February 13, 2018 Homepage Archive

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Archived Homepage For February 13, 2018

Quote Of The Day

“They didn’t seem to pay attention to it. It bothers me that they haven’t looked into the death threats. They’re saying it’s just rumors. What [Toni Galbraith, the detective working the case] said is David didn’t take the threat seriously. Talking to his friends about the death threats, David didn’t take them seriously. And I was like, what does that matter? … Because David didn’t take [the threats] seriously, then there was no probable cause? If David took this seriously, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. … I just think the investigation was very shoddy and from the beginning, they just wanted to close the case. … They were just waiting for toxicology and were going to close the case.”

– David Torrence‘s mother, Bianca Torrence, talking about how even though police have ruled his death an accidental drowning, she feels they didn’t properly investigate the possibility of murder.

TrackTown Construction Delay USA

LRC NCAA TF Committee Reopens Bid Process for 2019 & 2020 NCAA Outdoor Championships That Had Previously Been Awarded to University of Oregon The 2019 and 2020 NCAA outdoor meets were supposed to be at Hayward Field, but citing the “timing around pending construction,” the NCAA TF committee decided to reopen the bid process.

The 2018 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix Was Saturday Results Watch It *Meet Preview

LRC 2018 NBIGP Recap: Jenny Simpson > Emma Coburn, Donavan Brazier Runs 1:45.11, & Chris O’Hare Keeps Rolling The lone US stop on the IAAF World Indoor Tour did not disappoint as Donavan Brazier nearly broke the American record, Jenny Simpson PRed and much more.

LRC Edward Cheserek Destroys Hagos Gebrhiwet At 2018 NBIGP To Complete Epic 3:49/7:38 2-Day Double During his four years at Oregon, Edward Cheserek became a legend in the US by winning 17 NCAA titles. This weekend, he started working on becoming a legend at the world level by pulling off an insane double.

Other Saturday Action:

Craig Engels Blasts A 3:53.96 With His Tongue Out On The Last Lap
4 Oregon Ducks Break 4:00 At UWSam Prakel won in 3:56.89 as Evan Jager was only 7th in 3:58.27.
Clayton Murphy Gets Ready For USAs With 1:48.36
Ghent: Schippers Clocks 7.17 In 60m Heats In Ghent Before DQ In Final
Ghent:Norway’s Wunderkind Jakob Ingebrigtsen Came Up Short Of Qualifier For World Indoors With A 3:40.96 (Lewandowski Won In 3:40.74)

NBIGP MB Talk

RIP Jonathan Grey

MB:RIP: Former William & Mary star / 27:59 man Jonathan Grey has lost his battle with depression at age 29
York Daily Record:Fellow Runners Share Their Memories And Pay Tribute To Jon Grey Grey’s coach Lee Troop tweeted, “He was a hard worker, always went for goals despite how unrealistic, & was one of the most honest persons I’ve ever met. If he ran like shit, he accepted full responsibility and never looked for excuses.”

News From Africa

Geoffrey Kamworor Wins 2018 Kenyan XC Champs, Then Rips His Employer He didn’t rip Nike but rather the Kenyan Police Force for not giving him a promotion. *IAAF Recap
South African 5k Champ Thabang Mosiako Allegedly Beaten By Group Of Whites In Racist Attack His friend claims he could have lifelong seizures as a result. More info here and here.
Report: Justin Gatlin Is Ducking Akani Simbine When He Races In South Africa In March Gatlin has supposedly requested to run a 150 so he won’t face Simbine.
Who Knew? Eliud Kipchoge’s Mom Was Once Patrick Sang’s Teacher And now Sang is Kipchoge’s teacher.

2018 RAK Half Results Race Replay *Km-By-Km Splits

MB: Official 2018 RAK Half Live Discussion Thread

LRC Oh So Close, Fancy Chemutai Just Misses WR And Runs 64:53 (#2 All-Time), Bedan Karoki Runs 58:42 (#4 All-Time) At 2018 RAK Half Even though the WR just barely survived, the women’s race was the best in half marathon history as 11 women broke 69:00. The men’s side was pretty darn good as 7 men broke 60:00, including a guy making his debut, Jemal Yimer, who ran a debut record of 59:00.

