April 20, 2020 | LetsRun.com

It’s Boston Marathon Day For The First Time In 124 Years, There Will Be No Boston Marathon In April

MB: Boston Marathon Re-airing all day on Olympic Channel All times Eastern: 10 am 2017, 1pm 2017, 4pm 2018, 7pm 2019, 10pm 2014, midnight 2015. Jon Gault will be on a HOKA NAZ Elite video chat on 7:30 pm.

LRC Monday, But No Marathon: What I Miss Most About The Boston Marathon Jonathan Gault shares what he misses most about the Boston Marathon as for the first time since 1896 there will be no Boston Marathon in April.
*MB: It’s Patriots Day but there is no Boston Marathon – What do you most miss about Boston?

Boston Marathon Organizers Urge People Not To Run The Course On Boston Monday Today The BAA statement said, “For the first time in Boston Marathon history, we are urging anyone considering running the Boston Marathon course this week to stay home.
Scott Douglas: The Best Moments From The Last 45 Years Of The Boston Marathon
Runner’s World: The 13 Most Important Boston Marathons They start with the first in 1897 and go through to Des Linden‘s win in 2018.
AP: From Hopkinton To Boston, Marathon Absence Is Seen And Felt
You Can Run The Boston Marathon Virtually With An App

Boston MB Talk:

Olympic Qualification Debate / Will There Even Be An Olympics?

Japanese Virus Expert Is “Very Pessimistic” About Tokyo 2020 Taking Place Next Year Kentaro Iwata said, “Japan might be able to control this disease by next summer, I wish we could, but I don’t think that would happen everywhere on Earth…”
Euromeetings Group Asks World Athletics To Reconsider Their Freeze On Olympic Qualification Their statement stated, “In explaining to our sponsors and supporting institutions the need to stage athletics meetings in 2020, we unfortunately have lost one key argument: the possibility of Olympic qualification.”
Irish Sprinter Phil Healy Backs World Athletics’ Olympic Qualification Freeze “Let’s say we got to compete at [Euro Champs], and that’s a high category event, but Americans obviously couldn’t compete, that’s not fair that we get that opportunity to boost our chances of qualification and they don’t.”

The Latest Covid-19 Related News

Haile G Has Donated £30,000 To Covid-19 Fund, But Is Very Worried About Things Apparently, he’s barely sleeping as he’s so worried about his employees. *MB: Haile G donates £30,000 to Covid-19 fund, but is worried about its impact and not sleeping more than 4 hrs as a result
How New Zealand Shot Put Star Tom Walsh Is Spending His Coronavirus Lockdown An interesting read. From riding an ebike, to lifting an insane amount of weight, to drinking beers, he shares all.
1980 US Olympians Reflect And Compare The Cancellations And Postponement Of Sports This Year To The Olympic Boycott “Not one life was saved by the 1980 boycott, but we know lives will be saved by the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games.”
The Diamond League Opener Was Supposed To Be In Doha This Weekend; Instead A Video Conference Was Held With Keni Harrison, Mutaz Barshim, Tom Walsh, Thomas Röhler And Katerina Stefanidi They talk Doha, the Diamond League, self-isolation and even watched some track and field highlights.
Group Starts Petition To Use Tokyo Olympic Dorms To House Homeless During Covid-19 Crisis The homeless problem is tiny in Tokyo as compared to the US.
*MB: Guess how many homeless people there are in Tokyo
Denver’s Red Rocks Park Has Been Closed For A Week If you work out there, you get a $999 fine.
Reigning Down Two Oceans And Comrades Champ Bongmusa Mthembu Reflects On Two Oceans Cancellation And Comrades Postponement “But as I said, the most important for now is to comply with the rules and regulations of the country. We can’t be worried about Comrades while the rest of the world is trying to fight this virus. Let us fight the virus first and then we can focus on running races.”

