London On The Message Board

• Official 2018 London Marathon Live Discussion Thread 
• Kipchoge needs to win New York and/or Boston (real marathons) to secure his legacy as the GOAT We guess the poster forgot he crushed everyone at the Olympics.
• Mo Farah – Greatest Range of Any Distance Runner Ever? Farah, who has a 3:28 1,500 PR, ran 2:06:21.
• Does today’s race mark MO FARAH as competitive on the world stage? 
• Can we please stop with the WR attempts at London? We 100% agree. And if they are going to go for the WR, can they at least go at the right pace?
• MO FARAH wants to fight Motorbike guy! 
• Kennenisa Bekele – Interview after the race – No excuses given Bekele was sixth in 2:08:53.
• Bekele is officially TOAST

There’s Always The Crazy At London
LRC Meet The Real Life Forrest Gump: Rob Pope (82nd Place In 2:36) Has Nearly Completed Gump’s Epic Quest Of Five Runs Across America
Discussion: LRC Sleuths- Fellow LetsRun Visitor Rob Pope Has Nearly Completed Forrest Gump’s Five Runs Across America And Wants Scrutiny

LRC 15 Years On, Paula Radcliffe Reflects On Her 2:15:25 Marathon World Record “The longer it’s gone on, obviously, the more attached I’ve become to it. And it’s started feel a little bit like part of the family. But it’s inevitable it’s going to get beaten at some point.”
*MB: Paula Radcliffe’s WR could go down this weekend, what questions would you like us to ask her this weekend?

Full London Coverage In Our Virgin Money London Marathon Special Section

Non-London Road Racing

• WR Holder Dennis Kimetto DNFs In Vienna
  *Pre-Race: World Record Holder Dennis Kimetto Ready For A Comeback At The Vienna City Marathon *IAAF
• Less Than A Week After Winning Boston, Yuki Kawauchi Will Be Back On The Roads At The Gifu Seiryu Half-Marathon Kawauchi will have a hard time in this one as the top six entrants have PRs in the 59:00-60:30 range. Eunice Chumba (66:11) leads the women’s race.
• Ethiopia’s Mosinet Geremew (59:11) Going For His Fourth Straight Victory At The Yangzhou Jianzhen Half In China He faces four other sub-60 men while Sutume Asefa (67:54) will try to defend her title from last year.
• Tesfaye Lencho Anbesa (61:09) Will Face Tough Challenge In Title Defence At The Nova Poshta Kyiv Half Italian 40-year-old Fatna Maraoui (70:08) has the fastest PR in the field, but is coming off a 2:33:18 marathon in Milan just two weeks ago.
• Close Contests Expected At The Rock ‘N’ Roll Madrid Marathon Eritrean Samuel Tsegay (2:07:34) leads the men’s race while Kenya’s Valentine Jepkorir (2:23:02) has the fastest PR on the women’s side.
• Defending Champions Felix Kimutai (2:10:34) And Nastassia Ivonova (2:27:24) Face Tough Opposition At The Warsaw Marathon

Outside London Coverage

• A Must Read: At 43 Years Old, Irish Marathon Champion Gary O’Hanlon Is Running Faster Than Ever And Looking For A Sub-2:18 In London O’Hanlon was a promising young runner, but was hit by a car when he was 17, leaving him with multiple surgeries and unable to compete until he was in his 30s. Even then he says he “might have run twice a week and hit the pub five nights a week.” It wasn’t until he lost his job as an electronic engineer that he really committed to running.
• Paula Radcliffe Thinks Mary Keitany Is “Capable” Of Breaking Her World Record Radcliffe admitted she didn’t want to see her record broken. “Did I think it would stand this long? Probably not. Do I want it to be beaten? No, but I can’t do anything about it. I can’t go out and reclaim it now.”
• Eliud Kipchoge Refers To Himself As The “Human World Record” Holder Was Dennis Kimetto not human when he ran his 2:02:57?
• GB’s Callum Hawkins Will Be The Official Starter At The Mini London Marathon On Sunday The “mini” marathon is a series of races for kids 17 and younger over the last three miles of the marathon course.
• List Of Celebrities Running The London Marathon Probably only relevant if you’re British.
• Couple Running The London Marathon Together After Getting Married That Morning
• London Marathon Runners Advised To Not Run In Costumes Or “Fancy Dress” Due To The Record Heat Predicted For Sunday
• RRW Q&A With Steph Bruce And Ben Rosario Ahead Of Virgin Money London Marathon In addition to talking about her fitness, Bruce talks about being a pro marathoner while also being a mother of two, and talks about Desi’s win in Boston.

