March April Madness (Get Your Elite 8 Votes In By Midnight ET)

Upset Alert LRC Who Had The Better Career, Joan Benoit Samuelson or Jenny Simpson? Jenny Simpson is on the verge of knocking off Joan Benoit Samuelson in our American distance GOAT voting. Rojo tells you LetsRun nation is making a mistake.
*MB: Has LetsRun nation lost its mind? Jenny Simpson is currently beating Joan Benoit in the voting for Greatest American Ever.

LRC American Distance GOAT Sweet 16 Recap: Ryun Defeats Centro, Rupp Takes Down Meb, & More Our quest to anoint the great American Distance runner of all-time is down to the Elite 8. Who had the better career: Frank Shorter or Galen Rupp, Bernard Lagat or Jim Ryun, Deena Kastor or Shalane Flanagan, and Joan Benoit Samuelson or Jenny Simpson.

Vote Now
*Vote In The Men’s Semifinals! Who had the better career: Frank Shorter or Galen Rupp, Bernard Lagat or Jim Ryun?
*Vote In The Women’s Semifinals Who had the better career: Deena Kastor or Shalane Flanagan, Joan Benoit Samuelson or Jenny Simpson?

This Week’s Big Talk

LRC Meet Madeline Manning Mims – The Greatest American 800m Runner Ever?  If you missed this week’s podcast we made our talk with Manning Mims its own podcast and have a few highlights of our talk. Manning Mims ran her first 800 by accident, and broke the then world record as a high schooler. 2 years later she was the Olympic champ. 14 years later she was still winning the Olympic Trials.

Will The ACC Have Another XC Power Soon?

MB: Duke’s Norm Ogilvie retires after 30 years at Duke Ogilvie’s depature from Colorado to Duke enabled Mark Wetmore to take over. What will his departure at Duke result in? Will Duke now rise up to give the ACC another crazy XC program? They’ve already got Florida St., Notre Dame, Syracuse, UNC and UVA.

International Distance News

• US-Based 800m Runner Emmanuel Korir Says He Wishes He Was In Kenya For Individual Training “We are not allowed to do any kind of training. Luckily, back home in Kenya, I could run in the forest alone or conduct some training on my own unlike here. Life is at its worst but I have to try my best to survive.”
  *MB: 800 star Emmanuel Korir claims he’s ” not allowed to do any kind of training” in El Paso. Isn’t this a false statement?
• Japan Planning On Holding Rescheduled 10,000m National Championships in December They obviously want the marks to count for Olympic qualification and that can’t happen until December.
• Sally Kipyego Happy She Can Still Chase Marathon Gold At Rescheduled Tokyo Olympics “I liked it more because they didn’t cancel it all together. They gave us another chance to chase the dream next year. I was really pleased with that. I was relieved more than anything.”
• Belgian Distance Runner And Nurse Koen Naert Praises Healthcare Workers Fighting The Coronavirus Naert writes about working at the hospital to help burn victims after the Brussels bombings in 2016 and says he can empathize with what healthcare workers are going through now.
• Geoffrey Kamworor Says He’s Doing 20k A Day With Additional Workouts On The Treadmill
• 50k Treadmill WR Goes Down For The Third Time This Year Swiss orienteer Matthias Kyburz took 50 seconds off the record with 2:56:35.

LetsJump.com

• Sandi Morris And Her Father Constructed Her Own Pole Vault Setup To Use During The Pandemic Near Her Parents’ Home In South Carolina The project took three weeks and cost $4,000 (plus a pole vault mat which was loaned to her).
• HJer Alessia Trost Writes About Living And Training In Lockdown In Italy “In Italy it means the only reason you can leave your home, besides an emergency, is to get food or go to the pharmacy. If you have a dog you can take it for a walk, but you must stay within 200m of your house. If you’re an athlete, it means doing all your training in your living room and if, like me, you live alone, it means you haven’t met anyone for a month. It’s weird. It’s sad.”
• World Athletics: On The Rebound From A Slate Of Injuries, Canadian Olympic HJ Champ Derek Drouin Greets Tokyo Postponement With Cautious Optimism “I’m not going to lie, I was relieved for my own personal reasons that I had another year (to prepare for the Tokyo Games), although having said that I was also really hoping I would have the opportunity to jump this summer (and I’m not sure that is going to be the case).”