Jump Into The LetsRun.com Time Machine

LRC I Was Bored, So I Went Back And Watched Ritz, Webb, & Hall Battle At The 2000 Foot Locker Cross-Country Championships Jonathan Gault revisits one of the most-hyped races in the history of US high school cross-country, in which the top three finishers all eventually became American record holders. Plus X-ray graphics, Discmen, hanging chads, and why Sara Hall‘s win in the girls’ race was way better than you remember.
*MB Discussion

Last Week: LRC I Was Bored, So I Went Back And Watched The 1998 NCAA Cross-Country Championships

US Distance News

NY Times: “Jacob Riley and Molly Seidel came out of obscurity to qualify for the Olympic Games. Everything about their lives changed. Then it changed again.” Seidel: “It’s been the highest of highs and lowest of lows.”
Evan Jager Podcast Interview Talking About His Career And Training During The COVID-19 Pandemic Jager touches on training, goals and whether or not he should get a Harley Davidson motorcycle.
USATF Q&A With Marathoner Neely Spence Gracey Spence Gracey says one of her favorite competition memories was her marathon debut at the 2016 Boston Marathon where she finished as the top American (9th overall).

More Track History

World Athletics: 10 Of The Greatest Athletics Examples Of Perseverance A few distance runners including Lasse Viren and Hicham El Guerrouj make their list.
Irish Distance Great Sonia O’Sullivan Looks Back Fondly At When She Got To Watch Marcus O’Sullivan Win The Wanamaker Mile At The 1988 Millrose Games
Hammer Thrower Erin Gilreath Is USATF Throback Athlete Of The Week For Breaking The AR With 73.87m Back In 2004

Dirty Side Of Sport

Russian Track Coach Andrei Eremenko Gets 4-Year Ban For Attempting To Bribe A Doping Tester The coach tried to give a bribe to provide a sample for his hurdler Yulia Malueva, who got a 4-year ban in 2018 for failing to give a sample.
Athletics Kenya Head Warns Athletes That They Have Nowhere To Hide In The War Against Doping “I want to tell the athletes that there is nowhere to hide with the systems put in place. Wherever you go or even if you are retired, the records will always be there and one day, you will be caught.”
BBC: Welsh Indoor 1,500m Champion Kate Seary Says Welsh Athletics Has Failed In Its Duties After Former Coach Phil Banning Was Convicted Of Abusing Girls Seary, 23, was coached by Banning for a decade and, although she was not abused. *AW Article

Usain Bolt Takes On Coronavirus

Usain Bolt Sends Funny Tweet About “Social Distancing” Bolt sent out a photo of him “social distancing” at the finish line of the 2008 Olympic 100m (where he won in a then-world record of 9.69).
Usain Bolt Donates $3,700 To Coronavirus Relief Telethon In Jamaica

More Sport Rescheduling And Cancellations

Seb Coe Hoping For A “Belated” August Start To Outdoor Season It’d go from August to October. It would be nice if people getting the “A” standard would get credit for it.
The Athletics Association Wants To Discuss The Qualification System For Tokyo 2020 With World Athletics In a poll, 60% of athletes said they would like results from before the December 1st cutoff to count as Olympic qualifiers.
RRW: Utica Boilermaker 15K Postponed Until September It was scheduled for July 12th.
USATF Junior Olympic Championships Cancelled Due To COVID-19 They were to be held in Florida July 27-August 2.
New Dates Confirmed For 2020 RunCzech Series The spring events through June have been cancelled with the Olomouc Half starting things off August 31st.

A Must Read If You Care About Doping Or Justice

LRC The Amazing Story Of How Jarrion Lawson Cleared His Name: He Showed That The Head Of A WADA Lab Provided False Testimony Against Him Jarrion Lawson is free to compete once again after his legal team was able to show that Christiane Ayotte, the head of the WADA-accredited doping control lab at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique in Laval, Quebec, lied while testifying during his case.
*MB: The amazing story of how Jarrion Lawson cleared himself: He showed the head of a WADA lab provided false testimony against him.

Free Book Chapters – Purchase Your Autographed Book From Craig Virgin Now

LRC “Virgin Territory” Chapter 17: Front Runner Inc: When Pro Runners Had To Pretend They Weren’t Pro Hard to believe guys in their 60s now had to pretend they weren’t pro runners.

LRC “Virgin Territory” Book Excerpt, Chapter 1: Playing It Risky – Craig Virgin’s 1980 World Cross-Country Win Read about Craig’s win at World XC. Coming tomorrow chapter 17 from the book.

Top Tips From The Pros

LRC HOKA ONE ONE Pro Runners Give Their Best Advice To High Schoolers Want some simple training advice?

