October 08, 2014 Homepage Archive

Elite Running's Front Page

Archived Homepage For October 08, 2014

Quote Of The Day

“I now belong to the three-man club which also includes Haile Gebrselassie and Paul Tergat. I have joined these men who are the only to have run the 5,000m distance in sub 12:50 (and the marathon under 2:05). But I am like a small child crawling and trying to stand up in marathon. I will train with the passion and you never know I might be the next to lower the world record in future and only time will tell.”

– Eliud Kipchoge, who will be racing world 5,000 and 10,000 record holder Kenenisa Bekele in the 2014 Bank of America Chicago Marathon this weekend. Kipchoge says he thinks he can PR, which is big as his best is 2:04:05.

Week That Was

LRCDavid Rudisha's Crazy Fast High School, Middle School Love Denied For Ritz And Symmonds, All Hail Zap Fitness, And Don't Be Impressed By Marla Runyan's Blindness

Darwin Award Candidate

LRCIdiot Runner Rescued Running Across Atlantic Ocean In A Bubble Claims His Rescue Transponder Went Off By Accident And Wants You To Donate To Get His Bubble Back

Perhaps you heard the story last week about Reza Baluchi trying to run across the Atlantic in a bubble and having to get rescued by the Coast Guard. Now he's claiming he didn't want to be rescued, his transponder went off by accident, and he wants his bubble back.

More Justin Gatlin Hating

(Lord) Seb Coe Criticises Justin Gatlin’s Nomination For IAAF Male Athlete Of The Year He’s irate as recent research has revealed steroids help you for a LONG time, maybe the rest of your life. That being said, Gatlin was banned 8 years ago and was sensational this year, running 6 of the 7 fastest 100s in the world plus 19.68.
*Video Of Sebastian Coe, Who Has “Big Problems” With Justin Gatlin’s AOY Nomination
New Study Says That Drug Cheats Can Benefit “For Life Or At Least Decades” From Their Past Doping Professor of Physiology at the University of Oslo: “Our data indicates the exclusion time of two years is far too short. Even four years is too short.” We agree, ban them for life.
WADA May Iincrease Drug Bans If It’s True Steroids Last For Decades, Possibly Lifetime
WADA Issues New Guidelines To Help Out Local Testers In 2015

Previous Anti-Justin Gatlin News

Worth A Read:BBC On Why Justin Gatlin’s Success Is Bad For Track And Field They should have titled their article, “Why the UK hates Gatlin.” Basically he’s the anti-Dwain Chambers. Chambers was a one-time offender, apologized, came back and was quiet and humble. Gatlin had multiple offenses, never admitted doping and is cocky/loud. Plus they think he’s still dirty.
Q&A With Robert Harting, Who Asked For “De-Nomination” From IAAF AOY List Because He Didn’t Want To Be On It With Justin Gatlin
WADA Director General Says 25% Of Sport Is Controlled By Organized Crime
Chinese Hammer Thrower “Shocked” After Testing Positive At Asian Games The substance she tested for is still used in some parts of the world as a growth hormone in livestock, so it’s possible she could have ingested it via contaminated meat.

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.

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.

Women’s Running News

Great Read: Canadian Marathoner Rob Watson Blogs About Pacing Shalane Flanagan In Berlin In distress, he says she showed “why she is one of the best in the world.”
Lauren Fleshman Blogs, “Do I Look Like a Man? “ Apparently one online critic said yes. Fleshman: “Our definition of femininity still has some expanding to do to catch up with the fact that women are athletes now, in lots of shapes and sizes.”
A Chat With Esther Erb, 2014 U.S. Marathon Champion, Who Reveals She Had To Use The Port-A-John At Mile 20 “It really makes my day when anyone notices that I am smiling from start to finish.”
*Despite $26,500 Payday, Esther Erb Gets Grant As RRCA 2014 Roads Scholar Class Other winners of training $$ included former NCAA champ Natosha Rogers.
ESPNW Article On How Former Three-Time DIII NCAA XC Champ Missy Rock, Who Is Trying To Rescue Her Adopted Child From Africa Rock ran the Twin Cities Marathon in 2:54 to raise awareness and the orphanage in Congo where her daughter is currently stuck.
Q&A With 2:01.13 800 Runner Karine Belleau-Beliveau Of Canada, Who Didn’t Run Until Age 24 In 2008, at age 24, she wasn’t a runner but wanted to run a marathon. 5 months later, she ran 2:08 for 800. Now she may make Worlds in 2015 at age 31.
Jo Pavey Wants To Make 2016 Games At Age 42

Eugene 2019, Doha 2019 Or Barcelona 2019?

More Administrative News

Nike Has Hired More Than 2,000 Workers In Oregon In Last Year At Average Salary Of More Than $100,000 Each They had to hire at least 500 to get a tax break.
“Basic Mistakes” On Bidding Delay Demolition Of Tokyo’s Old Olympic Stadium “There was a complaint about the process and it was recommended to us that we hold another round of bidding,”
United States Olympic Museum Given $10 Million Grant Towards Construction

Coaching News

1984 Olympic 10,000 Silver Medalist Mike McLeod Is Now Coaching His Son Ryan, Who Just Won The British Half Marathon Champs Ryan only ran 64:57 to win but has a 13:41 5,000 PR.
Learn How To Coach Like Arthur Lydiard At Coaching Clinic In Victoria, BC From Nov. 14 To 16

Sprint News

Work Hard, Play Hard:Usain Bolt Takes On Oktoberfest In Munich, Germany Despite Bolt’s presence, overall beer consumption was way down. Apparently only 600 visitors had to be treated for alcohol poisoning this year, down from 629 last year and 739 in 2012.
Cornel Fredericks Explains How He Won Commonwealth, African And Continental Cup 400H Titles Fredericks deserves it as in 2012 his coach died a month before the Olympics where he tore his hamstring and was DFL.
IAAF Inside Athletics Season 2 – Episode 13 with 20-Year-Old 400 Ace Shaunae Miller The former World Youth and Jr. champ won world indoor bronze this year.

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.

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.”
Runners Tribe 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.

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: New NCAA XC Rankings Are Out The only thing of note was the Indiana men plummeted from #7 to #23 and the UCLA men rose from #20 to #9.
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.

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.