Previous London News

• Former Two-Time World Champ Abel Kirui Warns His London Marathon Rivals Kirui says he thinks he can win the race. “Having trained with Kipchoge, I know his strengths and weaknesses but we will run together in the first pack up to the 35km mark. From there, it will be everybody for himself.”
• Geoffrey Kamworor Thinks Eliud Kipchoge Will Break The World Record In London His official prediction is at least 2:02:46.
• British Man Running London As Part Of His Quest To Run 1,000 Marathons With The Fastest Average Finishing Time (Sub 3:30) So far Steve Edwards has run 819 marathons all sub-3:20.
• Weather Forecast: Sunday’s London Marathon Could Be The Hottest On Record The record temperature was recorded in 1996 and 2007 at 72F.
• Women’s Running Pioneer Kathrine Switzer To Be The Official Starter For The London Marathon Women’s Race
• Eliud Kipchoge Will Run London In Custom Made 3D Printed Shoes She shoes have textile uppers printed specifically to the shape of his foot and accounting for both the specifics of his running stride and his personal preferences.
• RRW: Will Male Pacers Help Women Break World Record At London Marathon? This will be the first time since Paula Radcliffe set her 2:15:25 WR in 2003 that London has used male pacers for the women’s race.

Previous London News

• RRW: By Remaining A Student, Eliud Kipchoge Has Mastered The Marathon
• Mo Farah Says He’s “Enjoying Running More Than Ever” Ahead Of The London Marathon “It’s a great feeling not having as much pressure as I did on the track. On the track people expect you to win. Now [in the marathon] there are a lot of guys who can run a lot faster than me.”
• Mo Farah Talking About A Marathon Medal In Tokyo 2020 “If I’m going to come away with a medal from Tokyo then, each year, if I can run two marathons that would give me good confidence and I can learn about myself.”

Upcoming Track Action

• April 28: Olympic Champ Omar McLeod And WR Holder Keni Harrison Lead Stacked Hurdles Fields For The Drake Relays McLeod faces Aries Merritt, Devon Allen and Aleec Harris while the women’s race has Kori Carter, Jasmin Stowers, Kristi Castlin and Dawn Harper-Nelson.
• April 25: Sandi Morris And Surprise US Indoor Champ Katie Nageotte Lead Drake Relays Downtown Women’s Pole Vault
• May 4: Caster Semenya Named For Doha DL While Rivals Katerina Stefanidi And Sandi Morris Will Duke It Out In The PV Semenya is racing the 1,500 against world indoor bronze medalist Gudaf Tsegay and former world 800 champ Eunice Sum. The men’s javelin is stacked with the Olympic champ and all three 2017 world medalists.
• July 5: Christian Coleman, Renaud Lavillenie, Mutaz Essa Barshim And Katerina Stefanidi All Confirmed For Lausanne Diamond League

Hosting / Stadium Updates

• The Orange County Register: Mt. SAC’s Olympic Trials Bid Secures Legal Victories The city of Walnut’s attorney signed a stipulation lifting a preliminary injunction that was preventing construction to move forward. Mt. SAC also secured at temporary victory when a judge denied a citizen group’s bid that would have prevented the college from using tax-payer funds on the stadium.
• Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium Set To Get $100,000 Investment For 2022 Commonwealth Games The investment will see the capacity of the 40-year-old stadium increased from 12,700 to 40,000.
• 2017 London World Championships Named Sportcal’s Global Sports Event Of The Year According to a study, London Worlds had a direct $113.2 million impact on the London economy and had 6,526 hours of television coverage.

