Links We Highly Recommend

• Recommended Read American Marathon Record Holder Deena Kastor Writes Essay Reflecting On Her Own Adoption
• Fascinating Read: A Look At The Kenyan Runners Who Are Now Working Construction So They Can Eat And Pay Rent During Covid-19 Many have put their training on hold as working from 8 AM to 4 PM for less than $4 isn’t easy.
• Cool Idea: Are Your Kids Bored At Home? Print Out This Free Track And Field Coloring Book And Have The Kids Get At It
• Mary Cain Q&A about her new role at Tracksmith Cain is thrilled as she finally feels she’s choosing to run versus being forced to try to make as much as she could from Nike. “Now there’s this sense of, actually, I don’t have to. I’m choosing to. I want to….That kind of shift has been interesting because it sometimes fuels me to even try to run a little harder, a little faster, and it’s just because that “want to” and not “have to.””
• 2:13 marathoner and immunology expert Kingston Mills talks about what running events he sees returning, calls mass marathons a “huge risk Running alone or with a buddy is an extremely low risk activity. He thinks track meets without fans are low risk as well but says a mass marathon is a “huge risk” and thinks marathons will need to be elite only for a while but is worried how that will work financially as the masses pay the bills

Administrative News

• IOC Announces $800m Funding Package To Cover Cost Of Postponed Olympics
• World Athletics publishes the criteria it will use to hand out the $500,000 it’s going to give to struggling athletes They want to give it to Tokyo Olympians who are struggling to get by. Anyone who is top 6 in the world or made more than $6,000 in DL prize money last year is ineligible, presumably because they make a decent amount.
• Interesting: British Hammer Thrower Banned For 4 Years After Missing 1, Not 3, Tests He missed a test which wouldn’t have been a problem but he told the testers he’d gone fishing when in reality he went to his parents house. That lie resulted in the ban.
• Kenya’s Anti-Doping Chief Talks About The Progress They’ve Made Over The Last 4 Years A good read as it provides lots of stats in terms of how much testing they are doing.
• Top AK Official Allegedly Asks For Doping To Be Considered A Treasonable Offense And yes, just like in many other countries, treason is punishable by death.
  *MB: Kenyan paper: Athletics Kenya official asks for doping to be declared a treasonable offense – which requires the death penalty
• Sonia O’Sullivan: How Long Before A Woman Runs A Sub-Four Minute Mile?
  *MB: True or false: Sonia O’Sullivan: Based on numbers a 4 minute mile for men is equivalent to a 4:14 1,500 for women (4:34 mile)

US News Of Note

LRC Q&A: Nick Willis On Signing With Tracksmith, Skateboarding, & Why The Olympic Standard Freeze Helps Him Nick reveals that he only got his new contract after successfully acing his first job interview in more than 20 years. “[My last job interview was when I was] 15, applying for a job as a dishwasher and salad and food prep person at a restaurant, like TGI Fridays. … It’s not a traditional nine-to-five. It’s project-based and they’ll give myself flexibility to also focus on my training. But I want to prove myself. I want to show that I’m worthy of this…It’s fun starting at the bottom again.”

• Kate Grace Is Still Trying To Find Her Groove With Jerry Schumacher Despite Being In The BTC for 2+ Years (TFN Sub Required) “I think it just takes time with a new coach. Right? … I think in the past when I changed groups, it was a smaller group and so maybe it was a quicker transition so that I felt like I was getting individualized training. And I think with Jerry, we’ve just continued to, I don’t know, get to know each other better each year and I feel like we finally are having good conversations about exactly what kind of training I need and what’s going to be good for me,” said Grace, who is currently nursing an Achilles injury and not running.
• Colorado’s Dani Jones Is Using Some Advice Coach Wetmore Gave Her To Survive Covid-19 “(He told me to not) be afraid and to trust in the athlete and the person that I am.  Courage is not the absence of fear, but grace under fire. That’s what I’m trying to live by right now, and I think that’s what a lot of people are trying to live by.”
• RRW: How Various People Are Performing Runing-Related Jobs From Home During Coronavirus Crisis Many people like agent Brendan Reilly, coach Greg McMillan and jewelry designer Erica Sara were already working from home.
• A Look At How The 2nd-Fastest 800 Runner In NCAA History Is Handling The Pandemic – Nia Akins The title of the article says that Akins’ NCAA career is over but the article doesn’t talk about her going pro or anything like that.
• Zach Bitter Will Try To Break The 100-Mile Treadmill WR This Weekend The record is 3:17 marathon pace for nearly 4 marathons in a row. The article also talks about how Pablo Espinosa set the 30-day treadmill WR earlier this year by averaging 44+miles a day.
• TFN’s The Pre Chronicles Continues:
  *Part 1: The High School Years
  *Part 2: The Frosh Year At Oregon
  *Part 3: Soph Year at Oregon

