International Distance News

• Nick Willis Writes Letter To His Younger Self; Says He Shouldn’t Have Felt Guilty About Skipping Training To Play Other Sports When He Was Young Willis also says that “you can only explore your absolute limits after two years of uninterrupted training.”
• Athletics Weekly Profile On Self-Coached GB 2:26 Marathoner Steph Twell Twell talks about the benefits and challenges of being self-coached and how she took inspiration from Molly Huddle and Emily Sisson when deciding to race the Doha 10,000m just a month before the Frankfurt Marathon (where she ran her PR).
• The Independent: “Phenomenal Fionnuala McCormack Proves The Only Size That Really Matters Is The Size Of Your Heart” Eamonn Sweeny writes, “McCormack is the toughest because nothing is tougher than competitive cross-country running.”
• RIP Former Aussie Olympic 1,500m Runner Graham Crouch, 71 Crouch was part of a historic 1,500m race at the 1974 Commonwealth Games where Filbert Bayi ran 3:32.16 to break Jim Ryun‘s WR (Crouch was 5th in a NR of 3:34.42).

Our Weekly Recap

WTW: Valencia Amazes, Tsegaye Kebede Continues To Outrun America And Molly Huddle Gets Nervous The Trinidad Alfonso Valencia Marathon amazed last week and we break it down for you. Plus Molly Huddle tweets about the Vaporflys, a sneak peak at Saucony’s new $210 shoe, an update on Steve Spence‘s quest to break 5:00 in the mile for the 44th straight year, an introduction to one of the craziest doping stories ever and is USATF or UK Athletics more dysfunctional?

Sprints And Jumps

• Yohan Blake Says Seb Coe Is “Killing” The Sport With New DL Changes “That’s a stupid move. He must enhance the sport, but he is killing it.”
• Canadian 400H National Record Holder Sage Watson Explains Why She Doesn’t Believe In Dieting “I believe in healthy eating over dieting. To me, dieting is restrictive and something that you can’t keep up for long period of time.”
• Yohan Blake Chooses Former Jamaican 400m Hurdler Gregory Little As His New Coach This is Blake’s second coaching change in two years as he just left Glen Mills for Patrick Dawson for the 2019 season.
• Q&A With World HJ Champ Mutaz Essa Barshim Barshim wants to win gold in Tokyo after winning bronze and silver medals in the last two Olympics.
• Q&A With USATF Hall Of Fame Inductee Sandra Farmer-Patrick Farmer-Patrick won 400H silver at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and actually competed in the very first women’s Olympic 400H in 1984.

End Of 2019 News

• Fan Photograph Of The Year Chosen In World Athletics Contest The winning shot came from a former Canadian sprinter Daniel Drozdowsky, who took a photo of Aaron Brown just edging out Andre de Grasse by three thousandths of a second at the Canadian Championships.
• More World Athletics Year Reviews: Cross-Country And Road Running *Mid And Long Distance *Sprints *Hurdles *Jumps

News That Passed Our Stringent Vetting Process

• Crazy Boyfriend Of Mom Of French Distance Runner Who Tested Positive For EPO Says He Injected Her While She Was Asleep And Thus Didn’t Know
  *MB: AlSal was RIGHT! Athletes can be sabotaged; french runner administered EPO while sleeping by mom’s BF
• Recommended Read AP: An In-Depth Look At How Bill Staab Has Dedicated Much Of His Life To Helping Immigrants Via The West Side Runners’ Club Girma Bekele Gebre‘s third-place finish in NY got the group a lot of publicity but Staab has been helping the runner for roughly 40 years and they are appreciative, “For Ethiopian runners, he’s like a father. We love him.”
• RR #2 Tianna Bartoletta Blogs About Visiting A Women’s Prison In The UK Where The Prisoners Determined She Was The Guest Speaker Because She’d Had A “Shit Life” Despite Her 3 Olympic Golds
• Alan Abrahamson Says Christian Taylor Should Be Worried If Nike Pulls Its Support For Track, Not If Triple Jump Is Part Of DL TV Window
• Mercedes-AMG Formula One Team Treats Eliud Kipchoge To An Exclusive Experience (Pics)
• Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Stadium Is Officially Complete As It’s Handed Over To Japan Sports Council It cost $1.4 billion to build.
• Jamaican-Born Derek Thompson – Coach Of Ajee Wilson And Raevyn Rogers – Thinks Jamaica Could Be An 800 Power “Put it this way,” Thompson contended, “If Puerto Rico can have three 800m runners clocking sub-1:45.00 minutes, Jamaica should have more than that.”
• World Record Holder Brigid Kosgei Says Tokyo Gold Is “Main Target And Challenge” For 2020
• Brit Overcomes Muggings And Getting Shot At To Run A Marathon In Every Country In The World
•  Cathal Dennehy Remembers How All Of Ireland “Ran With Sonia” As O’Sullivan Is Inducted Into Irish HOF On Her 50th Birthday The former WChamp and Olympic silver medalist had the “greatest career in Irish sport” according to Dennehy.
• The Keys To Peter Seufer’s 4th Place Finish At NCAAs – 90-95 MPW On 6 Days A Week Seufer took it easy early in the summer as he was working in NYC.
  *Seufer Admits Weight Loss Was Key To 4th-Place Finish At NCAAs Getting rid of the “summer vest” is something he always has to do.
• Many Africans Are Outraged They Can’t Vote For Kipchoge as BBC World Sport Star Of The Year 2019 Due To Geo Restrictions “Denying Kenyans to vote for Eliud Kipchoge by BBC Sport is another form of colonization,” said one fan.
• The Extreme Lengths Runners Go To Run A PB From peeing in your pants mid-marathon to forging a doctor’s note to get out of school, Canadian Running Magazine has some interesting stories.

