Distance News

• Shannon Rowbury Has A Choice To Make As She Goes For A 4th Olympics – 1,500 Or 5,000? (TFN Sub Required) She doesn’t just want to make a 4th Olympics; she wants to be a contender but admits she has to train differently now that she’s a) 35 and b) a mom.
• Scientific Paper Says What You’ve Always Been Taught Is Wrong – When You’re Trying To Recover, Put Your Hands On Your Knees, Not Behind Your Head A study showed that by bending over, your heart rate fell 20 bpm more than if you put your hands behind your head.
• Runner’s World: “Can we all just agree to stop using “Jogger” as an insult?”
• British Athletics Announces New Talent Hubs Sponsored By The London Marathon The running hubs are designed to provide athletes aged 16-21 with a “seamless experience through the performance pathway” and will be based at the University of Birmingham and Leeds Beckett University.

How Some Pros Are Training During Quarantine 

• Ajee Wilson Is Doing 3-Mile Tempos In Sub-18
• Sara Hall Is Doing Track Workouts With Two Of Her Daughters
• Kyle Merber Had Never Run A 100-Mile Week Before; During The Quarantine, He’s Run 8 In A Row With A High Of 105
• Dana Giordano Is Running Time Trials Without A Watch

Podcasts That Might Interest You

• Who Is The G.O.A.T. Of Canadian Mid-D Running? The Canadian Running Magazine podcast debates whether it’s Kevin Sullivan, Melissa Bishop-Nriagu, Mohammed Ahmed or Gabriela DeBues-Stafford.
• Mary Cain Appears On Dana Giordano’s Podcast To Talk About Her New Job With Tracksmith
• Video: Tracksmith’s Matt Taylor Talks To Flotrack

News From Outside The US

• Interesting Read After Retiring At 28, Ciarán Ó Lionáird Is Making A Comeback At Age 32 2,800 words on the comeback on the man who shockingly ran 3:34 and made the 1,500 WC final in 2011 despite not scoring in the 5,000 or 10,000 at NCAAs that year. Bored during Covid-19, but not having run more than 30 minutes since Burning Man 2017, he moved to Flagstaff and started training with Stephen Haas‘ group on April 1 and is shocked by his progress. He’s posting lots of updates since he imagines some may be skeptical since he took 4 years off.
  *MB: Ciarán O’Lionaird Comeback
• This Is Normally Great Manchester Run weekend – A Look Back At The Previous 17 Winners Most are total studs like Tergat, Bekele, Geb and Farah but the list also includes Dathan Ritzenhein.
• Kipchoge Runs 16km In Lewa Wildlife Conservancy To Promote The Lewa Safari Virtual Marathon “I urge everybody to participate and just run where they are. We are all part of the human family and we must keep strong, stay fit,” said Kipchoge. Sign up here.
• Mondo Duplantis Has Been Playing A Lot Of Golf During Covid-19 But Is Ready To Get Back At It
• Great Britain’s Niamh Emerson – World U20 Hep Champ – Is Aiming For Big Things Once Pandemic Ends She missed last year’s Worlds due to injury.
• In Her Own Words, Jessica Ennis-Hill Reflects On Her Achievements From her first memories to the best coaching advice she’s ever received.

Speaking Of HS Studs, These Guys Were Pretty Good In HS

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.

There Was No Olympics For The US 40 Years Ago Either

• Interesting Read: Was The 1980 TJ Rigged So That A Soviet Athlete Would Win? 40 years later, many feel that Australian Ian Campbell or Brazilian Joao de Oliveira should have been the winner as they were given fouls on 9 of 12 jumps. The USSR’s flag bearer was the 3-time Olympic TJ champ Viktor Saneyev.
• George Plimpton’s Epic Recap Of The Moscow Games He said lots of people thought the Soviets were fixing things but he didn’t seem to be convinced.

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?

This Debate Will Never End

LRC Ritz Vs. Webb Vs. Hall – Who Was Better? A Pseudo-Scientific Breakdown It’s one of the great running debates: which one of the Big Three had the best career? With Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Webb and Ryan Hall all retired, Jonathan Gault breaks it down and picks a winner.
*MB: Now that they are all retired, who had the better career – Dathan Ritz, Alan Webb or Ryan Hall?