April 5, 2019 | LetsRun.com

This Weekend’s Action

RRW Amy Cragg Racing Prague Half On Saturday – Views Race As Stepping Stone To 2020 Success Many me be surprised that Cragg, who hasn’t run a marathon since running 2:21:42 in Tokyo in February 2018, isn’t doing a spring marathon.
IAAF’s Weekend Road Preview: Ruth Chepngetich (2:17:08 Dubai 2019) And World Half Champion Netsanet Gudeta To Clash At Istanbul Half This Weekend Guye Adola leads the men’s field.

Cherry Blossom 10 Miler Is Sunday (Watch Live For Free 7:10 AM ET)

Defending Champions Jemal Yimer And Buze Diriba Return To Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10 Mile Run LetsRun.com’s Kelsey Bruce will also be racing. You can watch it live (or on demand later) for free at 7:10 am ET on Sunday here.
Great Read: Bethany Sachtleben, Who Is Racing Cherry Blossom This Weekend, Took An Unconventional Path To The Olympic Marathon Trials After being home schooled in HS, when she walked on to the team at George Mason and was told to do 1k workouts, she had no idea what to do as she’d never done a workout in her life.
MB: Amazing: 2:31 US Marathoner Bethany Sachtleben had no idea that runners ran workouts when she started running in college

Carlsbad 5,000 Is Sunday As Well (Watch Live For Free AT 3:00 PM ET)

Toni Reavis: Carlsbad 5,000 – World’s Most Famous 5,000 Road Race Was Going To Be Shut Down This Year Had Not Ashley Gibson & Meb Keflezigh Purchased It Having someone who understands elite running in charge is critical.
MB: Carlsbad 5000 is Sunday. King Ches WILL break the new bogus WR of 13:29 You can watch the elite pro races for free starting at 3 pm ET.
Next Weekend: BAA 5k And Mile Ennounced. Hagos G, Ben True, Drew Hunter And Justyn Knight Are All In The 5,000

Week That Was

LRC WTW: 7 Final Thoughts About World XC + Emily Sisson Delivers Is Burundi on its way to being the newest East African distance power? How in the world did the US men lose to Tanzania? Plus Dom Scott went for it big time (and blew up big time) and a look back at Eliud Kipchoge‘s four runs at World XC.

News From Oregon

Ken Goe Says There Was An “Elephant In The Room” At The TrackTown Tuesday Meeting Goe says it was unfortunate that Lauren Fleshman, a USATF board member, didn’t address the situation with Vin Lananna. Goe laments how Fleshman used to be very outspoken about USATF, but “now that she is part of the power structure, her voice has been silenced.”
Despite Winter Snow Storms, Hayward Field Construction Remains On Schedule UO Spokesperson Molly Blancett: “When it’s complete, it’ll be the finest track and field in the world.”
Register-Guard: “Eugene And Lane County Planning Now For Influx Of Visitors During 2021 IAAF World Championships” Eugene is expected to get 50,000 daily visitors during Worlds.
*KVAL.com: “With Eye Set On 2021, Eugene Prepares For The World Stage”

Boston Is In Less Than Two Weeks

Sara Hall Says She Feels Like She’s “In The Best Cardiovascular Shape” Of Her Life As She Prepares To Make Her Boston Marathon Debut Hall never thought she’d still be running professionally at 36 as her dream was “to do development work in Africa [living] in a mud hut.” But she says she’s enjoying it more than ever and set PRs in the full and half last year.
Two-Time World Marathon Champ Edna Kiplagat Looking To Reclaim Her Boston Marathon Title Kiplagat won Boston in 2017, but lost last year to Des Linden.
RW Looks Back At Five Of The Worst Weather Days In Boston Marathon History
Brooks Puts Out A Boston Shoe With A Map Of Boston’s Public Transit Line (“The T”)
AP: No Known Threats To The Boston Marathon, But Police Still Urge Caution Six years on from the Boston bombing, some security measures used include surveillance cameras, helicopters and “plainclothes officers” mingling in the crowds.

