July 9, 2019 | LetsRun.com

Is 40 Days Of Running Enough?

LRC Exclusive Evan Jager Will Attempt To Win His 8th Straight US Title After Just 40 Days of Running Injuries have kept Evan Jager from racing since last August. Jager is back running now — finally — and he’s ready to talk. So we listened.
*MB: Evan Jager Will Attempt To Win His 8th Straight US Title After Just 40 Days of Running – Is It Enough?

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Life Isn’t Fair / Brigid Kosgei Wins $58,000, Bernard Lagat 2020 Olympic Marathoner?, Bribes and Pro Daycare Dads

Anti-Doping News

Biggest Ever Anti-Doping Raid Arrests 234 People The operation involved police from 33 countries and led to nine underground labs in European countries being shut down, with millions of illegal substances, including 24 tons of steroids, being confiscated.
WADA Confirms Involvement In Anti-Doping Operation Which Dismantled 17 Organized Crime Groups WADA provided practical support and intelligence during the investigation which has led to the opening of 839 judicial cases.
Two More Kenyans Suspended For Doping, Including 2014 Commonwealth Games Champ Joyce Chepkirui Chepkirui was suspended for issues with her biological passport while 2:07:03 man Jacob Kendagor either evaded or refused a doping test.
*MB: Two More Kenyans Provisionally Suspended For Doping Violations

**NACAC U18 And 23 Champs *Full Results**

Briana Williams Highlights The Final Day Of NACAC U18 Championships She won the 100m unchallenged in 11.11. Jamaica had several more wins including Conroy Jones in the 100m (10.32) and Rajay Morris in the 200m with 20.82.
USA’s Tonea Marshall And Samson Colebrooke Lead Record Breaking Sprints At NACAC U23 Champs Marshall was one of the highlights of the meet as she won the 100H in 12.57 while Colebrooke won the 200m in 20.58, got silver in the 100m (10.01) and silver in the 4×100.
DyeStat.com Day 2 NACAC U-23 Recap: Americans Go 1-2 In 7 Different Events In the women’s 800, UNLV sophomore Avi’Tal Wilson-Perteete reversed the order of finish at NCAAs on Penn’s Nia Akins to win gold in 2:05.70.
DyeStat.com Day 1 NACAC U23 Recap: Georgia’s Aliyah Whisby Wins LJ, Breaks Keturah Orji’s School Record With 22 feet, 4.50 inches (6.82m) The men’s 100 was fast as the top 3 in all ran 10.01.
Briana Williams Wins U18 Women’s 100 In 11.13 The US didn’t send a team to the U18 competition.
7 Individual NCAA Champs Are Competing At NACAC U23 Champs

Night Of 10,000 PBs In London *Results

Steph Twell Wins Women’s 10,000 In 31:08.10 Twell (31:08.10), Lonah Salpeter (31:15.80) and Eilish McColgan (31:16.83) all picked up the Olympic and World standards as Twell and McColgan moved to #6 and #7 all-me in British history.
*Yemaneberhan Crippa (27:49) won the men’s race where no one got the standard but 3 broke 28:00. *Women’s Results *Men’s Results
*IAAF Recap
*MB: It’s baaack! NIGHT OF 10,000 PB’s in London with sub-27:30 and sub-31 in the cards

More Mid-Week Results

World 5,000m Champ Hellen Obiri Holds Off Half Marathon WR Holder Joyciline Jepkosgei To Win Her Debut 10,000m At The Kenya Defense Forces Champs Obiri ran 31:43.0 in her first track 10,000 (although she has run 31:23 on the roads) to just beat out Jepkosgei (31:43.8).
*Obiri Has High Praise For Jepkosgei “Joyceline is going to pose a big threat during [Kenyan] trials considering how tight she kept me on toes until the last lap. Woe unto those who will run against her at the trials.”
MB: Edward Cheserek makes his European debut and gets smoked in 1500 (but runs 3:37) Cheserek was 8th (3:37.92) in a race won by GB’s Charlie Grice in 3:34.35 over Abdelaati Iguider (3:34.84).
Craig Leon (30:48) And Jenn Randall (35:02) Become Three-Time Winners Of The Butte To Butte 10k Road Race In Eugene
European Results: Sweden’s Tilde Johansson Breaks National U20 Long Jump Record With 6.73m At Karlstad Grand Prix

Very Sad News

Multiple Time Marathon Cheat Dr. Frank Meza Found Dead in LA River Three Days After Seeing Fastest Age 70 Time Invalidated Three days ago, he was DQed by the Los Angeles Marathon, invalidating the fastest marathon ever run by 70+ year old. The story had gone viral and was even on Good Morning America. He had also been DQed multiple times by CIM and banned from the race.

