:40:55) Break Indoor Marathon World Records Chris Zablocki, who had the men’s record, only managed a 2:29:13.
*MB: New indoor marathon world records set – 2:19:01 and 2:40:55

Outdoor Track Is Here: Big Weekend For Semenya

Caster Semenya Completes 800/1,500 Double At SA Champs Semenya soloed 1:58.92 in the 800 heats and came back that day to win the 1,500 by 13 seconds in 4:10.68. She won the 800 final the next day in 1:57.80.
Clarence Munyai’s 19.69 National 200m Record Highlights South African Championships There was also a national record in the women’s 100 as Carina Horn sped to 11.03 in the semis. World long jump champ Luvo Manyonga lept 8.41m to beat world bronze medalist Ruswahl Samaai by 20 centimeters.
MB: Fred Kerly opens outdoor season with 20.41 200 (video)
MB: Unreal: Briana Williams – age 15 – just ran 11.13 wind legal for 100m!!
Matt Centrowitz Wins 1,500 In Australia In 3:37.96 Ahead Of Jeff Riseley (3:38.69) Behind them, 18-year-old Jaryd Clifford set a T-12 (vision impaired) paralympic record of 3:45.18. In the sprints, USA’s Devon Allen (10.26) and GB’s Dina Asher-Smith (11.24) took the 100m. Linden Hall won the women’s 3,000 in 8:53.
*MB: Matt Centro 3:37.96 down under!
*IAAF Recap

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

Marathon On The Track

The Armory NYC Indoor Marathon Is Tomorrow At Noon They will be hoping to break the indoor marathon WR for the third straight year. The fields are led by defending champ and current WR holder Chris Zablocki (2:21:48 indoor) and Lindsey Scherf (2:32:19 outdoor PR). The women’s record is held by Finland’s Laura Manninen (2:42.30).
Recommended Read: NY Times Profile: “Is Chris Zablocki The Best Extreme Marathoner?” Zablocki has a 2:13 PR while taking on a “Yuki Kawauchi-type” racing schedule with 47 marathons (and 19 wins) in the last seven years. The article includes a quote from LRC’s Jon Gault, who profiled Zablocki back in 2016 and called him “the most interesting man in running.”
Armory NYC Indoor Marathon Story Lines Zablocki faces rivals Malcolm Richards (2:13 PR) and Brian Harvey (2:17 PR). $7,000 prize money goes to the winner if they break the record.

Mid-Week Results

20-Year-Old Clarence Munyai Breaks Wayde Van Niekerk’s South African 200m National Record The Under-20 Africa champ and Rio Olympian ran 19.69 to break van Niekerk’s previous mark of 19.84.
Japan Sweeps Team Titles; China Gets Individual Wins At Asian XC Champs In Guiyang China

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

We Prefer The US Libel Laws

LRC Mo Farah Sued British Journalist Ben Bloom For Defamation; Parties Agreed To Five-Figure Settlement British journalists had better be careful what they write about Mo Farah. Farah sued journalist Ben Bloom for a tweet he wrote in 2017 criticizing Farah for not talking to the media before the 2017 IAAF World Championships.
*Discuss: Mo Farah sues Ben Bloom

Weekend Road/XC Results

Wilson Erupe Loyannae Wins A Fourth Seoul Marathon Title In 2:06:57 It was a close race as 2nd through 5th were all in the 2:07 range. Damte Hiru won the women’s race in 2:24:08.
Yuki Kawauchi Wins New Taipei City Wan Jin Shi Marathon In 2:14:12 Kenya’s Rael Kyara Kguriatukei took the women’s race in 2:35:57, just one second ahead of her compatriot Chemtai Rionotueki.
Kenya’s Weldon Kirui (2:11:48) And Ethiopia’s Sule Utura Gedo (2:33:49) Triumph At LA Marathon *Results
Celliphine Chespol And Alfred Barkack Make It A Kenyan Double Win At African XC Champs Kenya also won both team titles.
Uganda’s Ben Somikwo (63:32) And Kenya’s Christine Oigo (1:13:54) Win Chilly Gdynia Half Marathon In Poland Somikwo won over Spain’s El Hassan Oubaddi by one second in a sprint finish.
Athletics Weekly: English Schools XC Champs Recap

