November 17, 2018 | LetsRun.com

Live Now: LRC Pre-Race Audio Show At 10:00 AM Local/11:00 AM ET We’ll give out our final thoughts and make our official predictions.

LetsRun.com (Finally) Goes To Ethiopia

Day 1 LRC LetsRun.com Goes To Ethiopia, Day 1: Arrival In Addis Ababa, Meeting Haile G, & A Run-In With The Ethiopian Military We waited 18 years to set foot in Ethiopia but once we were here it was only a matter of hours before we got to talk to the great Haile Gebrselassie. He held court with some studly friends from Eritrea – Stephen Kiprotich and Zersenay Tadesse. Thankfully, we didn’t anger the Ethiopian military too much after a classic American tourist gaffe.
*MB: LetsRun.com Is Making Its First Trip to Ethiopia. … What Should We Know and What Do You Want to Hear!?!!

NCAA XC Team News

LRC Women’s Team Preview: New Mexico Goes For 3rd Title In 4 Years Against A Deep Field Of Contenders Mark Wetmore says that NCAA XC is “chaotic and unpredictable.” That certainly could be true this year as 5 teams have a legitimate shot at the title – UNM, Oregon, Colorado, Boise State and Arkansas.
*MB: Who will win the women’s team title at 2018 NCAA XC – UNM, Oregon, Colorado, Boise State, or Arkansas?

LRC Men’s Team Preview: Can Anyone Dethrone Northern Arizona As The Lumberjacks Chase A Three-Peat? In the last 36 years, only one men’s program has three-peated at NCAAs – Arkansas. #1 NAU is undefeated since 2015 and hoping to join them. Can they do it or will they suffer an epic collapse like the great Henry Rono did the last time NCAAs were held in Madison in 1978 or like the 2004 Wisco team or Jenny Simpson in 2009?
*MB: Will NAU 3-peat or will they suffer an epic collapse like Henry Rono in 1978? Or The Wisco Dream Team in 04? Or Simpson 09?

Take A Trip Down Memory Lane: LRC Complete NCAA Cross-Country Coverage Including Amazing Photo Galleries Since 2000

Haile G Resigns

Haile Gebrselassie Resigns As President Of Ethiopian Athletics Federation; Will Be Replaced By Two-Time Olympic 10,000 Champ Derartu Tulu In his statement, Geb said, “I became a president of the EAF because I wanted to do something back for my sport; athletics is my passion. However, some people were making the work impossible, so it is better to leave.”
Halie Gebrselassie Insists His Resignation Was A Personal Decision He was only 2 years into a 4-year term, but said there was “no external pressure.” However, there was some controversy when a group of athletes protested over lack of facilities at the national cross-country championships.

British News

British Athletics Names 114-Strong World Class Program For 2018-2019 The list includes British 200m champ Beth Dobbin, who has battled PTSD after having an epileptic seizure as a teenager.
Mo Farah Included In British Athletics Lottery Funding For 2018-2019 No surprises there as Farah has said he wants to run the marathon at Tokyo 2020.
BBC: “Can sport help to come to terms with grief and loss?” Greg Rutherford talks about how his grandfather died just before he flew out to Beijing for his first Olympics in 2008 and he missed the funeral.
Laura Muir: “I don’t like taking anything. I don’t even drink coffee.” Muir says as a clean athlete she’s happy to be tested “every day of the year.” That’s the kind of attitude a clean athlete should have.
Laura Muir Talks About The Extra Things She Has Time To Do With Training Now That She Isn’t Also A Full-Time Vet Student “It would be nice to learn a bit more about myself. Doing different biomechanical stuff, improve those one per cents that I haven’t had time to do before.”
February: Laura Muir Announced For Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix
UK Sport Chief Executive Liz Nicholl Stepping Down Mid-2019 After 20 Years

IAAF News

Finalists Announced For 2018 IAAF Female Rising Star Award List includes Sydney McLaughlin and her 52.75 world U20 record and 9:01 steepler Celliphine Chespol.
IAAF Revises Qualifying System For 2019 Doha World Champs – Will Use Traditional System Rather Than The New World Rankings Seb Coe said they will use the world ranking system for future championships, but didn’t want athletes and coaches to be confused since this is the first year it’s being introduced.
*InsideTheGames Article
Tickets For Doha 2019 Now On Sale You can get finish line seating for $80 and cheap tickets for $16 … you just have to travel to Qatar.
National Kits From Haile Gebrselassie And Carolina Kluft Donate Donated To IAAF Heritage Collection A private collector donated the vest and competition number Geb wore when winning his fourth World Champs 10,000 gold in 1999.
Need A Job? IAAF Hiring A New Operations Coordinator In Monaco *IAAF Seeking Candidates To Fill A Vacancy On Its Vetting Panel

