May 28, 2020 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For May 28, 2020

Quote Of The Day

Athletics Weekly: “You’re not an athletics person. Is that a weakness or a strength?”

Joanna Coates (new UK Athletics head): “I think it’s a huge strength. I had never played netball and they never got me on a netball court! And I still don’t play netball. But I was able to go in there with a fresh pair of eyes and make quite tough decisions because you don’t have the emotional connection. You can look at it more as a business and ask: ‘where do I need to make change?’ And I don’t think I did a bad job there.

I want to take all the learnings that I’ve had from sport over the years and apply it to athletics. I think you can look at it with a really fair pair of eyes, because you don’t have the emotion, you can be very critical of things. But don’t get me wrong, you do then fall in love with it!

Of course, you need people around you who have the knowledge of the sport – that’s the key thing. Surround yourself with great people who understand the sport. Learn from them and consult them. But I think that coming in fresh is a good thing.”

– Joanna Coates, the new head of UK Athletics, explaining how not being a track and field die-hard her whole life will make her better at her job. We like her logic.

For the First Time Ever

LRC 2020 Boston Marthon Canceled; Will Be Staged Instead As Virtual Race Through 123 years and two world wars, the Boston Marathon had always been staged as an in-person event. That streak ends in 2020, another victim of the coronavirus pandemic. *MB: BOSTON MARATHON CANCELLED

The Stawell Gift, Australia’s oldest and richest handicap footrace, has been cancelled for the first time since 1945 because of the COVID-19 pandemic
Toni Reavis: Many races and running organizations including Ironman and Running USA have banded together to beg the govt for a bailout “Without specifically targeted help from the federal government,” said the Endurance Sports Coalition, “the endurance sports may not survive the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Distance News

UMich Prof: The Qualifying Times For Older Runners For Te Major Marathons Make No Sense “NYC’s qualifying times suggest that the performances of women are more affected by age than men, but the Boston qualifying times suggest the opposite.” A recent study by Jason Hall shows that men slow 1.1% every year they age whereas women only sloe 0.9%.
Former World Champ And Villanova Great Sonia O’Sullivan Is Thrilled She Never Had To Deal With A Pandemic As An Athlete As She Thrived On Racing “I definitely raced a lot better than I ever trained.”
New Hayward Field looks Almost Finished (Video)
California State Champ Corie Smith Won’t Get To Finish Her HS Career The Way She Envisioned, But She’s Getting Ready To Run For Arkansas Instead For the 1st time since 1945, the CA state meet has been axed.
Yet Another Study Proved The Obvious Benefits Of Exercise A study of the early quarantine days showed that those who were ” physically active during those early weeks of sheltering at home were less depressed and more mentally resilient than other people whose activity levels declined.”

Random Links That Passed Our Vetting Process

Everyone Gets An Award: Coaches Name Everyone Who Qualified For NCAAs Indoors As All-Americans The coaches can pad their resumes as 671 people were named All-American. What a joke.
Did You Know That 2021 Will Mark The 100th Anniversary Of The Very First NCAA Championship In Any Sport? – The NCAA Track And Field Champs
WADA Vows To Conduct Additional Targeted Testing To Plug Gaps Caused By COVID-19
Nike Is The Most Admired Brand In All Of Kenya Adidas and Samsung are two and three.
Canadian Running Magazine Takes A Look At Jogging Strollers For Dogs Rojo has one. His dog loves this one.
September 26th’s Nairobi’s Continental Gold Tour Event To Be Named “Kip Keino Classic”
Appalachian State Cuts Men’s Indoor Track

Optimism In Regards To Covid-19

July’s Hokuren Distance Challenge Will Go On With Modification From July 4-18 There will be no 10,000, for example, as they feel that’s too long for people to be near each other and the meet’s size may be reduced so they’ll focus on the elites.
Impossible Games On June 11th Will Feature Team Ingebrigtsen Vs. Team Cheruiyot At 2k We’re not exactly sure how this is going to work as the Kenyan team will be running at nearly 6,000 feet of altitude.
Japan’s Prime Minister Abe Lifts COVID-19 State Of Emergency
Japan Reschedules June’s National Track Champs For October 1-3
Athletics Australia Publishes Guidelines To Assist All Track Athletes In The Safe Return To Athletics Activity During The COVID-19 Pandemic