Japanese News

Japan Announces Their First Round Of Athletes For The Doha World Championships Most athletes will have to wait for final team selection in September, but those who won at Japan Champs and had the world standard (or won gold at the Asian Champs) get auto selected now.
Tokyo 2020 National Stadium Nearing Completion with Opening Set for December Looks like the Olympic stadium will be ready well before the US Olympic Trials stadium which will hopefully be ready by May of next year.
Tatsuya Itagaki Wins His Third Title, Mai Fujisawa Wins Her Fourth, At The Lake Saroma 100k In Japan

UK News

Recommended Read: GB Miler Chris O’Hare Talks About The Difficulty Of Balancing Pro Running With Being A Hands-On Dad O’Hare’s wife works full time, so he’s had to go to get creative to get his training in, at times running all his runs on the treadmill and even once getting some help from a friendly janitor at the Harvard indoor track.
BBC: UK’s Commonwealth 800m Silver Medalist Kyle Langford Grabs Official By The Throat At British Miler’s Club Meet Langford has apologized for the incident, tweeting that he “allowed pre-race tension to get to me too much.” Langford was still allowed to run and finished 5th in the 800. *Video
*Daily Mail: British Athletics Investigating Kyle Langford’s Altercation With Official Langford was initially given a “red card” by the official for running a 200m warm-up sprint in lane 2 while the 5,000m was being run.
*MB: Kyle Langford puts his hand on throat of official and pushes him at BMC meet
GB Sprinter Jodie Williams Says She’s Found Her “Love Of The Sport” Again After Almost Quitting Twice Over The Last Four Years Williams was a teen phenom with 151 consecutive victories between the ages of 11 and 16. But things haven’t gone smoothly for her as a senior athlete and Williams explains how she’s fought through her mental and physical struggles.

Centro Talks About Why He Joined The BTC

LRC A New Era Begins: Why Matthew Centrowitz Left The Nike Oregon Project For Bowerman Track Club The Olympic 1,500 champ talks about why he ditched Alberto Salazar for Jerry Schumacher.
*MB: C entro reveals why he left NOP

Two NCAA Champs Have A New Team As Well

Brooks Signs NCAA Champs Allie Ostrander And Karisa Nelson To Sponsorship Contracts “Welcoming Allie and Karisa to the team is a big moment for the Beasts.”
*MB: Allie O and Karisa Nelson join Brooks Beasts
*MB: Ostrander On The Start List For The Mount Marathon Race This Thursday

Lagat Shares How He Knocked 5 + Minutes Off His Marathon PB and Ran 2:12 At Age 44

LRC Q&A 44-Year Old Bernard Lagat Explains How He Broke The US Masters Record In Men’s Marathon And Went From Marathon Afterthought To Olympic Team Contender The former 1500 star reveals the keys to his 2:12:10 marathon.
*MB: Bernard Lagat runs 2:12:10 to break Meb’s US Masters marathon mark. Amazingly now holds EVERY US masters mark 1500 and up!!! – ro

Good News For The US Olympic Women’s Marathon Trials

LRC Here’s What We Know About The 2020 US Olympic Marathon Trials The top 3 across the line in the women’s race on February 29th will definitely be going to the Olympics. As for the men, that’s still TBD.

European News

Eilish McColgan’s mum, Liz (1991 World 10k champ), talks about what it’s like to coach her own daughter “If Eilish is healthy, she will run well. My problem is keeping Eilish healthy. That’s the difficulty for any coach, keeping their athlete healthy. The training is the easy part!”
Jakob Ingebrigsten’s 3:36.02 World U20 1500m Record Ratified By The IAAF
*LRC Archive: Jakob Ingebrigtsen Takes Down WR Holder Samuel Tefera to Win Battle of Teenage Stars in Dusseldorf 1500
Full GB Team For European U20 Championships Announced Unfortunately it won’t feature 17-year-old 1:45.36 man Max Burgin as he has withdrawn with injury.
GB’s Jacob Adkin And Switzerland’s Maude Mathys Win European Mountain Running Titles The GB men and Italian women won the team titles. *AW Recap
Estonia Wins European Combined Events Team Championships Title Super League Belgium won the second league and the Czech Republic the first league.
European Athletics’ Bi-Annual Newsletter “Inside Track” Available For Download Includes a look ahead at the European Team Championships, The Match: Europe vs USA in September, and a review at the Dynamic New Athletics (DNA) meet.