News From Europe

It’s My Life, Not A Soap Opera, Bemoans French Athlete Claude-Boxberger Well, when your mother’s partner says he doped you with EPO while you were sleeping and you say he once raped you and it comes out your dating the national team’s much older doctor who had complained you were being drug tested too much, it’s hard not to note the similarities between your life and a soap opera.
*Sweden Won’t Bar Athletes From Training In Ethiopia Or Kenya But They Will Put Them Under Extra Scrutiny As They Don’t Think The Drug Testing In Those Two Countries Is Advanced Enough

Yet Another LRC Exclusive

LRC Q&A: Anti-Doping Expert Sergei Iljukov Discusses Doping In Kenya & Russia, What World Athletics Is Doing Right – And How The Global Anti-Doping System Can Still Improve Iljukov recently conducted a study that indirectly suggested the effects of doping were between 2.0% and 3.4% in distance events and points out that 68% of the Russian 1,500 women that ran an elite time at the Russian champs were eventually banned.

Catching Up With The NN Running Team

• Ashete Bekere Has Won Her Last 3 Marathons (Including Berlin) But Hopes She’s Only Getting Started At Age 32: “I think one day I can run 2:17-2:18.”
  *MB: Super shoes + new coach: Ashete Bekele didn’t break 2:23:43 in her first 16 marathons. Now she thinks she ran 2:17-18
• What Are Bekele And Kipchoge Doing During The Covid-19 Crisis? The NN Running team says Kipchoge is reading and watching Formula 1 re-runs with his kids while Bekele is playing video games with his 7-year-old old son.

Free Coaching Tips

• A Good Read For All Coaches: Japanese Half Marathon Record Holder Hitomi Niiya Publishes Her Entire Training 100 Days Before Her 66:38 NR And Now Is Doing A Q&A About Her Training If you missed the full publication of her workouts last month, catch up now.
  *Part II Of Q&A Lots of 400m reps for a half marathon have raised eyebrows.
  *Part III *Part IV
• 2:10 Marathoner Reid Coolsaet Talks About The Long Run And How To Train For The Marathon On Tired Legs One tip. Ignore how you feel on the warmup. “There have been many times when I didn’t think I had a hope in hell of finishing the workout based on the warmup.”
• AW: What Common Products / Foods Should You Be Eating? Fermented soy, gelatin powder and boiled eggs make the list.

10 Years Ago, Chris Solinsky Ran 26:59.60 To SHOCK THE WORLD

LRC 26:59! How Chris Solinsky Transformed A “Glorified Tempo” Into An All-Time Upset And Performance 10 years ago today, Chris Solinsky shocked the world by running 26:59 in his 10,000-meter debut. Get the inside story from Jonathan Gault and learn how the date of Solinsky’s wedding played a key role in his preparations and why his victory led to a decade-long feud between coaches Alberto Salazar and Jerry Schumacher.
*MB: Chris Solinsky’s 26:59 turns 10 years old today. Share your memories here.z
*MB:  Jonathan Gault’s new story makes Alberto Salazar look totally cringe
*MB: Does anyone have access to a recording of the live broadcast by Stanford of Chris Solinksy’s 26:59?

Speaking of Anniversaries

• Three years ago from Tuesday, Thomas Rohler shocked the world with his 93.90m javelin throw in Doha Yes, he was the Olympic champ but no one was expecting the longest throw in 20 years.
• The Penn Relays And Usain Bolt Recall Him Rocking Philly 10 Years Ago As Well