More Boston *Top 100 Results 

LRC Improbable Boston Winners Desi Linden And Yuki Kawauchi Show Why We Run The Race Very few people thought Des or Yuki would win in Boston but that’s exactly what they both did on Monday.

LRC Shalane Flanagan Was So Out of It She Thought She Might Be Winning Herself, Wants To Help Gwen Jorgensen Make Olympic Team Flanagan also said early in the race Linden told her she might drop out and to let her know if she needed any help.

2018 Boston Marathon On the Message Board

• MB: Official 2018 Boston Marathon Live Discussion Thread
• Yuki Kawauchi will win today’s Boston Marathon. Update: Yes he just did it. 
• Who?! American Sara Sellers is 2nd in Boston Marathon, Rachel Hyland 4th, Nicole Dimercurio 5th -3 Unknown Americans in Top 5
• Galen Rupp goes home DEVASTATED!!!
• Did any pro group perform WORSE than NOP in Boston? 
• Let me defend my homeboy – Galen Rupp. He’s not a wimp for dropping out and yes asthma impacts you in the cold 
• What type of press are Linden and Kawauchi getting in your town? Any big-time pub? 
• Rupp to London? 
• John Kellogg is proven to be a genius yet again. He called it – 2:14-15 if the men ran hard from the gun
• Who wins the Fab Four Race in Boston? 
• A huge FAIL for NIKE wind resistance jackets 
• Did Boston’s prestige take another hit today? 

Unbelievably Dramatic Footage *CG Results

LRC Callum Hawkins Collapses From Heat Exhaustion In Commonwealth Games Marathon As Spectators And Officials Stand Idly By Hawkins had a big lead before finally going down in a heap after minutes of struggle where he ran off course and smashed into barriers and even a spectator who pushed him back on course. He is doing okay in a hospital now but did the spectators and medical personnel let Hawkins down? Warning, the video shown may be distressing to some.
*MB: Is Callum Hawkins going to win his first marathon at the CW games?
*MB: WTF Comm Games Marathon Madness 

• IAAF: Callum Hawkins’ Collapse Gives Australia’s Michael Shelley The Marathon Victory Shelley now has back-to-back CWG titles as he crossed the line unchallenged in 2:16:46. Helalia Johannes won the women’s race in 2:32:40, becoming the first woman from Namibia to win a Commonwealth title in any sport.
• Washington Post: “Jamaican Sprinters Leave The Gold Coast Without Any Gold Medals” This is a dumb headline considering they won 110H gold, 400H gold and the women’s 4 x 400.
• Usain Bolt DJs At CWG Closing Ceremony
• The Guardian: Marathon Experts Condemn Delay In Treatment Of Callum Hawkins People have criticized the organizers as well as the spectators who stood by and took pictures rather than help.
• Gold Coast Chief Executive Mark Peters Defended Their Response To Callum Hawkins “We can’t have medical people on every corner of the road (they were posted every 500m). … Unfortunately athletes do run themselves to exhaustion and there is rarely a marathon where someone isn’t collapsing.” *BBC Article
• Hosts Australia Walk Away From Commonwealth Games With 80 Golds Australia had 198 medals total; the next closest was England with 136.
• Prince Edward Declares Gold Coast 2018 Closed As Flag Passed To Birmingham 2022 In Closing Ceremony

Where Your Dreams Become Reality Podcast

LRC  Tyler Andrews: From 18 Minutes For 5k In High School To 50k World Record? Tyler Andrews couldn’t break 18 minutes for 5k in high school and was a “music nerd.” Friday he’ll attempt to break the 50k world record on the track. How did he get so much better? Our “Dreams Become Reality” podcast attempts to find out.

Week That Was

LRC 30 Years Ago, Belayneh Densamo Ran The First Sub-2:07 Marathon, Erick Kiptanui And Joan Melly Are Half Marathon Stars Ridiculous road action, including Betsy Saina getting it done in Paris.