2019 Houston Half And Full Take Place On Sunday *Free Stream At 8:01 AM ET *Tracking & Results 

MB: Official 2019 Houston Discussion Thread 

RRW Emily Sisson Has Her Eyes On Molly Huddle’s American Half Marathon Record At Sunday’s Aramco Houston Half Marathon Sisson: “I’m going to take that as a compliment that (Molly) thinks I’m fit and ready to run fast.”

LRC 2019 Podcast #1: Houston Half Preview + LRC Answers The The Big Questions Ahead Of 2019 Season + Listener Audio & Fake Ryan Hall The LRC crew unveils its first podcast of 2019 and takes a look ahead at 2019, plus the great action at this weekend’s Aramco Houston Half, and for the first time has listener audio with some real and fake guests, and the threads of the week. Updated with time stamps.
*Discuss: Texas Runner Girl, Fake Ryan Hall and Fake Mike Rossi Joined Us on Our Podcast 

LRC 2019 Houston Half/Full Marathon Preview: Hot Fields, Cold Temps, The American Debut For Sally Kipyego And The Return Of Kara Goucher Houston is always one of the highlights of the winter for US fans and this year’s races could be extra special as Olympic silver medalist Sally Kipyego races for the 1st time since declaring she’ll represent the US moving forward and Kara Goucher races a marathon for the 1st time as a 40-year-old.

LRC Parker Stinson Heads To The Houston Half Marathon With A New Coach: Dathan Ritzenhein Stinson and Ritzenhein have a relationship that stretches back a decade. They try not to worry about the fact that, should all go well, they’ll be racing each other for an Olympic berth next year.

Sunday Distance Action

• Olympic 10,000m Silver Medalist Paul Tanui And Double Euro XC Champ Fionnuala McCormack Lead Fields For Antrim XC Tanui will have a battle with Asian Games 5,000m champ Birhanu Balew while this will be McCormack’s first race in a year since she took time away to have a baby. She’ll face 2018 10,000m world leader Pauline Kamulu and former NCAA champ Kate Avery.
• Ugandans Joshua Cheptegei And Jacob Kiplimo Facing Off At Seville, Spain XC Race Cheptegei is the World 10,000 silver medalist while Kiplimo is unbeaten on the this winter season and ran a 26:41 on New Year’s eve. Commonwealth 10,000 champ Stella Chesang, steeplechase WR holder Beatrice Chepkoech and Euro XC champ Yasmine Can lead the women’s race.
• Abera Kuma (2:05:50 PR) Going For The Course Record At The Mumbai Marathon Amane Gobena (2:21:51) is favored to defend her title in the women’s race.

Doping Updates

• WADA Says They “Successfully Retrieved” Doping Data From The Moscow Lab Craig Reedie defended his decision to reinstate Russia, saying this wouldn’t have happened otherwise. We just don’t get the logic there.
• MB: Lucy Kabuu Had A Bunch Of Ridiculous Excuses For Why She Tested Positive For Morphine  She used the normal “tainted meat” excuse, but also tried to blame some of her fellow athletes, saying they spiked her drink or that she had a sip from their drink.
• WADA Executive Board To Issue RUSADA Compliance Verdict On January 22nd This would follow a two-day meeting on January 14 and 15 in Montreal.

The Pre Classic Will Have A New Home For 2019

The Pre Classic Is Relocating To Stanford For 2019 Hayward Field will still be under construction, so the USA’s only Diamond League meet will be at Stanford for this year on June 30th.