Women’s Distance News

NY Times: Runners At D3 Rowan University Told They Can’t Practice At The Same Time As The Football Team The track and the football field are in the same stadium and the issue seems to have started with the football coach saying the women’s team running in sports bras was distracting for his players.
*MB: Women’s XC/Track team not allowed to practice on track at the same time as football players – deemed distracting
Carrie Tollefson Does Podcast Q&A With Shannon Rowbury They talk about Rowbury’s life as a new mom and her comeback progress.
GB’s Steph Twell Making Her Marathon Debut Next Month In Valencia
MB: Cory McGee Joins Emma Coburn/Joe Bosshard Group In Colorado

NCAA XC Is Saturday Start Times (11:45 AM ET, 12:45 PM ET) Results & Streaming

Live Now – LRC Pre-Race Audio Show At 10:00 AM Local/11:00 AM ET We’ll give out our final thoughts and make our official predictions.

MB: Official 2018 NCAA XC Discussion Thread

LRC $200,018 LetsRun.com Running Warehouse NCAA D1 Cross-Country Prediction Contest Tell us who will win NCAAs and win some cool Running Warehouse prizes. If you entered before noon Eastern on Wednesday, we likely have your individual picks wrong. Click here to check.

LRC Women’s Predictions: LRC LetsRun Fans Expect Weini Kelati And UNM To Win NCAA Titles On Saturday We’ve compiled the early votes from our prediction contest.

LRC Men’s Predictions: LRC The LetsRun Nation Votes: NAU Is HEAVILY Favored Over BYU, Fans Are Split Between McDonald And Fisher Fans are picking NAU at a more than 20-1 clip over BYU.

LRC Final Pre 2018 NCAA XC News: Mike Smith Believes The ’18 NAU Team Would Beat The ’16 & ’17 NCAA Champs, Allie O Wants To Race 10K At NCAA XC, & More On The Eve Of 2018 NCAA XC We give you the inside scoop on 2018 NCAA XC from after today’s press event in Madison. How will 2-4 inches of snow impact the race?

LRC Men’s Individual Preview: Grant Fisher & Morgan McDonald Look To End Droughts; Can They Hold Off The NAU Duo Of Baxter And Day? An American hasn’t won the individual title in 10 years. Similarly, a runner hasn’t won on his home course in 26. That could change on Saturday. *MB: Who is going to win the men’s individual title at NCAA XC – Fisher, McDonald, Baxter, Day, Kurgat or Sugira?

LRC Women’s Individual Preview: Weini Kelati & Alicia Monson Look To Derail Ednah Kurgat’s Repeat Bid Ednah Kurgat won NCAAs last year in a record time and she’s in better shape this year but we don’t think she’ll be the winner as her teammate Weini Kelati is in even better shape. Fascinating tidbit – we learned that Kurgat and Kelati (or any of the top UNM women) do not work out together.
*MB Ednah Kurgat won NCAAs last year in a championship record time ans is in better shape this year…..Here’s why she won’t win.

Good Profile On Grant Fisher From Earlier In The Fall On GoStanford.com

USATF Marathon Champs At California International Marathon

December 2: CIM Set To Host USATF Marathon Championships For The Second Year The men’s race is led by 7 sub-2:14 men including Nick Arciniaga (2:11:30), Matt Llano (2:12:28) and Daniel Tapia (2:12:28). The women’s race has former Olympian Janet Bawcom (2:29:45) and Stephanie Bruce (2:29:35).

European News

Greek 5.80m PVer (#2 On The All-Time U20 List) Emmanouil Karali Talks About How He Developed His Love For Pole Vaulting Karalis explains how his dad was the former Greek decathlon record holder and got him into pole vaulting. But once he beat his dad’s PR, Karalis said to him, “Okay, Dad, that’s enough. I know what I’m doing now.”
Germany’s Former World Javelin Champion Katharina Molitor Announces Retirement
Hammer Throwers Wojciech Nowicki And Anita Wlodarczyk Are Polish Athletes Of The Year There’s something about Poland and the hammer throw.
RIP Well Known Czech Republic Athletics Official, Author And Coach Viktor Trka
Racewalker Matej Toth Voted Slovak Athlete Of The Year