March April Madness

LRC American Distance GOAT Voting: The Final 4 Is Here as Jenny Simpson Edges Joan Benoit Samuelson To Clinch Spot in Women’s Final After a controversial semifinal round where Joan Benoit Samuelson was defeated despite getting more vote than Jenny Simpson, we’re now down to our men’s and women’s finals. Who is the greatest American distance runner ever – Jenny Simpson or Deena Kastor? Frank Shorter or Jim Ryun?
*Vote in the Men’s and Women’s Finals!

Rojo Speaks LetsRun Got it Wrong. Joan Benoit Samuelson Had A Better Career Than Jenny Simpson
*MB: Has LetsRun nation lost its mind? Jenny Simpson is currently beating Joan Benoit in the voting for Greatest American Ever
*MB: Rojo goes home DEVASTATED. Simpson def. Benoit Samuelson

USATF Lays Off 11% Of Its National Office

MB USATF lays off 11% of its workforce (7/65). Max Siegel’s salary reduced from 1.1 million to 900k Sports Business Daily broke the news. Siegel’s salary is being reduced by 20%. Does anyone know if Nike is paying its full sponsorship this year?

More Administrative News

The Athletics World Cup Event That Was Held In London Last Year Is Believed To Have Cost UK Athletics Nearly £2 Million Hey, at least they are trying to innovate.
The NY Times Has The Details On USADA’s New Virtual Drug Testing You still actually take a test but the tester is only watching via webcam. They watch you prick your blood but don’t actually see your genitals when you urinate (like they do in an in-person test), but they do make you dip a temperature strip into the sample to prove it’s recent. *USA Today
Great News As A Result Of Its Widely Successful First-Ever Marathon Grand Championship, Japan Will Keep Its Single-Race Olympic Marathon Trials Format For 2024 Paris We must admit their format is pretty brilliant although they haven’t committed to the 2024 race automatically selecting two athletes (which we hope they do).

News From The UK

Great Idea Brit Asks People To Run 5k And Then Ask For A £5 Donation To Health Care Workers And The “Run For Heroes” Campaign Has Raised £2 Million And to think her goal was only £5,000. “I thought £5 isn’t too much of a big ask, 5km isn’t too far to run and it still feels like a sense of achievement, and if you nominated five other people in your social channel to do the same then, hopefully, it would continue to spread.”
From The Athletics Weekly Archives: 27 Years Ago, The Unsponsored Eamonn Martin Was The Last Brit To Win The London Marathon The marathon debut for the 34-year-old 13:17/27:23 guy was a smashing success.

Saturday’s Covid-19 Related Running News

Remember That Study That Came Out Last Week Saying You Need Way More Than 6 Feet Of Social Distancing To Run Safely, Outside Magazine Explains In 3,000+ Words Why It’s Actually Very Good Science That being said, many familiar with the study think it’s still worth running. “I’m a runner, and I wouldn’t feel guilty or terrified if I occasionally passed within four meters (about 13 feet) of someone else but equally, I would try not to make a habit of it.”
RRW: Shoe Companies Are Still Paying Athletes Endorsement Contracts In 2020 But They Are Saving A Lot As They Won’t Be Paying Out Any Bonuses If There Is No Competition The track and field athletes that rely primarily on sponsorship money are doing ok during the Covid-19 crisis but marathoners are hurting as they are missing out on appearance fees.
Good Idea: World Athletics And International Institute For Race Medicine Form Outbreak Prevention Task Force The task force will include representatives from a ton of other sports including the UCI, FIS, ITU, IPS and FISA and will disseminate recommendations to prevent disease outbreaks in mass gatherings.
Molly Seidel Is Embracing Uncertainty And “Rolling With The Punches Right Now”
French Aren’t Sure What To Do About Official Equipment Supplier For 2020 And 2024 Olympics For the 2020 Olympics, it’s Lacoste but the 2024 contract for Le Coq Sportif was supposed to begin on January 1, 2021. The US doesn’t have this problem as the stupidly hired a bunch of ex-Nike employees to do a no-compete bid with Nike for 20+ years.
US’s Largest Half Marathon – Brooklyn Half Marathon – Is Canceled The NYRR is offering full refunds or one can decline the refund and get a non-complimentary guaranteed entry for 2021. All NYRR events through the end of May are canceled.
Women’s Running‘s Erin Strout Is Missing The Boston Marathon And Fearful It Won’t Take Place In September “Without the Boston Marathon, how do we know it’s spring?”
Tokyo Marathon Will Let 2020 Mass Participation Entrants Run In Either 2021 Or 2022
Japan Will Allow People Who Don’t Get Refunds For Canceled Sporting Events To Get A Tax Deduction If you don’t seek a refund for a canceled sporting event or race, you can claim it as a charity donation in Japan.

