January 08, 2021 Homepage Archive

Where Your Dreams Become Reality

Archived Homepage For January 08, 2021

Quote Of The Day

“I have the drive to prove to the world that I can also perform in track, that is why I made a decision to compete in a 10,000m event with the aim of securing an Olympic ticket. I will be more than happy to see the Kenyan flag being hoisted for the 10,000m in Tokyo. I know we, as a country, haven’t posted the best results in 10,000m recently but I believe with team work and early preparations we will be able to achieve good results in the Tokyo Games.”

– Half marathon world record holder Kibiwott Kandie, who only has track PRs of 14:19/28:45, announcing he will go for 10,000 glory in Tokyo.

MB: It’s on!!!!! Kibiwott Kandie says he will go for 10,000 glory against Cheptegei, Kiplimo and Farah in Tokyo

Will There Be Any Action This Winter?

LRC Keeping Track Of Pros Who Have Switched Sponsors In 2021 A number of pros are no longer being sponsored by Nike. A bunch of them including Sandi Morris and Gesa Krause have signed with Puma.

LRC Good News: There Will Be A 2021 Indoor Track Season But It Will Look Much Different Than Normal There will be a 2021 indoor season, but college meets will be more exclusive than ever, and USA Indoors is very much up in the air. Thankfully Paul Doyle has stepped up and created the four-meet American Track League that will air on ESPN as he doens’t know of a single college meet that will accept unattached athletes.
*MB: New ESPN Indoor Track Series

RRW A New Outdoor Track Meet Will Be Held In Austin, Texas On February 26-27 That Will Target Olympic And Olympic Trials Qualifying Marks

Previous Distance Articles That We Enjoyed

RR #1 An Excellent In-Depth Look At Sara Hall And Her Career By Erin Strout Hall thinks she despite becoming a parent, not because of it, but says she was willing to give up running to be a mom. “I see a correlation where my kids feel empowered to go after their dreams. Before kids, I struggled with not always seeing the positive impact of my running on others. It feels really self-centered. The upside now is that I don’t have as much of a conflict with that. I see the positive effects in real time.”
Rd #2 Bob Maplestone – The 1st Brit To Break 4 Indoors – Has Died At Age 74 Maplestone, who beat Jim Ryun to win Drake, attended college in the States and never went back but also never forgot his roots. Quite a character. *More On Maplestone *Even More
RR #3 Gabriel DeBues-Stafford Says After Joining BTC, She Isn’t As “snappy and speedy as a year ago but I definitely feel stronger.”
*MB: Debues-Stafford yet another pro that is on thyroid meds?
RR #4 Inspired By Pacing And Training With Stars, Nicholas Kimeli Looks To Become One Of The Greats Kimeli talks about pacing Joshua Cheptegei to his 10,000m WR, running 12:51.78 and 26:56.97 PRs in a uncertain year and how his first love was volleyball.
WA Profile: After Steady Rise, Marathon Ace Birhanu Legese Sets Sights On Olympic Marathon Gold And Then WR Glory Remember, this is the guy who had broken free of Bekele when Bekele came back and ran 2:01:41.
NY Times: To Welcome 2021 In A Memorable Way, I Ran From 9 AM On New Year’s Eve To 9 AM On New Year’s Day
Athletics Weekly Looks Back At 20 Of Jim Ryun’s Greatest Races And Asks If He Was “The World’s Deadliest Ever Finisher?”

Free Training Tips

Post-Hakone Ekiden News

Second Stage Course Record Breaker Vincent Yegon Named Hakone Ekiden MVP He ran 1:05:49 for the 23.1km section (that’s 60:07 half marathon pace).
Hakone Ekiden Broadcast Breaks Records With 41.8% Peak Viewership Rating And Audience Of 65 Million The increase in viewership is likely thanks to people being encouraged not to watch the race in person due to coronavirus.

Doping News

Give The Gift Of LetsRun.com This Holiday Season

LRC Exclusives

LRCPodcast: 2021 (Tokyo Olympic) Predictions + Supershoes With Geoff Burns We give out our predictions for the 2021 Olympics and talk to supershoe expert Geoff Burns to see if the playing field is anywhere close to level (no, it is not).