Other Thursday Action

Spain’s Óscar Husillos (400) And Russia’s Maria Lasitskene (HJ) Highlight Madrid Indoor Meeting Husillos beat world indoor 400 champ Pavel Maslak to win the 400 in NR 45.86. Lasitskene got her 34th consecutive win by clearing 2.00m and then taking some attempts at a would-be PR of 2.07m. Distance action included wins from Genzebe Dibaba (4:02.43), Adam Kszczot (1:46.53), Ayanleh Souleiman (3:38.47) and Meraf Bahta (8:42.46). *Results

Distance News

Good Read:Eliud Kipchoge Explains Why He Loves Running “When I miss a day’s running, it makes me feel bad. It’s like when I was younger and I missed a day at school. To me, running is life. I run to live longer and enjoy a healthier life. … It is good for your mind. … I can’t imagine a life without running.”
Steve Magness Does 90-Minute Podcast With Alan Webb They talk about a lot of different aspects of the training Webb did when he was competing.
*MB: 90 min of Alan MF Webb
Scottish Mid-D Runner Jake Wightman Writes About The Pros And Cons Of Being Coached By His Dad Weightman tells a story of one time where he used “some pretty explicit language” towards his dad during a workout and “did the whole session filled with rage.”
Podcast Interview With World Steeple Silver Medalist Courtney Frerichs Frerichs talks about winning silver, previously being a multi-sport athlete and transitioning from college to pro.
Very Random:Texas Man Loses Bet, Runs Beer Mile In Kim Jong-un Onesie It was his punishment for coming in last his his fantasy football league.

Previous Mid-Week Action

Tuesday: World HJ Champ Mutaz Essa Barshim Loses For The First Time Since 2016 At A Meet In Slovakia China’s Wang Yu and Barshim both cleared 2.31m, but Barshim lost on countback. Russia’s Maria Lasitskene dominated the women’s competition with 2.02 meters.
Wednesday: South Africa’s World Long Jump Champ Luvo Manyonga Jumps World-Leading 8.32m In Paris
*IAAF Paris Recap:Decathlete Kevin Mayer Dominated The Multi-Event “Triathlon Competition” World and Olympic pole vault champ Ekaterini Stefanidi won with 4.81m before taking three unsuccessful attempts at a would-be Greek indoor record of 4.91m.

Sprint Stuff

Andre De Grasse To Play In NBA All-Star Celebrity Game Actors Jamie Foxx and Jerry Ferrara (former Entourage star) are among those playing. The game will be Friday, February 16th in Los Angeles.
Q&A:World 100m Champ Tori Bowie Is Walking In New York Fashion Week She will appear at various shows for clothing company Valentino and possibly on some catwalks too.
Canadian Olympic 4 X 100 Bronze Medalist Akeem Haynes Is Trying Out Football Haynes has signed with a team in the Canadian Football League as a wide receiver.
Justin Gatlin To Race At The Athletix GP In South Africa In March Gatlin will run the rarely-run 150m for the first time in his career.

Doping Updates

GB Sprinter Nigel Levine Suspended After Failing Out-Of-Competition Drug Test Before Christmas Levine was one of the sprinters who was gravely injured in a motorcycle accident last year.
CAS Will Announced Decision On Russian Appeals On Friday, The Day Of The Winter Games Opening Ceremony
WADA President Craig Reedie Doesn’t Rule Out RUSADA Remaining Suspended Until 2020 Tokyo Games
Russia Confident Of Favorable CAS Decision For 45 Athletes Hoping To Compete At Pyeongchang 2018
WADA To Implement Extra Security Measures Aimed At Protecting Anti-Doping At Pyeongchang 2018 Following Sochi Scandal