Sprint Stuff

Andre De Grasse Pulls Out Of Next Month’s Commonwealth Games De Grasse said he is healthy, but not at 100% fitness and wants to focus on getting ready for outdoor season.
USA’s World Indoor 60m Bronze Medalist Ronnie Baker Talks About The High And Low Of His Career, Both Of Which Happened In 2017 Last year Baker won the 100m at Pre Classic, but strained his hamstring at USAs and didn’t make the final.
GB World 4 X 100 Silver Medalist Dina Asher-Smith Talks About Her Love For Sprinting Asher-Smith actually started off as a cross-country runner and finished 5th out of 300-400 runners in her first race.
USATF Domestic Relay Program Starts Next Weekend At The Prairie View Relays In Texas The program will help prepare potential USA relay runners for the USA vs. World race at Penn Relays.

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Proof That US Women Benefit From African Sexism, Insight On DQs At Worlds, Runner Triathletes, NCAA Mid-D Performance Of Week Was From “Baby Nats” It’s been an incredible last two weeks and we try to make sense of it all, whether it’s 2018 NCAAs, 2018 World Indoors or the end of Rod Dixon‘s near 45-year-old Kiwi Marathon record.

Distance News

Good Read: Toni Reavis Takes A Historical Look At Men’s Half Marathon Performances After Galen Rupp’s 59:47 Some interesting stats are that there has been 366 sub-60 half marathon performances, but only 9 of them are non-African and only 6 of them came before 2000.
Alberto Salazar Says That Wind And Hills Nullified Any Advantage Galen Rupp Got From The Elevation Drop In Rome Salazar also thinks that Jordan Hasay is ready to break 2:20 at Boston if the conditions are right.
Emily Infeld Tells The Story Behind Her Shocked Photo After Nipping Molly Huddle For World 10,000m Bronze In 2015 Infeld: “This image makes me smile. Without doubt it is the biggest moment of my career and a defining moment for me in the sport.”
Interesting Stats And Analysis From World Indoors All the distance races had splits for every 100m for every athlete. Turns out that Drew Windle had the fastest final lap (25.01) in the 800; even faster than winner Adam Kszczot.

Olympic / Paralympic News

IPC President Andrew Parsons Pays Tribute To The Late Stephen Hawking “He embodied the word ability more than anyone. In the Paralympic Movement we always say that Para-athletes see challenges as opportunities to do things differently. Although not a Para-athlete, Hawking did just that …”
*MB: RIP Stephen Hawking
Opponents Of Denver’s Potential 2030 Olympic Bid Claim The City Should Hold A Public Referendum
Pyeongchang Paralympics Sets New Record For Ticket Sales They sold 320,531 tickets, passing the mark set at Sochi 2014 four years ago.

The World Half Champs Are Next Saturday

Geoffrey Kamworor Will Go For His Third Consecutive World Half Marathon Title, But Interestingly His First Happened By “Accident” Kamworor only decided run the 2014 World Half Champs after a disappointing 6th place finish at the Tokyo Marathon. He bounced back only 5 weeks later to beat WR holder Zersenay Tadese.
Kenya’s World Half Silver Medalist Bedan Karoki Pulls Out Of World Half Champs Due To A Hamstring Injury Karoki ran 58:42 to win the RAK Half last month.
Japan’s Miyuki Uehara Withdraws From World Half Team Due To Achilles Injury