Anniversary Time

Remembering Arthur Wint On The 100th Year Of His Birth Wint was the first Jamaican Olympic gold medalist, winning the 400 meters at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London.
Jamaican Prime Minister Hails Dr. Wint For HIs “Far-Reaching Impact” In addition to his Olympic gold at 400, he won silver in at 800, was an Air Force pilot, surgeon and more.
85 Years Ago, Jesse Owens Enjoyed The “Greatest 45 Minutes Ever In Sports” As He Set 4 WRs In 45 Minutes
On This Day 24 Years Ago, Jan Zelezny Added Nearly Three Meters To The Javelin World Record No one else has come within 4 meters of it since. *Video

Fast US HS Action

LRC Leo Daschbach Breaks 4:00 In Mile; Supreme 56.81 Last Lap Allows Him To Become 11th US Boy To Do So Daschbach is only the 4th US high schooler to break 4:00 in the mile in a HS-only race. How did he celebrate? By vomiting all over the track. *Video Of Race
*MB: LEO DASCHBACH JOINS THE HS SUB 4 CLUB – 56.84 last lap gets him 3:59.54!! The first half was slow but he had plenty in the tank.
*Pre-Race 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

MB: HSer Jace Aschbrenner runs 8:44.93 for 3,200 in time trialPretty darn impressive. He is Nico Young‘s teammate and was 18th at NXN.

Sometimes Low Moments End Up Being Good For You

Recommended Read “I Healed A Broken Soul”: Billy Mills Talks To Boston’s NPR Station About How He Went From Contemplating Suicide To Olympic 10,000 Champ This is an excellent read. You can actually listen to it if you click on the hard to see player in the upper left-hand corner of the article.
US 4 X 100 Gold Medalist Morolake Akinosun Talks About How She Doesn’t Regret Tearing Her Achilles In 2018 She got to actually live life and travel Europe with her friends instead of worrying about how everything impacted her running.

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 The 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.)

Non-Distance News

Not Good Luvo Manyonga: Former Long Jumper Who Overcame A Crystal Meth Addiction To Win 2017 WC Gold, Is Fined For Public Drinking
Sunette Viljoen, Who Won Olympic Jav Silver In 2016, Is Hoping Her 5th Olympics In 2021 Brings Gold At Age 38
European Athletics – On This Day 33 Years Ago (May 22), Robert Emmiyan Shocked The World By Coming Within 4 cm Of Bob Beamon’s Legendary LJ WR His 8.86 jump was #2 in history at the time (#4 now) and still stands as the European record. *Watch it here.
Reigning US 200 Champ Dezerea Bryant Says Covid-19 Has Changed A Lot But Not Her Goals “Nothing has changed with the Olympics being postponed. My goal is still to be a first-time Olympian and that will still be the same next year.”
USOPC Cuts More Than 100 Jobs Due To Covid-19

The American GOATs Answered Your Questions Right Here On LetsRun.com

MB: Got a question for our American GOATs Jim Ryun & Deena Kastor? Deena Kastor and Jim Ryun have been answering them this week on LRC.

XC/Track Cuts Spread to The Rich

MB:Brown University, Despite Its $4.2 Billion Endowment Will Be Cutting Men’s XC, Indoor and Outdoor Track ADs love to get rid of men’s xc, indoor and outdoor track as the same the male athletes count three times for Title IX purposes. The Brown AD seems almost giddy to be axing 11 sports. “I’m excited for the many ways the Excellence in Brown Athletics Initiative will serve our student-athletes for years to come.”

More Depressing News: MB:Breaking: David Rudisha has surgery after breaking ankle in Kenya. Expected to be out 3 months.

US News Of Note

U.S. Education Department Rule That Connecticut’s Policy Allowing Transgender Girls To Compete in Girls Sports Without Treatment Violates The Civil Rights of Girls Who Have Always Identified as Female The CT authorities, however, aren’t backing down citing state law. Will they lose federal funding as a result?
*MB: Women’s sports may be saved!! Connecticut’s policy of allowing transgender women to compete w/o treatment found to violate Title IX

Cool story:The day after NCAA indoors were cancelled, many of the top DIII athletes went to a local track and race a 5000 The NCAA DIII xc champs Patrick Watson of Stevenson University and Parley Hannan of Ithaca won the races in 14:20 an 16:49. *Race Video

Administrative News

Interesting Q&A With New UK Athletics Head Joanna Coates, Who Explains How Her Not Being A Track And Field Person Is Going To Help Her Do Her Job “I think you can look at it with a really fair pair of eyes, because you don’t have the emotion, you can be very critical of things. But don’t get me wrong, you do then fall in love with it!”
Australian Medical Director Says The World Needs To Prepare For Tokyo 2021 As If Vaccine Won’t Exist
WADA & Quebec To Fund Anti-Doping Project Piloting Artificial Intelligence To The Tune Of $850,000 AI will be used to try to figure out who is doping.

How Some Pros Are Training During Quarantine

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.