Sunday Results

Ruth Chepngetich Drops A Four-Minute PR To Win The Istanbul Marathon In 2:18:35 (link updated) The went through halfway in a super-quick 68:22 and held on enough to win comfortably with a new CR. Felix Kimutai won the men’s race in a CR (2:09:57). *Discuss
Former NCAA XC Champ Kate Avery And Mahamed Mahamed Win At Milton Keynes Cross Challenge In The UK Avery continues her comeback after dealing with stress fractures the last couple years.
Kenya’s Magdalene Masai Breaks CR At Hefei Marathon To Win In 2:28:20 In Her Debut Kenya’s Leonard Langat won the men’s race in 2:10:48.
Mohamed Reda El Aaraby (2:10:41) And Medina Deme Armino (2:29:31) Win Beirut Marathon Former Boston Marathon champ Wesley Korir was only 7th in 2:14:18.
Kenyans Brimin Misoi (2:10:56) And Shelmith Muriuki (2:36:46) Win Athens Marathon
MB: Zach Bitter Wins Tunnel Hill 100 Miller

The Half Marathon WR Holder Shares His Training With LRC

LRC Q&A: Half Marathon WR Holder Abraham Kiptum Reveals His Workouts Before Running 58:18 The new half marathon record holder shares his workouts exclusively with the LetsRun.com nation.

Non-DI College News Results: D2 Regionals D3 Champs *NAIA Champs

Week That Was

LRC Kellyn Taylor PRs, Ruth Chepngetich Makes History, Edward Cheserek Is Back, An Impressive Run In Japan, And Will Someone Die In Tokyo 2020? We span the globe and look back at a week where a 2:18 was run in Istanbul.

WADA / Doping News

Emma Coburn Speaks Up On Looming WADA Presidential Election Coburn has backed reformist Linda Helleland to succeed Craig Reedie when his term ends November 2019. She also spoke against Helleland’s rival, Witold Banka, who Coburn feels “does not have his finger on the pulse of mainstream athlete and public opinion.” *Coburn’s Full Opinion Piece
RUSADA Worried They Won’t Meet The WADA Deadline To Allow Access To The Moscow Laboratory They shouldn’t be worried though. We’re sure WADA will just move the goalposts for them if they miss it.
African Union Propose Age Limit For WADA President Which Would Prevent Linda Helleland From Standing For Election They are calling for WADA presidential candidates to be at least 45 years old in a move interpreted as an attempt to block 41-year-old Helleland.
WADA Presidential Candidate Witold Banka Calls For Linda Helleland To Stand Down As WADA Vice President He claims it gives her an unfair advantage, but Helleland has responded calling his statements “offensive.”
The Independent: UKADA Agency Calls For WADA Reform After Russia Controversy

NCAA XC Regionals Are This Weekend *All Results

Official: NCAA DI Cross-Country Championships Fields Set – Teams/Individual Qualifiers
USTFCCCA Division 1 Regional Weekend Recap
MB: Official 2018 NCAA D1 XC Regional Discussion Thread – Who Is Going To The Big Dance? Follow this thread all day long on Friday as we should have the field within minutes of the final region going final.
LRC Here Is Your Projected 2018 NCAA Men ‘s Cross-Country Field The Bradley Braves are dancing for the first time ever. The field will also include Purdue and Wyoming, both of whom last made NCAAs in 1986, but not pre-season #6 Alabama.
LRC Here Is Your Projected 2018 NCAA Women’s Cross-Country Field The field will include first-time NCAA participants Oregon State and Southern Utah but not pre-season #10 Utah State or #11 Providence.
FloTrack: 15 Athletes Who Will Miss NCAAs Despite Being All-American Material
D3: Field Announced For NCAA Division III Cross-Country Championships
*Division III Weekend Regional Recap

50 Years Ago – Bob Beamon Shocked The World

LRC Feature A Leap For The Ages: Bob Beamon’s 29-Foot Long Jump Turns 50 A half century later, there’s still only one way to describe the men’s long jump at the 1968 Olympics: Beamonesque. We take an in-depth look at one of the greatest singular accomplishments in sports history. Beamon improved the WR by 6.59% – that’s the equivalent of someone in 2018 lowering the marathon WR to 1:53:28 or the 100-meter record to 8.95.
*MB: 50 years ago, Bob Beamon made history. Where does his performance rank on list of greatest singular sports performances?

LRC Why Is The Long Jump World Record So Hard To Break? Mike Powell‘s WR has stood for 27 years and the #2 mark from Bob Beamon celebrates its 50th anniversary today. What explains their longevity? Are the best athletes in the NFL? Are the runways too soft? Is there a mental block?