May 23, 2020 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For May 23, 2020

Video Of The Day

– Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Webb and Ryan Hall chat about their careers with LRC’s Jonathan Gault. We’ve also released the video conference as a podcast and article with text highlights.

David Woods/Indy Star: USATF has held a nationals for 144 years without interruption, will that end in 2020?
Someone filmed UK Athletics distance coaches Barry Fudge and David Harmer coaching w/o proper social distance in "awful" video
WADA study supposedly says those with TUE aren't more likely to win an Olympic medal? Is this really true?
Ritz set to become new ON Running pro group coach for $150,000/year
Did the Olympic Channel just unknowingly reveal how Des Linden (and Yuki) won 2018 Boston? Des has a 19.6% body fat percentage
Has the future of marathoning arrived - OYO Marathoning? USATF Certified marathon course - run it when you want on your own
Kenenisa Bekele Mini-Documentary out today
Are you surprised by your age?
Sara Hall advocates high mileage and intensity in HS- holds up Big 3 as examples
A bunch of HSer are going to try to go sub-4 in the mile on Saturday (May 23)

Quarantine Classico High School Sub-4 Minute Mile Race Tonight At 11 PM EasternYes! A real live race at 11 Eastern/8 Pacific with 7 high schoolers trying to go sub-4 in the mile in California.

You Won’t Want To Not Watch/Listen To This

The Ultimate Video Conference
LRC The Big 3, Reunited: Alan Webb, Ryan Hall & Dathan Ritzenhein Discuss Their Greatest Performances, Biggest Lessons, & Much More Alan Webb, Dathan Ritzenhein and Ryan Hall had never sat down and talked about their careers until this week. Find out why Ritz had Webb’s face on his dartboard as a high schooler, how Webb was able to beat Ritzenhein in their famous 10k showdown in 2006, which performances each believes was the best from their careers, their biggest lessons from the sport, their views on new shoe technology, Webb and Ritz’s thoughts on their time with the Nike Oregon Project and Alberto Salazar‘s ban, and much more.

Marathon News

MB: Olympic Channel gives Des Linden some tests and reveals she has a 19% body percentage – Was that a key reason why she won Boston in 2018?
Jared Ward Reveals That An X-Ray After The Marathon Trials Showed He Was Competing Injured – He Had Bruised The Ball Of His Foot As a result, he barely ran for six weeks after the Trials and is only now getting back into it. “I’ve been working out at about 50 percent in my basement, and spending the majority of that time biking, lifting, and doing old-man exercises.”
Looking For A Marathon? A Company Has Created A Certified OYO (On Your Own) Course That Has Timing Mats, Free Photos And Counts As A NYC Qualifier The course that can be run whenever you want is in Salt Lake City.

And 1.5k News Shannon Osika Is Thriving As A Pro Under Mike McGuire With Little Fanfare US 1,500 running is so good that her 4:01 last year received little notice. Not bad for someone who had a 4:12 college PR. Both her mom and dad ran in the 1988 Olympic Trials.

Throwback Thursday #7

LRC I Was Bored, So I Watched the 2008 NCAA Cross-Country Championships A look back at Galen Rupp‘s first NCAA title (and an examination of his strange fashion choices) and the Oregon men’s last team title, a historically loaded Oregon team, and why the Washington women were like the 1985 Chicago Bears.
*MB: What’s the most loaded NCAA men’s xc team in history? Was 2008 Oregon with Rupp, Puskedra, Biwott, Centro and Wheating?

Tired Of Staring At A Screen? Listen To This

LRCPodcast: Brynn Brown, The Return Of The Major Marathons, Everyone Is An All-American, Bus-Only NCAA XC And Track & Field’s Grand Slams In this week’s pod, we propose a simple plan that should result in the major big-city marathons returning to action this fall. We also talk about Brynn Brown‘s amazing 9:39 3,200-meter run, get you ready for this weekend’s high school sub-4 mile attempt, and rip the NCAA coaches for declaring every one who qualified for NCAAs at the DIII level an All-American. Along the way, we talk about Ben Rosario‘s idea to create 4 Grand Slams for track and field and wonder how the NCAA XC season will look if teams only travel by bus.