Breaking News: LRC A LetsRun.com Poster Who Does Not Have A Super-Hot Wife, A Sub-14 5k PR, Or A Million-Dollar Job Won Our Marathon Project Prediction Contest
*MB: Confession: Guy who won our prediction contest admits he doesn’t make 7 figures over have a super hot spouse

NCAA News

The Stride Report Ranks The Top 25 Men’s Distance Runners In The NCAA*#1-13 *#14-25 *Honorable MentionLuis Grijalva and Yareg Nuguse are 1-2.
Top 25 Women: *#1-13 *#14-25*Honorable Mention Ella Donaghu and Katie Izzo are #1-2.

Annie Fuller (2:08/4:17) To Finish Eligibility At Texas A&M
28:40 Man Shea Foster Says He’ll Finish His NCAA Career At Oklahoma State
Nia Akins (Brooks Beasts) Is Given NCAA’s Prestigious Today’s Top 10 Award She is the first Penn student-athlete and just the 12th Ivy Leaguer to be honored since the award started being given annually in 1973.

Big News From Kenya

World Half Marathon WR Holder Kibiwot Kandie Says He’ll Focus On Track In 2021 To Try To Get 10,000 Glory – His 5,000 And 10,000 Track PRs Are Only 14:19/28:45.
Athletics Kenya Senior Vice President Says “Definitely” There Will Be Changes Made To Kenyan Olympic Marathon Team Based On Current Fitness Let’s hope they aren’t dumb enough to dump Kipchoge.
Peres Chepchirchir – LetsRun.com’s Runner Of The Year – Says She Hopes She’s Named To The Kenyan Olympic Team The problem is her is that before Covid-19 Kenya named a pretty darn good team of Brigid Kosgei, Ruth Chepngetich and Vivian Cheruiyot. “My new year wish is to see if Athletics Kenya can consider my performance and make an amendment on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics marathon team by including me in the squad,” said Chepchirchir.

Jamaican Sprint Stuff

Usain Bolt Releases New Song “Living The Dream” Bolt doesn’t actually sing the song himself, but features in the music video.
Briana Williams’ Coach Ato Boldon Reiterates That The 18-Year-Old Is A Pro Now And Won’t Be Defending Her World Under-20 Titles
*Ato Boldon Says Briana Williams Should Never Have Gone To Race In December Bahamas Meet The meet was poorly organized and ended up being cancelled at the last minute after they had already traveled there.

Looking Ahead: Winter 2021

MB:Jim Walmsley, Camille Herron, Tons of others to chase 100km WR in Project Carbon X 2 On Jan. 23rd
NCAA March Madness Will Be Played Entirely In Indiana All 67 games will be played in or near Indianapolis.
Welsh Indoor And Cross-Country Championships Cancelled Due To COVID-19 Due to a combination of limits on event size and athletes inability to train due to lockdown restrictions.
Renaud Lavillenie Maps Out His Plans For The 2021 Indoor Season Lavillenie is planning on a full indoor season with 9 meets on his schedule including the European Indoor Champs in March.
The Armory Ready To Host Air Force/Hispanic Games On January 9-10

More Olympic Related Stuff

IOC Member Dick Pound Claims Prioritizing Athletes For COVID Vaccine Is “Most Realistic Way” Of Staging Tokyo 2020 Pound didn’t think there would be a public outcry if 300 or 400 athletes skipped to the front of the vaccine queue.
If Joshua Cheptegei Wins The 5,000/10,000 Double In Tokyo, It’ll Be The Fourth Games In A Row Where This Happened Kenenisa Bekele did it in 2009 and Mo Farah did in 2012 and 2016.
The Telegraph:GB Olympic Selection Headache Looming As New Lockdown Threatens To Further Impact On Athletes’ Qualifying Hopes The lack of major events will make it hard for athletes in many sports to qualify for Tokyo.
Kenya Expecting To Take A Record 100+ Athletes To Tokyo 2020 Olympics
U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum Voted Best New Attraction For 2020 By USA Today
Ukraine May Bid For 2030 Or 2032 Olympic Games

Tokyo Updates

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga To Decide If Tokyo Enters A State Of Emergency On Thursday
Tokyo Governor Koike Asks Japanese Government To Declare Coronavirus State Of Emergency Tokyo reported more than 1,000 daily cases for the first time last week, and a new, faster-spreading variant of the virus has been detected in Japan.
Japanese Prime Minister Vows Olympics Will Go Ahead In 2021
Tokyo 2020 Train “Ethical Hackers” To Counter Potential Cyber Attacks