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.

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

Mid-D News Of Note

DyeStat.com does a video chat with 3 of the top US HS girls 800 talents in Athing Mu (2:01.17), Juliette Whittaker (2:03.01 pb) and Roisin Willis (2:03.05 pb)
Donavan Brazier says he was super confident before Olympic postponement and out to prove that 2019 was no fluke “I am a little frustrated. I just wanted to prove to myself that 2019 Worlds wasn’t a fluke, that I am this great racer, that I am a medal contender every year and I should have a big target on my back,” he says. “I was really confident about the Olympics this year, but 2021 will be just as special.”
Centro, Watch Out: Elijah Manangoi And Timothy Cheruiyot Are Back Training Together And Manangoi says he’s more motivated due to missing Worlds last year with injury.
Bernard Ouma Is Thrilled To Be Back Coaching After Taking His 1,500 Studs Through Their 1st Track Workout “We were having a feeling like we were in a cage then suddenly we have been let loose. It is a happy feeling to be on the track after a long time being indoors with minimal activities,” said Ouma, who called the upcoming clash against the Ingebrigtsens as a “fun race with no monetary attachment to it.”
Shelby Houlihan Says Of Course She Thought She’d Medal When She Ran 3:54 At Worlds Last Year “If I’m in 3:54 shape, there’s no way I don’t medal. You know, statistically or historically, in races that should medal.”
*MB: LOL: Shelby Houlihan: The pandemic hasn’t changed that much for me as I’m a member of the BTC and we never race anyways
A Recap Of The Odd World Records Nick Symmonds Went For Since Retirement He successfully broke WRs for the fastest 400 in crocs and mile while dribbling a basketball but came up short in running a mile after eating 4 Big Macs.
2013 800 World Champ Eunice Sum Is Still Dreaming Of Her First Olympic Medal At Age 32
The BeerMileWorldClassic Will Be Run (Virtually) This Summer With $8k In Prize Money

Previous 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.

Interesting Reads

Japanese Coaching Legend Yoshiyuki Aoba Is Coming Out Of Retirement At Age 77, 20 Years After Last Coaching, To Coach At His Alma Mater, Nihon University And he’s going to live in the dorms with the athletes.
*MB: Wait, what? Do the Japanese college coaches really live in the dorms with their athletes?
Proposed Potential New NCAA XC Regional System Leaks, Insanity Of Plan Instantly Becomes Apparent We hope that a plan that has teams from NY in the Southeast regional (all teams from the same conference must be in the same region) is never going to get passed in this post-Covid-19 time of reduced budgets. Apparently the Big 10 has unanimously voted against it.
2020 UTMB May Have Been Canceled, But 2019 UTMB Champion Pau Capell Says He’s Running The Course Anyway
37-Year-Old Marathoner O’Neil Williams Is Training In Kenya With A 2:19 PR But Still Thinks He Can Run 2:11:30 To Make Olympics
Column By White Man: Covid-19 “Lockdown” Is Disproportionately Affecting How Women Experience The Sport We Love “I specifically explore how lockdown has stripped away some of the ‘coping strategies’ female runners use to ‘deal’ with the discrimination they face every time they lace up their trainers.”
Are You A Pro? Depressed Because You Have No Track Races To Train For? Train For This: Bathurst 2021 World Cross Celebrates 300 Days To Go Bathurst is in Australia in case you didn’t know. Who wouldn’t want a free trip to Australia in March?

Field/Sprint News

Austria Limits Sporting Events To A Max Of 10 People, But That Was More Than Enough For Discus Thrower Lukas Weisshaidinger, Who Threw 68.63 They held two competitions on the same day but his best throw came in the first.
Commonwealth Games Organizers Are Realistic That Dina Asher-Smith May Not Want To Triple At CGs Just Weeks After 2022 Worlds We don’t see why she wouldn’t do at least one individual event and a relay.

US News

Florida Adds 8 More HSers, 4 Transfers To Its Recruiting Class
What’s Matthew Boling Up To During The Pandemic? We have no idea. If you listen to this 42-minute video on dyestat, you’ll hear from him.

The Latest Covid-19 Related Running News

Mondo Duplantis Is Going To Sweden To Train As His LSU Facilities Are Closed And He’s Doing The Impossible Games On June 11th
Day 2 Of The British Milers’ Club 1km Time Trials Is In The Books 2:19 (Oliver Dustin, Archie Davis and James Young) and 2:36 (Keira Brady-Jones) are the leading times. Dunston is a big talent with a 1:46 PR at age 19.
Scottish Athletics Championships Rated 50-50 To Go Ahead “We might split up event groups and deliver them in different venues.”

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