Non-Pro Running News

Sad News:Video: Coach Who Dropped 100 Pounds Over Last 4 Years Dies After Run With Students An Indiana teacher and coach Dan Runyan collapsed while on a run and died two days later. *Video Transcript*Discuss
*School And Community Mourns Loss Of Dan Runyan 45-year-old Runyan used to be 340 pounds and on the cusp of diabetes, but changed his diet and became a runner to turn his health around. He was training for the 2018 Chicago Marathon.
Bill Defeated In Hawaii That Would Have Banned Hawaiian Runners Under 18 From Competing In Half And Full Marathons
RIP Ken Young, The Founder Of The Association of Road Racing Statisticians A nice tribute by JRN’s Brett Larner on the man who contributed a lot to the art of keeping road racing stats/data.
*Great Runner’s World Profile On Young From 2016

US Distance News

Register-Guard:Andrew Wheating Is Comfortable In Retirement And Has “Zero Regret” But is it hard to go through a track season as a spectator rather than athlete? Nope, Wheating says he sees pictures of “guys finishing races with that gritty face” and is happy that’s not him.
*MB: QOTD: “Zero. Zero bit of regret…” – Andrew Wheating on retirement
DyeStat:Gabrielle Wilkinson Steals Katelyn Tuohy’s Thunder In The Millrose Games High School Mile Reportedly, Tuohy, only a sophomore, was crushed by the loss and ran “to the bathroom in tears” after the race.
*MB:How Gabrielle Wilkinson won the Millrose HS Girl’s Mile
Jim Ryun, Steve Prefontaine, Alan Webb, Jesse Owens, Allyson Felix Among The Inaugural Inductees Into The National High School Track And Field Hall Of Fame Unfortunately, so too was Mary Decker Slaney.
Sabrina Little And Ronnie Delzer Successfully Defend Their Titles At The US 100 Mile Trail Champs

The World’s Biggest XC Fan

LRC Meet Mr. Cross-Country, The Sport’s Biggest Fan Cross-country’s biggest fan, Michael Mahon, resides in Massachusetts, where for the past 33 years he has traveled to over 1,747 career meets, bag of cans in tow. And he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.
*Michael Mahon – Mr. Cross-Country – Share Your Favorite Story Here

Book Review

LRC Book Review: “Endure” By Alex Hutchinson – A Fitting Successor To “The Sports Gene” As The Next Great Sports Science Book Treat yourself to your own Valentine’s Day gift by buying Alex Hutchinson‘s new book Endure, which we give our highest rating – 5 stars out of 5. Purchase here.

Sprint Stuff

Norway’s Karsten Warholm Runs 300 Hurdles World Best With 34.26 In Finland Warholm already had the world indoor record, but this mark is was faster than the outdoor record as well.
*MB: Karsten Warholm – 300H World Best!
The UK Media Laments That Justin Gatlin Can’t Be Stopped From Competing At The New Eight-Team World Cup Meet This Summer We don’t know why it was worth writing an article to explain you can’t just keep an athlete out of a championship event.
IAAF Inside Athletics Video Interview With Christian Coleman

Weekend Road / XC Results

Ethiopia’s Mule Wasihun Breaks Eliud Kipchoge’s CR At The Barcelona Half Marathon With 59:44 Bahrain’s Tejitu Daba took the women’s race in 68:36, just one second ahead of Ethiopia’s Dibabe Kuma.
World U20 XC Champ Jacob Kiplimo And Letesenbet Gidey Took The Wins At The Historic Cinque Mulini XC Race In Italy Kiplimo won the men’s 11K race over Telahun Bekele by 17 seconds while Gidey held off Kenya’s Daisy Jepkemei by four seconds in the women’s 6K.
Abraham Kiprotich Runs 2:15:03 Nigerian All-Comers’ Record At Lagos City MarathonAlmenesh Herpha won the women’s race in 2:38:23.

News From Japan

Amy Cragg’s Goal For Tokyo Marathon Is Simple – “To Try And Run A Very Big PR” Having watched many of Flanagan’s big workouts, she was relieved to see her win NY. “I was like, ‘Man, if she doesn’t win this race, after seeing what she did and what she put into [her preparation], there’s not much hope for any of us.'”
20k Racewalk World Record Holder Suzuki Suspended 6 Months For … False Expense Claims?