Sunday Action

IAAF Recap: Galen Rupp Runs 59:47 FTW At Huawei Rome-Ostia Half Marathon Rupp won by 57 seconds on the point-to-point course after going out very hard – 59:24 pace at 10k. Ethiopia’s Haftamenesh Tesfay Haylu (69:02) won the women’s race.
*MB: Rupp Wins — 59:47 in Rome
Ethiopia’s Two-Time 1,500m Olympian Meskerem Assefa Comes From Behind To Win Nagoya Marathon In 2:21:45 Kenya’s Valary Jemeli was runner-up (2:22:48) as Japan’s 22-year-old Hanami Sekine was 3rd in a 2:23:07 debut.
Kenyans Anthony Maritim (2:08:08) And Ruth Chebitok (2:25:49) Win Barcelona Marathon
Kenya’s Erick Kiptanui (60:05) And Ethiopia’s Etagegn Woldu (71:27) Beat The Wind And Rain To Win Lisbon Half The top 12 men went under 61 minutes.

Distance News

Good Read: A UK Physiologist And Coach Talks About His Time In Kenya Working With Zane Robertson He runs through one of Robertson’s workouts as he prepares for the Commonwealth Games marathon and the heart rate data they took during and afterwards.
Heather Kampf Blogs About Recovering From Her Recent Injuries She had a sacral stress fracture last spring on her right side and then a sacral stress reaction on her left side in December which is giving her issues again now. No joke, “kampf” actually means “struggle” in German.
Alexi Pappas Was In Pyeongchang During The 2018 Winter Olympics For The Olympic Artist In Residence Program She blogs about the experience where she wrote, directed and starred in a series of short films.
Athletics Illustrated Book Review: “Endure: Mind, Body, And The Curiously Elastic Limits Of Human Performance” By Alex Hutchinson LRC’s Jon Gault also reviewed the book last month.
Northern Arizona Elite Sings Multi-Year Deal With Hoka One One

NYC Half Pre-Race News

LRC A Reinvigorated Dathan Ritzenhein Talks NYC Half, Hansons-Brooks, L-Carnitine, And His Upcoming Return To The Marathon We also talked to Emily Sisson about her goals for Sunday’s race and when will she make her marathon debut.
RRW After Eight-Month Layoff, Liz Costello Returns To Racing At NYC Half The Princeton alum briefly retired in 2014 but is now enjoying herself as a member of Mark Coogan’s Team New Balance Boston squad.

Random But Interesting

Mo Farah And Usain Bolt To Go Head To Head … But Not On The Track Bolt and Farah are going to play for opposing teams at the Unicef charity soccer game in June.
Building On Nike Campus Dedicated To Seb Coe
Athletics South Africa Sponsor Puma Denies It Had Anything To Do With Logo Controversy At South African Meet Last Week Some athletes including Justin Gatlin, Caster Semenya and Akani Simbine had to cover their uniform logos with tape.
Following Backlash, Strava Changes Heat Map Privacy Settings So It Is Easier For Users To Opt Out This follows reports that Strava’s global heat maps revealed sensitive military information.
*MB: WAPO: “U.S. Soldiers are revealing sensitive and dangerous information by jogging”
*MB: STRAVA no longer showing All Segments…

Post-NCAA Champs Updates

2018 NCAA DI Program Of The Year (Best Team XC, Indoor And Outdoor) Standings Post-Indoor Update NAU is just ahead of Arkansas and Oregon on the men’s side while Oregon is only just beating New Mexico and Stanford for the women.
Post-NCAAs Women’s Bowerman Watch List Southern California‘s Kendall Ellis, LSU‘s Aleia Hobbs and Harvard‘s Gabby Thomas were added to the list after they each set collegiate records at NCAAs.
Michael Norman And Karissa Schweizer Are National Indoor Track Athletes Of The Year Heptathlete Tim Duckworth and triple jumper Keturah Orji were the field athletes of the year.
List Of 2018 NCAA DI Indoor T&F All-Americans

Bucket List Alert: This Might Be Your Last Chance To See A Meet At “Historic” Hayward Field

The Oregonian: Ducks Get Ready For Final Season At Current Hayward Field There will be just two regular season meets, then NCAAs and with specific construction plans unknown, that could be it for the current version of Hayward Field.