British News

• Athletics Weekly: Why Mo Farah Can Beat Eliud Kipchoge Kipchoge has won 10 out of the 11 marathons he’s run, but assuming he doesn’t retire, he’ll have to lose one day. But that day probably won’t be this April.
• Athletics Weekly: Callum Hawkins (28:55) And Eilish McColgan (31:51) Set Road 10k PRs Over The Weekend
• February: Laura Muir And Andy Butchart Among Athletes Confirmed For GB Indoor Championships
• The Telegraph: UK Athletics Facing Leadership Crisis After Chairman And CEO Resign The CEO resigned months ago and now Chairman Richard Bowker has stepped down as he faced a vote of no confidence due to months of infighting and discontent.
• British Long Jumper Jazmin Sawyers Talks About Her Move To The US To Be Coached By Lance Brauman She is in in the same Florida training group as Noah Lyles, Tyson Gay and Shaunae Miller-Uibo.

Kipchoge Vs. Farah At London

• World Record Holder Eliud Kipchoge Will Return To Defend His Title At The 2019 Virgin Money London Marathon This means that Kipchoge will race against the previously-announced Mo Farah. The London event director Hugh Brasher says, “Everyone has been talking about another head-to-head between Mo and Eliud … I cannot wait to see who comes out on top.”

More Weekend Results *All NCAA Results

• World Junior 10,000 Champ Rhonex Kipruto And World 5,000 Champ Hellen Obiri Dominate Juan Muguerza XC Race In Spain Kipruto beat out 12:43-man Selemon Barega by 22 seconds while Obiri won by 20 seconds as Uganda’s Commonwealth Games 10,000 champ Stella Chesang was 2nd, steeplechase WR holder Beatrice Chepkoech 3rd and three-time Euro XC champ Yasemin Can 4th.
• Tsehay Gemechu Smashes Ethiopian 10k Record To Win Valencia 10k With 30:15 Victory Her compatriot Chala Ketema Regassa ran 27:23 to win a tight men’s race by 1 second over Uganda’s Stephen Kissa. Further back, Spain’s 1995 world marathon champ Martin Fiz set a world M55 best with 31:36 (27 seconds faster than the previous record).
• European Weekend Track Round-Up: Ukraine’s World HJ Silver Medalist Yuliya Levchenko Clears 1.96m In Kyiv

Upcoming Distance Action: Boston International Field Released

LRC Analysis Breaking Down The 2019 Boston Marathon International Field, Plus What Does The Addition Of Sally Kipyego Mean To The US Field? The Boston field is out and we help make sense of it all.
*MB: 2019 Boston Marathon Elite Field Is Released – 5 Sub-2:05 men, 4 Sub-2:20 women will battle + AMERICAN Sally Kipyego.

John Hancock Announces 2019 Boston Marathon International Elite Field – Sally Kipyego Will Make Her Debut For America The race for top American honors (and the battle for the 2020 US Olympic team) just got more interesting with the addition of Sally Kipyego, who will run for the US for the 1st time. In addition to Kipyego, previously announced defending champions Yuki Kawauchi and Des Linden are joined by World champ Geoffrey Kirui, NYC champ Lelisa Desisa, and sub-2:20 women Edna Kiplagat and Aselefech Mergia. Other notables include former Boston champions Lemi Berhanu, 2:04 man Lawrence Cherono, 2015 World champ Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, 2015 World champ Mare Dibaba and 2:19 woman Worknesh Degefa.

• February 9: Olympic Medalists Clayton Murphy And Nick Willis And World’s Fastest Miler Of 2018 Edward Cheserek To Headline NYRR Wanamaker Mile Men’s Field At 112th NYRR Millrose Games Murphy was runner-up in 2017 while Willis has three runner-up finishes to his name.

Doping Updates

• Better Late Than Never? Russia Says WADA Team Will Return To Moscow For The Required Data On January 9th On this, USADA head Travis Tygart said, “We are all holding our breath as to how this one will end … whether WADA will be finally given the data on the roughly 9,000 presumptive positive tests results on over 4,000 Russian athletes that hopefully have not been destroyed.”
• Swedish Winter Olympian Claims WADA Compliance Review Committee Has “Weight Of History On Their Shoulders” If Russia actually give up the Moscow lab data on Wednesday like they’re supposed to, we think there is zero chance WADA imposes any new sanctions come their meeting next week.