Sprint Stuff

Good Read: Wayde Van Niekerk: “I am hungrier than before. Sub-43 is definitely where I want to go.” Van Niekerk talks about wanting to break his own WR and being happy about Olympic postponement because he didn’t want to be around his 78-year-old coach during the coronavirus pandemic.
Sydney McLaughlin Talks About Making The Olympics As A 17-Year-Old And Looking Ahead To “really Go[ing] To The Olympics” In Tokyo “I feel like I’m halfway through my story, but technically it’s just starting. It’s really motivating to know that we’ve done this, and there’s still so much more to do.”
Why Did Blessing Okagbare’s Marriage To Former NFL Player Jude Otegheri Crash? A source close to Okagbare said that she tried “to keep the marriage going” and that “the husband was the problem.” The source said the husband is demanding $260,000 from Okagbare.
Justin Gatlin Wants One Last Olympic “Moment” At Tokyo 2021 He had planned on retiring this year after Tokyo, but will keep going through next year when he’ll be 39 years old.
Kenyan 400m Champion Alphas Kishoyian Calls It Quits On The 2020 Season “I had really worked hard for this season with my focus being the 2020 Olympic Games and other races. I have now cancelled all my plans. My health comes first.”

Multi-Event News

Athletics Weekly Wonders Who Would Win A Hypothetical “Dream Heptathlon” Who would win between Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Jessica Ennis-Hill, Nafi Thiam, Carolina Kluft and Sabine Braun? No spoilers, but it was close with the winner taking it by 6 points.
Germany’s World Decathlon Champ Niklas Kaul Considers Olympic Postponement An Advantage For Him Kaul feels the extra time will let him work on improving his weak events.

High School Corner

T&F News: Cruz Culpepper Was Almost A High School Sub-4 Miler An interesting note from the article was that the prep who ran 4:00.10 indoors was training with Joe Bosshard‘s pro group (which includes Emma Coburn and others).
DyeStat: Where All 50 States Stand On Spring Sports – Mississippi, Utah, Tennessee Latest To Shut Down Spring Sports
MileSplit Video Interview With Lauren Ping Ping ran a 4:48 in a virtual mile event a couple weeks ago.
*MB: THE PINGS ARE BACK BABY!
DyeStat: With Cancellation Of California Spring Sports Schedule, Potential Historic Track And Field Season Left Unrealized It’s the first incomplete track and field schedule in California since World War II.
2020 Carifta Games Cancelled They were originally postponed, but now they are outright cancelled.

More Looks Back At T&F History

The Guardian Looks Back At When New Zeland Mile Legend John Walker Raced A Mile At A Famous Cricket Match In 1977 An interesting bit of trivia, Walker was the first person to run sub-4 100 times and ended his career with 135 total.
NBC Sports Showing Two Weeks With Nearly 100 Hours Of Olympic Highlights From The Past 30+ Years
European Athletics: Remember When London Staged The 2012 Olympic Games

Runners Doing Good

LRC Running Helped Prepare Dr. Michael Joyner (The Guy Who Predicted The Sub-2:00 Marathon) To Help Lead The COVID-19 Fight Dr. Michael Joyner is on the leadership team of the National COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma Project.

Update On LRC Coronavirus Patient’s Condition

LRC Update: LetsRun.com Visitor With COVID-19 Continues To Recover Good news as “justthefacts” condition continued to improve over the weekend and his fever is gone.

LRC What’s It Like For A Runner To Have COVID-19? A Long-Time LetsRun.com Visitor Shares His Story Of Being Infected With The Coronavirus A long-term visitor to LetsRun.com wants to share his story of what it is like to have the coronavirus. He also wants a LetsRun.com singlet when he gets better.
Discussion: I tested Positive for COVID here is my story

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?