Sprint Stuff

After Ending His 2018 Outdoor Season Early With Injury, Andre De Grasse Was Back In Action At Last Weekend’s Florida Relays De Grasse anchored Canada to wins in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 200. Their 38.34 was a 4 x 100 world lead and beat the USA team with Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay, who were only 4th in 39.07.
Jamaican Journalist Argues That The False Start Rules Should Be Less Harsh For Young Athletes Among the reasons they’d like to see this is that the noise in the stadium during Jamaican Boys & Girls Champs is so loud that kids have a hard time hearing the starter’s instructions.
Video: Usain Bolt Briefly Comes Out Of Retirement To Race A Motorcycle Taxi In Lima Spoiler alert: Bolt won.
Aries Merritt Donates The Spikes He Wore Setting The World Record To The IAAF Heritage Exhibition In Doha Merritt wore the spikes at the 2012 Brussels Diamond League when he ran 12.80 seconds.
RIP: Olympic Hurdler And Former UNC Coach Charles Foster Passes Away At 65

Ultra / Trail News

MB: Ultra discussion: thoughts on the Georgia Death Race controversy? Race officials marked the course wrong, sending 10 to 15 runners off course. They ended up running an extra half mile, but subtracting 200-400 feet elevation, so the RD gave them a 60-minute time penalty!
GB 100k Champ Sophie Mullins Designed Her Own App To Calculate Her Nutrition For The Race She explained there is a balance between eating enough, but not too much. “You couldn’t eat too much or you’d be sick, which defeats the purpose when you’re getting the food in for fuel.”
New Zealand’s Greig Hamilton Was The Second Last To “Tap Out” (DNF) At The Barkley Marathon There were no finishers this year. John Kelly, one of only 15 who have ever finished the race, only did two of the five laps saying he was “no longer having fun.”
*MB: The 2019 Barkley Marathons – Zero Finishers
Runner Still Missing After Starting Malaysian Trail Race 10 Days Ago He was last seen around 20k into the 25k race.

Distance News

Good Read: Steve Jones Is Excited For Future Of Welsh Marathon Running And Thinks Dewi Griffiths Can Go Sub-2:07 After Hosting Him At Altitude Camp The opening line of the article is a classic: “Wales’ current crop of marathon runners may not be fuelled on a diet of coke and meat pies that took Steve Jones to the world record.”
Interesting Study From UK: Super-Fit Masters Runners Do No Better At Balance Tests Than Sedentary Older People?
*MB: How long can you stand on one leg with eyes close without falling? Most 20 yr olds can do 30 seconds, 70 year olds only 4-5
On Two-Year Anniversary, NN Running Team Gets Extended Through 2022 Jos Hermens‘ team has won 6 WMMs in two years and 112 races. If you have no idea what NN is, it’s an “insurance and asset management company” in the Netherlands.
English U20 XC Rory Leonard (8:18/3:50) Just Got 37th At World XC And Soon Will Be Headed To Arkansas Like His Mum And Dad

Non-Distance News

MB: Lynna Irby pulls a Sammy Watson. Struggling (by her lofty standards) as a collegian, the solution is to … go pro early Last year, she ran 49.80 and won NCAAs. This year, she’s run 52.02 and was 5th at NCAAs but someone is paying her.
Some Are Outraged That San Jose State Plans To Turn Historic Bud Winter Track Into Parking Garage It’s the track that Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans once but now is dilapidated and people have been trying to prevent them from turning it into a parking lot since at least 2002. Look how dilapidated it was in 2018.
Usain Bolt Races A Motorcycle Taxi In Peru (And Wins)

More Distance Stuff

Switzerland’s 59:13 Man Julien Wanders Shares Some Interesting Info About His Younger Days Wanders tried multiple sports and events including tennis, soccer, long jump and javelin before he settled on long distance running.
MB: Joshua Cheptegei visited and scouted the cross country course well before the race. Cheptegeai surveyed the course back in November and specialized his training to prepare for the crazy uphills.
Toni Reavis Asks If It’s Possible To “Lead From Behind” In Distance Racing Reavis looks back at some examples where runners did, just this like the epic duel between Sammy Wanjiru and Tsegay Kebede at the 2010 Chicago Marathon.
Japan’s 2012 Olympic Marathoner And 2:07 Man Arata Fujiwara Retires At Age 37

Non-Distance News

GB Olympic Discus Thrower Jade Lally Explains Why She Was “Devastated” When She Found Out She Was Pregnant Professional athletes are as a necessity, very selfish, but parents don’t get to be. Thankfully Lally seems to realize this: “I don’t want my child to feel that she is coming second to anything, I will have to learn to juggle putting her needs alongside mine as an athlete.”
Good Read: NZ Shot Putter Jacko Gill Opens Up On His Life-Threatening Illness And Stalled Career Between many injuries and being bedridden with myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) Gill has struggled a lot since the days when he was a junior world champ and YouTube star. But now he has changed a lot about his training and is on the comeback trail.
May 3: Doha Confirms Six Global Champions For The Opening Of The 2019 Diamond League The fields include Caterine Ibarguen vs. Tianna Bartoletta in the LJ, Sam Kendricks vs. Olympic champ Thiago Braz in the PV, Brianna Rollins-McNeal vs. Sally Pearson in the 100H.
GB Olympic Hurdlers Colin Jackson And Jamie Baulch Talk About Living Together Back In The 1990s In Florida Jackson was six years older, owned the house and was also Baulch’s coach. He’s also a bit of a neat freak, which made for an interesting living dynamic with a 21-year-old who was living away from home for the first time.