LRC Podcast / Turkey Trot News

One We Missed Thursday Shannon Rowbury Defeats Kim Conley, Emily Infeld, Stephanie Bruce At Applied Materials Silicon Valley Turkey Trot Aaron Templeton won the men’s race. Results and race videos.

RRW: Eric Jenkins, Edna Kiplagat Win Blustery Manchester Road Race Jenkins outkicked Edward Cheserek by 3 seconds while Kiplagat beat out Sally Kipyego by 13 seconds. *Discuss
*Local Fox Article With Video Interviews

Craig Engels Wins His Hometown Turkey Trot In Winston-Salem, NC Engels won the Turkey Strut 5k in 15:05 and did another mile afterwards to complete the workout. Asked about cutting his trademark mullet and mustache, he said, “I feel like if I had the mullet and mustache year round people wouldn’t appreciate it, but I’ll have my fancy mullet and mustache again by June.”

• Turkey Trots On The Forums: Gobble, gobble: Official Turkey Trots Results Thread
• Turkey Trot DEVASTATION
• Did anyone get “chicked” at their Turkey Trot today?

LRC Gobble, Gobble: Post-NCAA Cross-Country Turkey Trot Podcast NCAAs are in the books and Turkey Trots are here.

Catching Up On Russian Doping Scandals

• Russian Athletics Federation Officials (Including President Dmitry Shlyakhtin) Charged With Obstructing An Investigation Into A Whereabouts Failure By HJer Danil Lysenko An AIU investigation found the cover-up included fabricating documents from a fake clinic to show Lysenko was too ill to provide his whereabouts. *2nd Article
• Russian Athletics Federation Selects New President As Dmitry Shlyakhtin Resigns  World HJ champ Maria Lasitskene was very critical of his replacement, claiming that Yulia Tarasenko “is Shlyakhtin’s appointess and should immediately quit.”
• Associated Press Obtains Report Showing Depths Of Russia Cover-Up The tampering apparently went to extreme lengths by even writing fake memos to cast doubt on the Russian whistleblower.
• NY Times: Inside Russia’s Failed Doping Cover-Up *Discuss
• WADA Says Russian Data Tampering Throws 145 Cases Into Doubt
• World Athletics (Formerly The IAAF) Halts Russian Reinstatement Process After Most Recent Cover-Up Scandal
  *World Athletics Statement They are considering the “expulsion of RusAF from membership of World Athletics.”
• WADA Pushes For Russia To Be Banned From Tokyo Olympics Over Tampering With Anti-Doping Data WADA will meet December 9th and decide whether to approve the recommendations from their investigators to ban Russia for 4 years and strip them of hosting sports events. *2nd Article
  *Previously: IOC Suggests It Will Oppose Blanket Bans On Russian Athletes From The Olympics Typical apathy we’ve come to expect from the IOC when it comes to Russian doping.
• USADA Head Travis Tygart Calls For Complete Ban Of Russian Athletes From The Olympics “Russia continues to flaunt the world’s anti-doping rules, kick clean athletes in the gut and poke WADA in the eye and get away with it time and time again. WADA must stand up to this fraudulent and bullying behavior.”
• CAS Confirms Bans For Two Russian Athletes Over London 2012 Retests The athletes banned are sprinter Yuliya Gushchina and LJer Anna Nazarova. It’s not surprising at all that most of the relays Gushchina had competed on were already stripped of medals because one of her teammates tested positive.
• Provisional Suspension Against Russian Sprinter Artyom Denmukhametov Lifted By The IAAF Denmukhametov was originally accused of working with a banned coach. Denmukhametov opted to not have the decision published, so we don’t know the details which lead to the suspension being removed.
• World Athletics Approves The Application Of Six Russians To Compete At Euro XC Champs As Neutral Athletes