October 07, 2014 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For October 07, 2014

Quote Of The Day

“I think about 30 seconds before the gun went off I felt this rush come over me and it was like, ‘What have I done to myself? What am I getting myself into? Oh well, I can’t turn back now, I’m sitting here at the front of the race.’ …”

“… Those last three miles were scary. I didn’t know where anyone was behind me. I couldn’t even hear anyone. I could hear the crowd. It was really loud. The crowd was really intense right there and I just pushed, hoping no one would catch me.”

– 2014 US Marathon champion Tyler Pennel talking about his thoughts ahead of and during his marathon debut. Pennel won with 2:13:32, running big negative splits of 1:07:48 and 1:05:44.

NCAA XC Review

LRC Elise Cranny Debuts, Patrick Tiernan Dominates, Stanford Looks Great On Paper, The Greatest Colorado Team Ever? Seven Thoughts On The Weekend’s XC Action We break down the action from last week for you. It was a challenging week for the Stanford women, but a big week for the UCLA, Michigan and Navy men. Along the way we introduce you to the Yankees of Canadian cross-country and wonder if we’ve finally found a challenger for Edward Cheserek.

More: Updated D1 Regional Rankings: Wisconsin Men Reclaim Great Lakes Top Spot All other regions keep their #1 from last week.
Villanova’s Patrick Tiernan And New Mexico’s Charlotte Arter Are DI Athletes Of The Week Tiernan dominated the Washington Invy by 20 seconds while Arter won Notre Dame by 10 seconds.
UK XC: UKA’s Head Of Endurance Says Budget Issues Are Behind Decison To Only Send Athletes With “Top 30 Potential” To World XC Champs Yet they can afford to send full squads to other cross-country championships where they won’t have to compete with African nations.

More Sunday Road Action: Edna Kiplagat Delivers, Bad Day For Haile G

Two-Time Marathon World Champ Edna Kiplagat Wins Great Scottish Run Half Marathon In 1:07:57 Kiplagat beat Caroline Kilel by 56 seconds with Olympic champ Tiki Gelana way back in 3rd (70:37). South Africa’s Stephen Mokoka won the men’s race in 1:01:25 over Kenya’s Stephen Chemlany (1:01:32) and Mark Kiptoo (1:01:35). Haile Gebrselassie dropped out after only 5K saying he had breathing problems.
Overall Men’s Rock ‘N’ Roll Series Marathon Record Goes Down In Lisbon As Kenyan Samuel Ndungu Wins In 2:08:21 Visiline Jepkesho won the women’s race in 2:26:47. The half marathons were won by Kenyans Stephen Kibet (61:06) and Purity Rionoripo (71:02). WR holder Zersenay Tadese and 2011 World 10K champ Ibrahim Jeilan struggled, finishing 5th (63:29) and 8th (64:10).
Watch Out, Zersenay Tadese?Mathew Kisorio Continues Comeback From Drug Ban With Win At Family Bank Half Marathon In Eldoret, Kenya Kisorio ran 63:17 and says he wants to go for the half marathon WR.
Aaron Braun (62:56) And Kellyn Johnson (72:30) Win Rock ‘N’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon Overall, 7 athletes qualified for the 2016 US Marathon Trials. *Full Results
Kenyans Boniface Kongin (62:02) And Joan Chelimo (72:26) Win Cardiff Half Marathon
Ukraine’s Kateryna Stetsenko Wins Bournemouth Marathon Festival In 2:30:58