USATF: What To Watch, When And Where In April

Tokyo 2020 News

German Athletes Group Fighting IOC For Increased Representation And A Bigger Share Of Olympic Revenue Even if the IOC doesn’t share more money with athletes (which they probably should), they need to revise the ridiculous advertising restrictions of Rule 40 (which has apparently already been scaled back in Germany).
*MB Archives: RULE 40, is it BS?
*MB Archives: Coburn skirts Rule 40
SEGA Announces A Mario And Sonic At The Tokyo Olympics Video Game Coming Out This Year
Future Of Olympic Boxing Still In Doubt After IOC Postpone Decision On Tokyo Inclusion Boxing has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since 1904 except for Stockholm 1912 because of a Swedish law banning the sport.
Tokyo 2020 Warn That They Are Struggling With A Lack Of Buses And Drivers For The Olympics They believe they need 2,000 buses a day with at least twice as many drivers.
Tokyo 2020 Unveil Mascot Images Representing Olympic And Paralympic Sports
Tokyo 2020 Hold Welcoming Ceremony As Olympic And Paralympic Flags Return To Tokyo After Tour Of The Country

Doping News

LRC Abbott World Marathon Majors And Athletics Integrity Unit Announce Expanded Out-Of-Competition Testing And Investigation Program The WMMs are putting their money into keeping the sport clean. Others like agents and sponsors need to start joining them. *IAAF Statement
*Discussion: Good Idea/Bad Idea: What if marathons/races required agents to pay back the percent of money they earned from dirty athletes?

IAAF Clears Four More Russians To Compete As Neutral Athletes Includes Russian national junior indoor 3,000m champ Lilia Mendaeva. Overall this season, 69 Russians have been approved, 15 have been refused and 162 applications have yet to be processed.

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Some More Reporting From World XC

LRC Team LetsRun Aarhus Report: Read About Kelsey Bruce & Matt Crowe’s World XC Experience When I woke up last Monday morning, I had never heard of Kelsey Bruce or Matt Crowe. Five days later, I was cheering them on at the World Cross-Country Championships in Aarhus, Denmark.

LRC World XC Photo Essay: The Sights And Flavor Of World Cross Aarhus 2019

LRC Podcast: What Really Happened At World Cross-Country, Cheptegei Vs. Mo Farah, The Debut Of Team LetsRun + Emily Sisson Has Arrived Full details and show notes above or you can listen in the player below or your favorite podcast service.

The 5,000m Diamond League Debate

T&F News Editor E. Garry Hill: “Call Me A Heretic, But The IAAF’s Diamond League Tightening Might Actually Be The Right Move” Hill writes that as a “hardcore fan” he hates to see the sport in this position, but as a “pragmatist” knows hard questions and steps need to be taken for the good of the sport.
Video Interview With Selemon Barega: “I was shocked. I mean, it was like losing a culture … I will be forced to change to road racing instead of track.” Hey, don’t worry, Selemon. The IAAF says the changes “won’t disadvantage” East Africans, so you’re all good.
*MB: IAAF/Seb Coe’s Boneheaded (possibly bigoted) Decision Pushes Generational Talent Selemon Barega to the Roads.

Random Running Reads

Marathoner In China Receives Lifetime Ban From The Xuzhou Marathon For Cycling Part Of The Race It still took her over five and a half hours to finish.
*2nd Article Apparently the race also had issues with bystanders stealing the drinks, food and tables set out for the runners.
Beppu-Oita Marathon To Review Staff Training After Interpreter Refers To African Athletes As “Chimpanzees” The woman claimed she had no malicious or racist intent, but she also said working with African athletes was like “communicating with primitive people.” Yikes.
Woman Runner Who Fought Off An Attacker Two Years Ago Is Sharing Self-Defense Training That She Believes Saved Her Life She actually fought off the attacker with moves she had learned just weeks earlier in a self-defense seminar at her office.

Fast High School 3,200s Set For Arcadia

Dyestat Preview: 10 Boys Story Lines To Follow At The Arcadia Invitational Olympian Alan Culpepper‘s son Cruz Culpepper will be among those lining up in the always super-deep 3,200m.
Dyestat Preview: 10 Girls Story Lines To Follow At The Arcadia Invitational Will any girls go sub-10 in the 3,200 to challenge Alexa Efraimson‘s 9:55 MR?