Women In The News

Taylor Werner Named SEC Outdoor Track And Field Scholar-Athlete Of The Year For 2nd Time And for good reason given her 3.967 grade point average in Kinesiology: Exercise Science. Sarah Bowman was the only other women to win the award twice.
Natasha Hastings Says Under Armour Treated Her Amazingly Well When She Revealed She Was Pregnant “I was deathly afraid of sharing that I was pregnant, for obvious reasons,” Hastings says. “The day came that I finally made the call and they said, ‘Congratulations! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?'”
Eilish McColgan Is Already Looking Ahead To 2024, When She Plans To Move Up To The Marathon By then she hopes to be Scotland’s 1st 4-time Olympian in track and field after a run in the steeple and twice in the 5,000.
Before Covid-19, Hurdler Gabriele Cunningham Was Having A Dream First Season As A Pro She never scored at NCAAs while at NC State but somehow won the US indoor 60H title.
Caster Semenya Says She’s Sticking With 200 This Year Even If She Wins Appeal To Be Able To Race 800 Against Women
*MB: Caster Semenya is delusional: “I can do anything from 100m to a marathon … I call myself ‘supernatural.'”

Free Coaching Advice

How To Open Up Your Shoulders So You Can Run Tall During Covid-19 You aren’t getting out as much so you need to make sure you stay loose at your desk.
Are You Sitting Properly? + Simple Stretches To Do At Your Desk

He Will Be Missed

LRC Dathan Ritzenhein Hangs ‘Em Up: We Pick Our 5 Favorite Moments From His Career Between a 12:56 American record in Zurich, bronze at World Half and World Jr. XC, two dominant Foot Locker wins, and an NCAA XC title over Ryan Hall, there were plenty of highlights during Ritz’s lengthy career.
*MB: Breaking: Dathan Ritzenhein Retires at 37

Mlive.com: Ritz: ‘I’ve been blessed with an amazing, long career’ Ritz has few regrets and now will turn to coaching which he describes as a “passion.” He’ll still run and was headed out for a 12-mile trail run. *Ritz’s Career In Photos
Toni Reavis Says Goodbye To Ritz

Will There Be A 145th Straight US Nationals In 2020? Max Siegel Couldn’t Be Bothered To Respond

David Woods/Indy Star: USATF Has Held A Nationals For 144 Years Without Interruption, Will That Change In 2020? Sadly, USATF’s Max Siegel was too busy collecting his 7 figure annual compensation to be bothered to give the reporter a quote for the story. What a joke. *Discuss
Jamaica Trials On August 8-9? A Decision Will Be Made Soon
What About NYC Marathon? Mayor Bill de Blasio Says It’s “Too Early” To Decide To Cancel The New York City Marathon But his comments aren’t exactly encouraging as he praises them for their virtual races and says mass events will be the last things to come back.
Penn, Drake, Texas And Mt. SAC Meet Directors All Talk About The Thought Process That Led To Their 2020 Cancellations (TFN Sub Req.)

Distance News

Evan Jager Writes About Missing Last Year Due To Injury And Training During Covid-19 He’s doing his normal 85-95 per week but having more fun with it than before the injury. “Since the injury, I’ve improved every couple of weeks and when I reflect on these past few years, I notice that the time away has changed my mentality. In 2017 and 2018 I was starting to treat track more like work – getting really, really intense – and that came from trying to be so professional that I wanted to do every little thing right. It took the enjoyment out of it a little, but I’ve realized that I can be lighthearted and have fun at the same time as being dialed in.”
UKA Investigates Alleged Breach Of Social Distancing By Senior Distance Coaches Someone allegedly filmed distance coaches Barry Fudge and David Harmer coaching while not observing proper social distance in a video they described as “awful.” *Discuss
BMC 1km Virtual Time Trial Is Underway – Recap Of Day 1

Important Administrative News

London Marathon Director Hugh Brasher Publishes Letter To Race Entrants He says they initially were very confident the race would take place but now admits it “is now far from certain” the race will be held. *Full Letter
*MB: Let’s don’t overcomplicate this. The easy way to get back to big city marathons is this…… Test everyone before the race.
Olympic Bronze Medalist Clayton Murphy Is Leading The Charge To Save Men’s XC At Akron And Feels Like “Holding A Pitchfork And Torch Outside The University” It’s become, what can I do as an alum, to save a program that spring-boarded me to where I am today? It started off as COVID-19 related budget cuts, and now (the administration) is hiding behind the Title IX issue,” said Murphy, who is moving to Cleveland this week to train with his old Akron coach, Lee LaBadie.
Professor: Many Colleges Are “Using Pandemic As An Excuse” To Cut Sports Programs “There’s a lot of fat that can be cut before sports being dropped,” said B. David Ridpath, associate professor of sports business at Ohio University.
IOC Head Thomas Bach Says The Olympics Won’t Be Postponed Beyond 2021 – They’d Simply Be Canceled “I have some understanding for (Japan’s position) because you cannot forever employ 3,000, or 5,000, people in an organizing committee.”