Weekend XC Coverage

Washington: #2-Ranked NAU Men Hold Off Upset By #20 UCLA To Win As Villanova’s Patrick Tiernan Dominates Individual Race By 20 Seconds Over Futsum Zienasellassie NAU beat UCLA by 10 points while Stanford was 3rd even missing three of their top runners. *Full Results
*UCLA Article: Team Impresses In First Test Of Season
#3-Ranked Oregon Women Edge #4 Stanford By 7 Points As Elise Cranny Wins In Her Collegiate Debut *Full Results
*Stanford Article On Cranny Winning In Her College Debut Cranny: “Wearing a Stanford uniform, putting it on this morning was really exciting.”
Rocky Mountain Shootout: CU Dominates At Home, The Men For The 24th Straight Year, The Women The 16th Blake Theroux led the Buffs with 24:23 (3rd fastest all-time on the course) while Erin Clark won for the women. *Daily Camera *Full Results
Good Read On The CU Buffs, Who Say Their Goal This Year Is To “Be the best CU cross country team in history.” A great quote from Mark Wetmore, who says, “In Division I there is no room for weakness. If you sneeze, five people will go by you.”
Paul Short: Totally Unexpected: Paul Short 2014!! Someone Break Up The Navy Men!!!! Navy got a big upset to beat Canada’s Guelph, top DII team Adams State and others. Mike Biwott got the individual win in 23:28. *Results *Navy Article
Canada’s University Of Guelph Dominantes Women’s Paul Short Race; #5-Ranked Georgetown Beats #6 Florida State Even Without A Full Squad FSU’s Colleen Quigley won the women’s race by 9 seconds. *Results
Chile Pepper: Arkansas Easily Win Home Chile Pepper Festival, Led By Stanley Kebenei’s Hard-Fought Individual Victory Kebenei beat former teammate Kemoy Campbell (now unattached) by only .3 seconds and UTEP’s NCAA steeple champ Anthony Rotich by a second. *Individual Results *Team Results
#7-Ranked Arkansas Women Dominate Home Invy, Led By Dominique Scott’s Individual Win Scott won in a CR 16:01, beating teammate Grace Heymsfield by 11 seconds. *Individual Results *Team Results
Notre Dame: USTFCCCA Weekend XC Coverage: #19 Michigan Men Upset #10 BYU At Notre Dame 97 To 112 Michigan also got the individual win by Mason Ferlic in 23:15. #12-ranked New Mexico dominated the women’s race with 49 points to NC State’s 123. New Mexico’s Charlotte Arter won the race in 16:09.
*Men’s Results *Women’s Results
*Michigan Article *New Mexico Article
Louisville: #11-Ranked Wisconsin Men And #16-Ranked Women Dominate Louisville Classic *Men’s Results *Women’s
High School: DyeStat Weekend Coverage: Grant Fisher Runs 14:43, Just Missing Dathan Ritzenhein’s CR At Portage Invy
*MileSplit *All HS Results

XC OTB

Elite Distance News

Good Read:Mitch Kastoff Profiles Dathan Ritzenhein And His Return Home To Rockford, Michigan Some interesting anecdotes about Ritz, including the fact that he and his wife dated in 6th grade (she dumped him at a rollerskating party) and that when they dated in college he convinced her to transfer from Villanova to Colorado.
World Half Marathon Record Holder Florence Kiplagat Going For 2:18 In Chicago The 2013 Berlin champion has a PR of 2:19:44.
Toni Reavis Blogs:One Year Later, Competitor Group Has Done A Complete 180 And Is Actually Increasing Its Support For Elites Last year, CGI got a lot of backlash when they announced that they were cutting support for elite athletes from their events. However, that didn’t last long and now they’re supporting elites more than ever.
Profile On Masters Runner Spyros Barres, Who Is Back Running Marathons After 10 Years Away From The Sport Battling Crohn’s Disease Barres had surgery and figured out how to manage his disease; now he’s shooting for sub-2:40 at Twin Cities.
IAAF Recap Of Smarna Gora Mountain Race: Andrea Mayr Wins With CR To Take Overall 2014 World Mountain Running Association Series World Cup Eritrea’s Petro Mamo won the men’s race as well as the overall title.