Gold Coast Marathon

LRC Bernard Lagat Runs 2:12:10 Marathon At Age 44 To Break US Masters Record Most 44-year-olds would be thrilled to run one 5:02 mile. Not American Bernard Lagat. He just ran 26.2 of them in a row at 5:02.5 pace. Japan’s million dollar marathoner Yuta Shitara got the win in an Australian all-comers record of 2:07:50 as Zane Robertson set a a new national record for New Zealand with 2:08:19.
*JRN: Shitara Ran Race As A Training Run For Japanese Olympic Trials In 2 Months
*IAAF Recap: Jack Rayner (1:02:30) and Sinead Diver (1:09:45) won the half as defending champ Sara Hall ran 71:59.
*IAAF Recap

Articles That Passed Our Vetting Process

Recommended Read Paul Chelimo Talks About How Hard It Is To Balance Being A New Father And Elite Distance Runner He picked up a hip injury from holding his daughter and had to take Mondays off as he had baby duties while his wife was in school. But after bombing in his first two races, he decided to focus solely on running by going to Kenya for a month and he got A LOT better.
Frank Meza’s Family Appears On Local TV News and Decries The Public Shaming Ignoring the reams of evidence, they still don’t think he cheated.
A Look At How Steve Prefontaine Wasn’t Just An Athlete – He Considered Himself To Be An Artist Pre: “My philosophy is that I’m an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.”
23-Year-Old Dina Asher-Smith Thinks It’s Really Cool That 32-Year-Old SAFP Has Come Back So Well After Giving Birth
Meet Yao Miao, The Best Ultra Runner You-ve Never Heard Of 3 years ago, the 23-year-old Chinese athlete thought she had no prospects in life as she was a 38-minute 10k runner iwth a 2:59 marathon pb. Now she’s the #1 ultra runner in the world according to the Ultra Trail World Tour rankings. Is the UTMB course record next for her?
Kenyan Edward Zakayo, the 17-yr old who has run 13:03, releases image of passport and birth certificate to prove he is 17
8-Time Utah State Champ And BYU Recruit Meghan Hunter Injured In Roll-Over Crash She broke several cervical vertebrae and had 6.5 hours of surgery. She has PRs of 11.96 , 24.20, 52.59 and 2:09.26.
LA Times Offers Details On Frank Meza’s Death A possible bridge jumper was reported at 9:49 am and he was declared dead at 10:05 am.
Former Rio de Janeiro Governor Sérgio Cabral Testifies In Court That He Bought 9 Rio Votes For $2 Million Including Sergey Bubka’s
*IOC Says It Will Investigate
*Bubka Threatens Legal Action

Other News

Good Read: Athletics Weekly: A Look Back At When Seb Coe Set Three World Records In 41 Days It was 40 years ago in the summer of 1979 when Coe set WRs at 800m (1:42.33), 1,500m (3:32.03) and the mile (3:48.95).
Pre-Lausanne: AP: “American Sprinters Relishing Open Races In Life After Usain Bolt” Justin Gatlin: “I like where the sprints are right now. It’s not a clear favorite always.”
Report Reveals $2.4 Million Severance Was Given To Former USOC Chief Executive Scott Blackmun Blackmun resigned last year after being criticized for not doing enough to protect athletes in the gymnastics sexual abuse scandal.

NCAA News

Harvard And Yale Dominates Oxford And Cambridge At The Transatlantic Series Meet
Sad News: University Of Houston Pole Vaulter Robert Platt Died Last Week In A Boating Accident
Grant Holloway Named SEC Men’s Athlete Of The Year (All Sports)
A Closer Look At The Bowerman Fan Vote Which Was Won By Divine Oduduru And Sha’Carri Richardson Grant Holloway actually had the most support on the opening day of the fan vote.
Dion Miller Takes Over As Director Of Track And Field And XC At Arizona State Greg Kraft, the head coach for “nearly 25 years” is moving to the role of associate athletic director.

Week That Was

LRC How Good Was Sifan Hassan’s 8:18?, Western States Analysis, Will Claye And A New Type Of Track Meet In Belarus Around the globe we go. Plus Caster Semenya compares herself to Jesus.