SAFP Is Back From Her Maternity Break

Afrer Giving Birth In August, 2008 And 2012 Olympic 100 Champ Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce Is Back Training And Says She’s Still Hungry She also thinks she can still PR (10.70) at age 31.

Pre-Race NBIGP News

LRC What We Learned In Boston: What’s Up With Boris Berian, How Christian Coleman Can Run Even Faster, & How Much Money It Would Take For Jenny Simpson To Race The Steeple Again Get the inside scoop from today’s NBIGP press conference where three sets of stars will battle each other tomorrow – Simpson vs. Coburn, Coleman vs. Lyles and Berian vs. Brazier. Plus after talking to Brazier, we can only wonder: Has anyone in the history of the world ever broken 4:00 in the mile with a shorter longest run than Donavan Brazier?

LRC Exclusive Q & As

LRC Q&A With The Man Who Is Now Coaching Edward Cheserek – Stephen Haas; Haas Talks About Cheserek’s Sub-3:50 Mile Attempt & What Makes King Ches Special Cheserek will be attempting to be the 4th man to break 3:50 in the indoor mile this weekend and then a day later he’ll take on a stacked field in the 3k at the NBIGP. Get the inside scoop on his first altitude camp and learn how Cheserek closed a recent session with a 49-second 400.

Catching Up With Teen Phenoms Past And Present

LRC Q&A: Mary Cain On The Injury That Kept Her Out In 2017 & Her 2018 Plans, Plus Katelyn Tuohy Talks About Her Incredible XC Season, Her Millrose Defeat & Managing Expectations 21-year-old Mary Cain surprised fellow NY Section 1 phenom Katelyn Tuohy Wednesday afternoon and presented her with the Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Runner of the Year Award. We caught up with the two right after the ceremony and did a Q&A.

Bowerman Award Update

The Bowerman: 2018 Men’s Mid-Indoor Watch ListJustyn Knight, Josh Kerr and Michael Saruni make up the trio of distance men on the list.
The Bowerman: 2018 Women’s Mid-Indoor Watch List Distance runners on the list include Karissa Schweizer, Sammy Watson and Ednah Kurgat. Young sprint star Sydney McLaughlin is also on the list.

Assorted Distance News

USATF Announces World Half Marathon Team The men’s team has Bernard Lagat, Jared Ward, Leonard Korir, Diego Estrada and Sam Chelanga. The women’s team is Jordan Hasay, Sara Hall, Natosha Rogers, Becky Wade and Elaina Tabb.
Cam Levins Is On Canada’s World Half Marathon Team
Andrew Wheating Unveils Funny Retirement Video Wheating talks about what he’s been up to since he hung up his spikes.
Kenya Will Name Its Africa XC Champs Team On Saturday Top XC man Geoffrey Kamworor is focusing on World Half Champs, but the women’s team is likely to have former World XC champ Agnes Tirop.

Tuesday Afternoon Track Action – 2nd IAAF World Indoor Tour Event – Düsseldorf *Results

MB:Official Düsseldorf IAAF World Indoor Tour Live Discussion And Watch Thread
*IAAF Dusseldorf Recap: Su Bingtian Runs 6.43 In The 60m To Move To 5th All-TimeChristina Manning edged Sharika Nelvis in the 60H to set a 7.77 world lead.
*Czech Republic’s Tomas Stanek Improved His Own World Lead And The Czech Record To 22.17m

Did you miss the action? Watch it now without knowing the results.
*Men’s 800 1 With Kszczot
*Men’s 800 2 With Sowinski
*Men’s 1,500 With Iguider And Manangoi
*Women’s 1,500
*Men’s 3,000 With Kejelcha