Other Administrative News

UK Athletics’ New Chief Executive Joanna Coates Is A Fan Of Shorter Meets – “People do not want to sit for hours and hours and hours – they want excitement and they want entertainment coming at them all the time,.” We don’t think a ton of events in a short period of time is a good idea. Quality is more important than quantity. Having a 2-hour meet with 6 really good events every 15 minutes is better than one with 15 crappy events.
DII Power Chico State Is Dealing With The Fact That The Administrators Of The CCAA Wimped Out And Already Canceled All Fall Sports Memo to college ADs. Running outside while socially distanced is about as low risk of an activity as one can find these days.
Drawing That Parodies Tokyo Olympics 2020 Logo With Covid Drawing Pulled From Foreign Correspondents’ Club Of Japan After Organizers Complain

Actual Track / Road Results

MB: JAKOB INGEBRIGTSEN (13:28) and Henrik (13:32) both break Norwegian 5Km Road Record The race started pedestrian (8:25) and supposedly Jakob ran his last 2k in 5:04.

LRC High Schooler Brynn Brown Runs Second-Best 3,200 In US HS Girls’ History Running with a male pacer, the junior from Denton, Tex. clocked 9:39.67 (HT) in a time trial on Tuesday. That’s equal to 8:59.9 for 3k. Watch it here.
*MB: BRYNN BROWN RUNS 9:39 3200M!!!
*Q&A with Brynn Brown after her 9:39

Utah Freshman Jaron Hartshorn Runs 4:20.93 1,600 To Break Utah Freshman Record
Coming Soon Germany’s First Sporting Event With Spectators Will Be A Pole Event In Dusseldorf On June 12th The PSD Bank Flight Night is perfect for Covid-19 as it will be held at a drive-in cinema so spectators can watch from their cars.

The Latest Distance News Of Note

Leo Daschbach Is Pumped To Be At This Saturday’s US HS Sub-4 Attempt After Running 1:49 And 4:03 Alone In Practice The meet will be held at an undisclosed track in Sacramento, Calif. and at an unnamed time to deter spectators. *Details
Sweat Science: Scientific Researchers Examine Why Marathon WRs Have Gotten So Fast Recently And Wonder Where We’re Headed The track records have largely stagnated over the last 20 years but not the marathon. This recap of an article in the Journal of Applied Physiology is a good read for anyone interested in exercise physiology. Yes, shoes are discussed but so is brain oxygen, synchronized strides and much more.
Did You Know That In Addition To Being 2nd Man Under 2:10 In The Marathon (And A Boston Champ) And Running Every Day For 52+ Years, Ron Hill Also Invented Split Shorts, Was The First To Put Reflective Tape On Clothing, Invented The Mesh Singlet And Was The First To Use Gore-Tex In A Jacket?
Huffington Post Column By A Trail Runner: I Was Set To Become An Elite Athlete This Year. Instead I Got A Job At A Grocery Store
Kilian Jornet Joins Eliud Kipchoge, Joyciline Jepkosgei And Geoffrey Kamworor As An Endorser Of Maurten Sports Drink

You Have One Month To Get In Shape To Earn Some Money

RRW A Virtual Race With Prize Money – Welcome To The Brooklyn Mile, Where The Prize Money Is Age Graded And Based On VDOT Scores You run any time between June 19-21. Anyone recording a VDOT score of 8, 9 or 10 will get paid. 100% of the $15 entry fee goes to prize money (20%) or charity (80%).

Bored? Buy A Book – We Enjoyed This One

LRC Book Review: A 46-Year-Old Spends A Summer Training Like A Pro In Flagstaff In “Running the Dream” Matt Fitzgerald joined Ben Rosario‘s HOKA NAZ Elite team for three months in the summer of 2017 as he chased a personal best at the Chicago Marathon. From workouts on Lake Mary Road to strength sessions to a visit to John Ball, he lived the full professional experience. “[The book] newfound appreciation for one of the privileges of life as a professional runner. Not the chance to travel the world racing in cool locations or the freedom to nap copiously, but the ability to dedicate all of one’s energies to becoming the best one can be – and the opportunity to make memories doing it alongside friends and teammates.” Five out of five stars. Purchase here.