Miscellaneous Coronavirus News

• The Penn Relays Is Going To Hold An E-Sports Version Of The Meet Using The Video Game Minecraft The livestream will be at twitch.tv/thepennrelays from 12:00 to 5:00PM ET on April 24.
• Runner’s World Says More Cities Should Do Like Oakland And Close Down Streets To Cars To Give A Space For Runners, Cyclists And Pedestrians To Socially Distance Oakland is closing a total of 74 miles of streets to through traffic.
• Tour De France Given New Dates In August And September Due To Coronavirus
  *MB: Tour De France postponed!
• Dick Pound Warns That The IOC Should Plan On Coronavirus Impacting Revenue For Beijing 2022
• RW Does A Rundown Of Major Running Events Postponed Or Cancelled By The Coronavirus Pandemic
• Tokyo 2020 Torch Designer Creates DIY Face Visor To Help Protect Healthy Workers

NCAA News

• NCAA Council Considering One-Time Transfer Waiver Next Week Student-athletes would be able to change schools for the next sports calendar and be cleared to play immediately, without sitting out a season.
• NCAA Bans Teams From Having Virtual Workouts They cited safety concerns as one of the main reasons for their decision to ban virtual workouts.
  *MB: NCAA JUST BANNED VIRTUAL WORKOUTS
• Five Major Football Conferences Are Allowing The NCAA To Relax Requirements, Including The Minimum Number Of Sports A School Must Sponsor DI schools are required to sponsor at least 16 varsity sports, but with money lost from coronavirus, schools might be looking to cut programs to save money.
• Longtime Duke Coach Norm Ogilvie Announces His Retirement Ogilvie has had 30 seasons on the Duke coaching staff.
• University Of Wisconsin Says They Won’t Give Their Spring Athletes Another Season Of Eligibility And Tells Their Seniors To “Move On” Athletic director Barry Alvarez: “What we tried to do was encourage our seniors to go ahead and, if you’re going to graduate, graduate and move on with your life. We appreciate everything that you’ve done. But move forward. The future is in question, and we can’t promise you anything.”
  *MB: Olli Hoare’s career at Wisconsin is over – Wisco. says no waivers for Spring Athletes.

European News

• GB Distance Runner Jo Pavey Targeting Her Sixth Olympics At Age Of 47 Pavey also talks about how she’s adjusted her training during the coronavirus and tactics she uses to keep her kids active.
• France’s Pascal Martinot-Lagarde Auctions Off His Competition Vest From 2019 Worlds Where He Won 110H Bronze It sold for $1,600, which is going towards helping nurses at a local hospital.
• UK Mass Participation Events Including The London Marathon Launching Campaign To Help Charities Cover The Expected $5 Income Shortfall Many people who run mass-participation races do so for charity, so there is a knock-on effect with so many events being cancelled.
• How Europe’s Athletes Are Making A Difference During The COVID-19 Outbreak Some are raising money while others are encouraging kids to stay active while staying home.
• European Athletics President Sveine Arne Hansen Thankful For Messages Of Support After His Stroke Last Month

LRC Had Two Podcasts Last Week *All Here

#2 Guest Dr. Michael Joyner Talks COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project + Backyard Ultra Controversial Finish + Olympic Qualifying Cancelled + Eugene 2022 + American GOAT  Joyner, the guy who predicted the sub-2 hour marathon, is now working on treatments for COVID-19.

#1 The Mike Wardian Podcast At age 45, has Wardian found his unbeatable event – the Backyard Ultra? Rojo seems to think so as Wardian hardly ever needs to sleep. After running 262+ miles over 63 hours without any sleep, Wardian proceeded to go to work. As of 5 pm Wednesday, he’d slept a total of 4:45 since Saturday morning.
*MB: Meet Mike Wardian – The World’s #1 Runner – Is He The “Eliud Kipchoge” Of Backyard Ultras?

Mike Smith Lifts The Veil On Galen Rupp’s Training

LRC Mike Smith Q&A Part II: On Choosing To Coach Galen Rupp, “Defending The Process,” & Rupp’s Human Side Smith said that he was careful not to let preconceived notions cloud his judgment when deciding whether to work with Rupp. “The second we abandon our critical thinking or our process with this stuff … I worry about that.”
*MB: Mike Smith Part II: Smith explains why he agreed to work with Galen Rupp

LRC Mike Smith Q&A, Part I: On Galen Rupp’s Commitment, Restructuring His Training & That 24 X 400 Workout 
*MB: Mike Smith lifts the veil on Galen Rupp’s training and talks about what makes him great