Marathon News: Emmanuel Mutai Best Loser Ever, Priscah Jeptoo Out Of NYC

Defending Champion Priscah Jeptoo And Stanley Biwott Withdraw From The 2014 TCS New York City Marathon With Injuries Jeptoo is healthy now, but lost too much training time. They will be replaced by 2013 Boston champ Lelisa Desisa and Chicago Marathon runner-up Jemima Sumgong.
Recommended Read: Emmanuel Mutai Talks About Berlin, Being The “Eternal Bridesmaid” And Trying To Win In The Future After finishing 2nd for the 7th time at a WMM, Mutai should be pulling his hair out, but instead is plotting what he can change in his training and talking about doing 42K in training so he can practice finishing the last 2K faster.
Good Read: After Recent Struggles, Amy Hastings Looks To Rekindle Marathon Magic In Chicago Hastings debuted with a promising 2:27:03, but has struggled in the last couple years and not PRed. But she’s feeling confident about Chicago, saying, “I think I’ll be able to go in and mix it up with the leaders. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
RRW: 2013 Boston Marathon Champ Lelisa Desisa And Molly Huddle Headline B.A.A. Half Marathon Elite Fields Set For Next Sunday On the men’s side, Desisa will be up against Stephen Sambu, Leonard Korir and last year’s runner-up Daniel Salel. Huddle faces BAA 10K champ Mamitu Daska, Betsy Saina, Linet Masai and 1:07:44 runner Mary Wacera.

Sprint / Field News

Chinese Hammer Thrower Stripped Of Asian Games Gold After Failing Doping Test It would have been Zhang Wenxiu‘s 3rd straight title.
IAAF Announces 10 Men’s And 10 Women’s Candidates For 2014 Athlete Of The Year Dennis Kimetto, Nijel Amos, Jairus Birech and Genzebe Dibaba are the distance runners who made the list.
InsideTheGames: Drug Cheat Justin Gatlin A “Controversial” Inclusion In Athlete Of The Year Nominations Gatlin was undefeated this year and ran the best 100/200 single day double in history.
Germany’s Rico Freimuth And Netherlands’ Nadine Broersen End Year As Overall Winners Of IAAF Combined Events Challenge

Asian Games

Men’s Marathon: Bahrain’s Kenyan-Born Ali Hasan Mahboob Wins In 2:12:38 Over Japan’s Kohei Matsumura And Yuki Kawauchi The race was ridiculously close as only 4 seconds separated the top 3.
*IAAF Recap China topped the overall track and field medals table with 15 gold medals, 14 silver and 11 bronze.
Thursday Recap: Maryam Jamal Wins 5,000 In 14:59 As China Picks Up 4 More Gold Medals Bahrain’s Moroccan El Hassan Elabbassi won the 10,000 in 28:11.20, beating Japan’s Alberto Salazar-coached Suguru Osako.
Bahrain’s Eunice Kirwa (Formerly Kenya) Wins Marathon In 2:25:37 Over Japan’s Ryoko Kizaki (2:25:50)

Behind The Scenes At Colorado

LRC Feature The Wetmore Formula Those who know him best insist there aren’t any secrets to Mark Wetmore’s success as a distance coach. Yet few can match his accomplishments. How does he do it? We go back to his Bernard High roots in the 1970s and do our best to explain. Chris Lear has read this piece and loved it: “This is why I go to letsrun. Thanks for the read.”

Discuss On The MBoard: LetsRun.com Investigates: What Makes Mark Wetmore So Special?

LRC The Gunslingers Of Boulder Mitch Kastoff catches up with the defending champs, who return everyone from last year and then some, and finds a very confident group.

Marathon News

Good Q&A With Tyler Pennel, Who Debuted With A 2:13:32 To Win The US Marathon Championships 2:13 with a big negative split on a challenging course at least puts him in the conversation for the 2016 Olympic Marathon Trials.
Almost QOD: Japan’s Kohei Matsumura And Yuki Kawauchi Return To Japan Crushed After Only Going 2-3 In The Asian Games Marathon By A Few SecondsKawauchi: “If I was that close I should have won. … I’m disappointed with this bronze medal. Gold and silver were right there before my eyes. If I didn’t feel disappointed then it would be time for me to stop being an athlete.”
Matsumura Extremely Disappointed By 1-Second Loss “I was targeting the win, so even when I actually received the medal at the ceremony I only felt disappointment. As time goes by that feeling is only getting stronger …”
Random: New British Comedy Has Food Critic Actors Discussing Eating Mo Farah’s Leg We’re not sure what’s weirder to us, their conversation about cannibalism or the fact that a track and field athlete was a celebrity reference in a movie.
Running Times Takes A Look At The State Of U.S. Marathoning They ask, “Fourteen years after its lowest point, are American marathoners on the way back to prominence?” We’re still a long way from having anyone in the 2:02-2:04 range.