Sprint / Field Links

A New Year Means New Sponsorship Deals

LRC Ryan Hill Joins HOKA ONE ONE NAZ Elite Jonathan Gault breaks the news that Hill, the 2015 US 5k champ, is leaving Bowerman TC and is headed to Flagstaff, where he’ll chase his first Olympic berth.
*MB: Ryan Hill leaves BTC

Saucony announces that it has signed Canadian marathon champion and Olympian-to-be Trevor Hofbauer (2:09:51 pb)

Sponsorship MB Chatter

What Pro runners have not had their contracts renewed?
Kate Grace leaves BTC, but stays with Nike
Kyle Merber makes official retirement announcement “I’m not done running, I’m just done getting paid for it.”
Why Would Saucony Drop Molly Seidel?
Ben True to Reebok Boston!?!?!

Women’s Distance News

Colleen Quigley Makes Personal/Athletic Reflections On 2020 And Goals For 2021 Quigley talks about wanting to continue reading two books a month, working out from home and living with her previously long-distance boyfriend after they had spent 10 out of 11 years in different cities.
GB Jenny Meadows Writes About Her “Greatest Race,” When She Won World 800m Bronze At Berlin 2009 “Before I left my room, I half-scared myself to death. I went into the bathroom, looking at myself, and said, ‘the next time you look at yourself in the mirror back in this room, I hope you really like yourself.'”
Watch Gabe Grunewald Train Reality TV Star Chip Gaines To Run A Marathon In “The Courage to Run” Documentary You can watch it on Discovery+ (free trial available.)
Former NXN Champ Brie Oakley Talks About Overcoming Injury, Mental Health, And “Racing Without Limits”

2020 -> 2021 News

The Telegraph‘s Track And Field Health Check For 2021: Which Stars War Waning, Who Is On The Rise And What Is The Sport’s Looming Crisis? Ben Bloom writes, “There is a large section of the sport that now believes numbers are becoming meaningless and the main reason is the continued development of shoe technology.”
World Athletics’ Mountain Running 2020 Review
Long Jumper Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk And Hammer Thrower Myhaylo Kokhan Have Been Voted Ukrainian Athletes Of The Year For 2020

Sad News – Track And Field Obituaries

Bob Mapplestone, The First British Runner To Go Sub-4 Indoors, Passes At Age 74
*Dyestat Article
Jamaica’s Former Big 10 LJ Champ And 1960 Olympic Finalist Paul Foreman Dies At Age 81
Car Accident Claims Life Of Utah High School Runner Jackson Keate
Former All-American High Jumper Bob Walters Dies At Age 93 He had the highest jump in the world in both 1949 and 1950.
UK’s 1964 Olympic Racewalking Silver Medalist Paul Nihill Dies From COVID-19 At Age 81
MB:One of the best runners in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Osman Junuzovic, passed away at age 27 Unofficially, the cause of death was sudden heart failure.

Goodbye, 2020

LRC LetsRun.com’s Best Articles Of 2020: How To Turn Pro, Farewell To Coogan’s, Solinsky’s 26:59 Revisited And More We sifted through the hundreds of articles we published in 2020 to find the very best stories of the year. From a guide on how to turn professional, to a diatribe on the Vaporflys, to a a remembrance of Haile G‘s 12:44, to the inside scoop on Chris Solinsky‘s AR at 2010 Payton Jordan, check out the work we were proudest of in 2020.

LRC The 2020 LetsRun.com Awards Are Here: Best Runner, Best Comeback, Biggest Disappointment, Most Inspirational & More 2020 was full of highs and lows – just ask Sara Hall. We hand out awards for a year unlike any other.
*MB: The 2020 LetsRun.com Awards Are Out – Best Runner, Best Comeback, Biggest Disappointment, Most Inspirational & More

LRC The Best LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast Episodes Of 2020: Jim Ryun, Deena Kastor, The Big 3 Reunited, & More Though 2020 featured fewer races than normal, we had plenty to talk about as we cranked out 68 episodes of the LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast as we landed some incredible guests, including an Olympic gold medalist, a Boston Marathon champion, a world record holder, and one of the most popular authors on the planet. A look at eight of our best episodes of 2020.