Meet Preview

Sprint Stuff

Hannah Cunliffe Signs WIth adidas And With Paul Doyle; Is Living In Washington Being Coached By Her Father No word on when she’ll make her pro debut.
*MB: Hannah Cunliffe Signs with Adidas
IAAF Ratify USA’s Men’s 4 X 400 Under-20 World Record The team (which included pro Josephus Lyles) ran 3:00.33 this July to break the mark held by a team that included LaShawn Merritt, Kerron Clement and Brandon Johnson.
Christophe Lemaitre Had A Solid Weekend With 6.57 And 6.58 In The 60m He ran 6.57 in the heats and then almost equaled it in the final to beat a field that included his domestic rival Jimmy Vicaut.
Shaunae Miller-Uibo Excited For 2018 After Setting The 300m World Record At Millrose

International Distance News

Caster Semenya Dumps Her Coach Of Three Years, Jean Verster Verster coached Semenya to her Olympic and World titles, but Semenya has now left to join the Tshwane University of Technology and apparently will represent them in future races.
Nick Willis Could Miss The Commonwealth Games After Suffering A Stress Reaction In His Fibula Willis tweeted that he’d take a few weeks off to cross train and would “put 100%” of his focus on the 1,500, making it sound like he’s giving up on the 1,500/5,000 double.
Nike Makes Advertising Blunder As They Show Mo Farah Pictured In A T-Shirt With A Terrorist Group Slogan The shirt says “LDNR” meant to stand for “Londoner,” but apparently those are also the letters used by a terrorist group in Ukraine.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen Just Misses A Hat Trick Of Titles At Norwegian Indoor Champs 3:42.75 to win the 1,500, then a Euro indoor U20 record in the 3K with 7:56.74 and bounced back for 2nd in the 800 with 1:52.01. On the sprint side, world 400H champ Karsten Warholm broke his own national indoor 400 record for the second week with 45.59.
World 10,000 Silver Medalist Joshua Cheptegei Announced For A New Three Meet Grand Prix Series In South Africa At the first meet on March 1st, Cheptegei is stepping down to the 1,500 and says he wants to run 3:32 (his 3:37 PR comes from the one 1,500 he’s ever run).
AW Weekend Round-Up:Jake Heyward Breaks British Under-20 Indoor 3,000 Record With 8:00.93 He broke the 50-year-old record set by Ian Stewart in 1968.
Video Highlights From European Champion Clubs Cup Cross-Country

NCAA Updates

Texas Tech Passes Florida To Move To #1 In The NCAA Rankings Georgia stayed #3 while Southern California jumped from 15th to 4th.
Some Big Shifts In Women’s NCAA Rankings As Arkansas Stays #1 And Southern California And Kentucky Jumped From 4th And 5th To 2nd And 3rd Georgia and Oregon dropped down to 4th and 5th.
Grant Fisher And Ednah Kurgat Are XC Scholar Athletes Of The Year Fisher is the first back-to-back winner of the award since Chris Derrick won it in 2010 and 2011.
The Portland Men And The New Mexico Women Are NCAA All-Academic Cross-Country Teams Of The Year To win the award you have to be the top finishing team with a GPA of at least 3.0.
Florida’s Grant Holloway And New Hampshire’s Elinor Purrier Are NCAA Athletes Of The Week Holloway broke Omar McLeod‘s 60H NCAA record as well as split 45.12 on Florida’s 4 x 400 while Purrier ran the second-fastest collegiate indoor mile with 4:26.55.
Event-By-Event Top-10 NCAA Marks From The Weekend

Running Science

CNN:Research Finds That Smiling Can Improve Your Running By Decreasing Perceived Effort The study found that runners used 2.8% less energy when smiling compared to frowning.
RW: Are Veiny Arms And Legs Really A Sign You’re Super Fit? While it’s not a direct indicator of fitness, having veins that “pop” is more likely in fit athletes because they are leaner with less body fat and more muscle mass.

Friday Night Action – Fast Hurdles And Miles + Gwen Jorgensen Knocks It Out Of The Park

Cheserek celebrates #15 LRC Edward Cheserek Blasts 3:49.44 Mile To Move To #2 On The All-Time World Indoor List Edward Cheserek is currently a man without a country. He doesn’t want to run for Kenya and he can’t race for the US, so tonight he raced the clock – and won.