Sport’s Gender Controversy Continues

BBC On Intersex Gender Issue In Sport: “A History Of Bad Science And Biological Racism” The writer seems to be on the side of Indian sprinter Dutee Chand, who has refused hormone treatment and has brought her case to CAS to have the IAAF rule on natural testosterone levels abolished. If she is, this could completely change (ruin?) women’s sports. Read more about this issue in the LRC archives.
NY Times On Chand: “Fighting For The Body She Was Born With” We like the quote from chairman of the IOC medical commission Arne Ljungqvist: “People who say, ‘This is nothing; we don’t need this rule,’ don’t know sports … We just can’t bury our heads in the sand and pretend these conditions do not exist.”
Minnesota Debating What To Do About Transgender Students In High School Sports Article includes story and quotes from athlete who competed on women’s track team despite identifying himself as male.

US Distance News

Interesting Read:Athletics Weekly Does Interesting Interview With Alberto Salazar About The Training Of Mo Farah And Galen Rupp Salazar talks about post-race workouts, mileage, Rupp and Farah not racing in practice, and not wanting Farah to do the marathon.
Good Video Interview With Northern Arizona Elite’s Matt Llano About Coming Out As Being A Gay Athlete Llano is the only openly gay professional male distance runner we know of. He’s making his marathon debut at Chicago this Sunday and has talked about Ryan Hall‘s 2:08:24 American debut record.
*MB: Who is Matt Llano and why does he think he can run 2:08?
*MB: Can LR have a respectful conversation about Matt Llano’s announcement?
Jim Ryun Wants To “Bring Back The Mile” To US High Schools Ryun: “If you say someone is a sub-4-minute Miler, they understand that. If they say someone is a sub-4-minute 1,600 meter runner, I think the response is going to be, ‘What’s that?'”

More Quality Analysis Of Dennis Kimetto’s New WR

Spanish Statistician Miguel Calvo Does Extremely In-Depth Analysis Of Dennis Kimetto’s 2:02:57 Marathon WR Includes a lot of interesting stats, including comparisons to Wilson Kipsang‘s previous record, a look at Kimetto’s negative splits (the first time since Haile G in 2008 and that was only by a second) and a shout out to the excellent Berlin pacers.
Interesting Running Form Analysis Comparing Dennis Kimetto And Emmanuel Mutai Side-By-Side During Berlin Did Mutai’s underpronation cost him the race?
BBC: Why So Many Marathon Records Are Broken In Berlin The course, the competition and the weather, obviously. Some interesting stuff, though, from Science of the Sport’s Ross Tucker, who says he doesn’t expect to see a sub-2 hour marathon for at least 40 years “if at all.”
RunnersTribe Analyzes Dennis Kimetto’s WR And Asks How He Might Do In A Championship Race Len Johnson points out that there hasn’t been a marathon WR holder who was also an Olympic or World champion since the 1980s when Carlos Lopes ran 2:07:12 in Rotterdam after winning the Los Angeles Olympics the previous year.

Financial News

“Pompous” IOC Demands “Led To Withdrawal Of Oslo 2022 Olympic Bid” Norway politicians were annoyed by the “pompous” IOC demands, which included providing “fruit and cakes of the season” in members’ hotel rooms.
BOA Posts Operating Loss In First Year After London Olympics

Week That Was

WTW All Hail Larry Rawson And Dennis Kimetto, Sub-2 Here We Come, Shalane And Emmanuel Win By Losing, Rupp’s Medal Chances Go Up, & Proof Runners Are Crazy Last week was a momentous week with Dennis Kimetto breaking the 2:03:00 marathon barrier. We take another look at that, compare Tsegaye Kebede to all American marathoners ever, praise Shalane Flanagan, like Galen Rupp‘s medal chances, and tell you why runners are officially crazy.

Kaliese Spencer Calls Out Usain Bolt!!!

IAAF Work, Rest And Play Q&A With Jamaican Kaliese Spencer, Who Dominated The 400 Hurdles In 2014 Asked who in T&F is the best dancer, she said, “Asafa Powell is a good dancer. I know Usain Bolt dances, but I’m not sure he is a great dancer (laughs).”