International News

Good Read: IAAF Profile On Ethiopa’s Telahun Haile Bekele And His Journey From Taekwondo Athlete To 12:52.98 Distance Runner Bekele says that he dreamed of being a great runner when he realized he shared a name with two all-time greats (Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele).
July 5-7: Briana Williams Will Have Another Chance To Run Fast At The NACAC Junior Championships In Mexico The race is at 5,912 feet altitude which could help her put down another fast time after she ran a 10.94 world U18 record at Jamaican Champs last month.
Irish Times: “Why Don’t More Athletes Take A Stand On Caster Semenya?” The author doesn’t delve into a real answer. But the answer is pretty simple. All you have to do is look at the “aggressive abuse” Paula Radcliffe got online for speaking out about Semenya.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Says She’s Still Not Back To Her Best Since Giving Birth In 2017 She says there are still things that she can’t get right in training and needs to race more.

Mid-Week Action

World Half Marathon Record Holder Joyciline Jepkosgei Wins 5,000 At Kenya Defence Forces Champs In 15:19 Vedic Cheruiyot won the men’s 10,000m in 28:17.4.
Sydney McLaughlin Runs Season’s Best 53.72 At The Meeting De Marseille In France GB’s Charlie Da’Vall Grice won the 1,500m in 3:34.35 over Abdelaati Iguider (3:34.84) while Kenya’s Tigist Ketema won the women’s race (4:05.09). Kenya’s Nelly Jepkosgei beat Lynsey Sharp in the 800m (2:00.50 to 2:00.57). *Results
Poland’s European Champ Wojciech Nowicki Throws World-Leading 81.74m To Win Hammer Throw At Poznan Grand Prix In Poland Three-time world champ Pawel Fajdek was second with 79.37m. *Results

Sunset Tour Tonight In California – Americans Standard Chasing In Stacked Races Schedule/Result/Startlists Live Stream at 10:15PM ET (Flotrack Subscription Required)

Matt Centrowitz, Craig Engels, Donavan Brazier, Shelby Houlihan Highlight Deep American Fields For The 2019 Sunset Tour M800: Centro, Engels, Josh Kerrand Erik Sowinski; W800: Houlihan vs Kate Grace; M1500: Brazier, Ben Blankenship, Lopez Lomong; W1500: Colleen Quigley, Shannon Rowbury, Alexa Efraimson and M5000: Grant Fisher makes his pro debut with Leonard Korir, Hassan Mead and Lomong.

MB: Frank mesas death has officially been ruled a suicide The Los Angeles County coroner’s office says Meza died from multiple blunt force traumatic injuries and ruled his death a suicide. This after there were reports last week that someone may have jumped from a bridge.

Lausanne Diamond League Full Results TV & Streaming Information

LRC Noah Lyles Rips 19.50 World Leader In 200 Meters in Lausanne To Become The 4th-Fastest Man In History 19.50 into a headwind (-.1 m/s). Wow.

Rest Of The Meet
LRC 2019 Lausanne DL Recap: Gebrhiwet Miscounts His Laps, Cheruiyot Runs 3:28 And SAFP Runs 10.74 Lausanne entertained from start to finish as we saw a super-fast men’s 1,500, a wild men’s 5,000 with the fastest penultimate lap in history and a whole lot more.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen Reacts To His 3:30.16 His brother Filip, who ran 3:30.82 in Lausanne, still holds the family record at 3:30.01.
Guy Learmonth Thought He Was In PR Shape In Lausanne Unfortunately, he ended up last in 1:45.86.
Katie Nageotte Becomes First American To Win Women’s Pole Vault In Lausanne She set an outdoor PR (4.82m) to win the non-DL event on July 4.

MB Talk:

MB: Official 2019 Lausanne Diamond League Live Discussion Thread
MB: NOAH MF LYLES 19.50!!!!
MB: TIM MF CHERUIYOT!!!
MB: Jakob 3:30!!

50th Peachtree *Results

LRC/RRW: Brigid Kosgei (30:22) And Rhonex Kipruto (27:01) Break Course Records And Win $50,000 Bonuses At 50th Peachtree Road Race Kipruto dominated the men’s race, leading pretty much wire-to-wire, to break the record by just 3 seconds with his brother, Bravin Kiptoo, finishing runner-up in 27:29. On the women’s side, it was an exciting three-way battle on the final straight with Kosgei collapsing at the line after just nipping former world XC champ Agnes Tirop.