Things You Should Read This Weekend

An ABSOLUTE MUST-READ: Incredible Q&A With Jake Robertson: A Decade In Kenya Turned Two Teens From New Zealand Into World-Class Runners The best non-LRC story of the year (so far).

Fascinating Read: Meet The Irishman Who Tested 5,500 Irish School Kids On His Own Dime To Find The Fastest To Race The Kids 60 At Millrose (Which They Won) “What I find in schools is we don’t even have the 10th-fastest kid in the class in our sport. It all comes back to talent.” They produced a winner in 2017 but got beaten this year.

An Interview With Running Phenom Camille Herron: I Was Born To Run The Comrades champ and LRC visitor has a diet that we used ourselves when we use to run 100+ mpw: “I like to eat Taco Bell and Subway before my races.”

Big News That No One Is Talking About: WADA Says CAS Issued Statement Acknowledging That Russians Did Do State-Sponsored Doping

The Latest USATF Controversy

The Oregonian: Vin Lananna Has Been “Stripped Of Some Of His Authority” As USATF President Due To Conflicts Of Interest Lananna heads several companies and nonprofits that bid on contracts and host track meets, including TrackTown USA and because of this (as well as concerns expressed by their auditing firm), the board passed a resolution requiring Lananna to recuse himself from many USATF issues. We said back when Lananna was running for president that he should “give up his current role at TrackTown USA.”

Non-Distance News

MB:Fred Kerley Runs 44.50 Time Trial
RIP:Australian Commonwealth Games Javelin Champ Jarrod Bannister Dies At 33 Bannister’s last major competition was 2011 Worlds and he had a 20-month ban in 2013 for missing three out-of-competition drug tests.
Trinidad and Tobago’s 200m World Bronze Medalist Jereem Richards Talks The Highs And Lows Of His Career While 2017 Worlds was great, Richards had a lot of difficulties in 2016 that culminated in him not making the Rio Olympics.

News From The 2018 Winter Olympics In South Korea

At Least They Got One Right:CAS Dismisses Appeals Of 47 Russians Seeking To Compete At The 2018 Winter Games
*USA Today article
*Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko Disappointed With CAS Decision
Canadian Team Warned About Conduct After Cafe Incident With Russia The Canadian team issued a “partial apology” after a verbal exchange between a Canadian and Russian athlete.
North Korea Will Stay At Pyeongchange 2018 Following Withdrawal Threat After Comments From US Vice President Mike Pence North Korea threatened to pull out of the Games after Pence said the US planned to introduce tough sanctions against North Korea.
USOC Ends Prospects Of Bid For 2026 Winter Olympics Over Fears It Would Negatively Affect LA 2028
NY Times:Norovirus Is Spreading At The Winter Games With 128 Confirmed Cases
NY Times:Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
NY Times:“A Surprise (?) At The Winter Olympics: It’s Really Cold” Recent Games were “balmy,” but it’s been getting under 0 degrees Fahrenheit in Pyeongchang.
Curlers Become First “Olympic Athletes From Russia” To Compete At 2018 Winter Games The opening ceremony is Friday, but some events started Thursday.
Olympic Athletes from Russia to march between Austria and Kazakhstan at Opening Ceremony A volunteer will carry the “Olympic Athletes from Russia” flag. Why do they need a flag at all?
Thomas Bach Defends IOC’s Handling Of Russia Doping Case

Week That Was

LRC WTW: Some Stars Thankfully Ran US Cross, Michelle Sikes Is Back, Emmanuel Korir Was Flying, Edna Kiplagat Struggled, Russian Doping And Coaching Advice From Katelyn Tuohy’s Coach We break down the week of running.

Distance News: Does King Ches Have A Shot At Sub-3:50?

Edward Cheserek Going For A Sub-3:50 Mile At BU Valentine On Friday Brannon Kidder and Hamish Carson are scheduled to take Cheserek through 800 in 1:54 and 1,200 in 2:52, trying to help Cheserek become only the fourth person to go under 3:50 indoors.
A Missed Result From The Weekend:Abel Kipchumba (60:12) And Shitaye Eshete (68:35) Win Napoli Half Marathon (Corrected Link/Result)