WTW: RIP Roddie Haley, A Man & Woman CRUSH IT At Age 40+, Legendary NCAA DMR Performances Past & Present
The Week That Was in Running, February 14 – 20, 2022
By Robert Johnson
February 23, 2022
Past editions of our Week That Was weekly recap can be found here. Got a tip, question or comment? Please call or text us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us, or post in our forum.
If you missed our Lievin breakdown, where Jakob Ingebrigtsen broke his first world record, catch up here.
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Stat of the Week I / Times In the NCAA Aren’t What They Used To Be
Via Texassports.com
9:25.97 – NCAA men’s indoor distance medley relay record held by the University of Texas from 2008 until 2020. The Texas team featured an eventual Olympic silver medallist on the anchor (Leo Manzano) as well as an NCAA champion on the 1200 leg (Jacob Hernandez).
9:24.56 – time put up by the 12th-best NCAA DMR team this year (the final qualifying time).
Yes, that’s right. Thanks to super spikes, a plethora of super old collegians using an extra year of eligibility, and the transfer portal, long-standing NCAA distance marks are now officially irrelevant. A time that as recently as two years ago had stood as the NCAA record for 12 years is now not even fast enough to get you a spot on the start line at NCAAs.
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Roddie Haley Dies At 56
Roddie Haley and his teammates at Penn (via @RazorbackTF)
Speaking of fast DMRs, Arkansas has run a lot of them over the years and sadly an Arkansas DMR legend — sprinter Roddie Haley — is no longer with us. Yes, we wrote that correctly — a sprinter who was a DMR legend. As a freshman in 1985, Haley split 44.2 to break open the Penn Relays DMR for the Razorbacks and would go on to win the NCAA 400m title and finish the year ranked third in the world. The next year, he was even better at Penn, splitting 43.5 — at the time, the fastest split ever at sea level — to help the Hogs set a world best (he also won NCAA indoor 500m titles in 1986 and 1987, and was on the US’s gold medal 4 x 400 team at the 1987 World Championships). Incredibly, Haley still owns the Arkansas school record in the 400 of 44.48, set all the way back in 1986. If you want to know about how Haley became a DMR legend, we suggest you read this post by former Canadian record holder, NCAA champion, and Olympian Doug Consiglio, who was a teammate of Haley’s.
Consiglio also has a second post that describes how Haley was a student of the sport with great insight into race tactics. Consiglio says Haley wanted to learn more about distance running, so one day Haley decided to run with Consiglio and somehow managed to hang on for four miles at 6:00 pace. The post also describes how when the NCAA added the 500 as a championship event in 1986, Haley immediately set his goal to break 60 seconds as his grandmother told him when he started track she only wanted to see two digits on the clock (meaning a sub-60 400). Haley got his goal as he ran a 59.82 world record on a 10-lap-to-the-mile track at NCAAs. The mark ended up being invalidated for the WR as the track was 25 inches per lap short, but the dude was super fast as the current indoor world record is 59.83.
Haley was a big talent and a beloved teammate. RIP.
There is a GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses.
More: MB: RIP: Roddie Haley – a Penn Relays legend and NCAA champ for Arkansas as a freshman – has died at 56
*MB: Anyone Know Anything About Roddie Haley Running 59.82 for 500 at NCAA Meet?
*Roddie Haley, famed Texarkana sprinter, dies at 57
*Haley funeral details and death notice *Tribute wall
*2022 NCAA indoor lists
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Stat of the Week II / My God People Are Fast at 13.1 Nowadays
12 and 15 – number of seconds behind the American 10,000 records for the men’s and women’s leaders at the 10k split of the 2022 RAK Half last weekend. Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo split 26:56 before “fading” to a 57:56 (26:56 is 56:50 pace) while Ethiopia’s Girmawit Gebrzihair Gebru split 30:28 before running 64:14 (30:28 is 64:16 pace).
Overall, seven men broke 59:00 (eight broke 60:00) and seven women broke 67:00 including Eilish McColgan, who ran 66:26 to break Paula Radcliffe’s 66:47 British record (Radcliffe’s fastest half of 65:40 came at the aided Great North Run).
More: Course records (57:56/64:14) fall at RAK Half
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The 2022 Tokyo Marathon Looks Fantastic
The field for next weekend’s Tokyo Marathon came out last week and it looks epic. Americans, clear out your Saturday night social calendar (March 5, 7:10 p.m. ET start) as you are going to want to watch this one.
For only the second time in history, a marathon will start with five men who have broken 2:04 in it. And one of those five is Eliud Kipchoge. Here is how the 2022 Tokyo field stacks up against the other majors from 2021 and some super deep races from other years as well.
| 2022 Boston | Sub-2:04 | Sub-2:05 | Sub-2:06 | Sub-2:07 | Sub-2:08 |
| 2022 Tokyo | 5 | 8 | 9 | 15 | 17 |
| 2021 New York | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 2021 Boston | 0 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 11 |
| 2021 Chicago | 1 | 5 | 7 | 9 | 9 |
| 2021 London | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| 2021 Berlin | 2 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 13 |
| 2020 Tokyo Olympics | 4 | 9 | 14 | 24 | 33 |
| 2020 Valencia | 2 | 9 | 14 | 23 | 25 |
| 2020 London | 4 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 2015 London | 4 | 8 | 9 | 9 | 10 |
Sure, due to super shoes, times aren’t what they are used to be (2015 London had four sub-2:04 guys from the pre-super shoe era) but Tokyo is bound to entertain this year. Plus Sara Hall will chase the AR on the women’s side.
More: LRC World Record Holders Eliud Kipchoge, Brigid Kosgei Headline 2022 Tokyo Marathon Field
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A 40-Year-Old Runs 2:06
In Seville, Spain, last week, at the 37th Zürich Maratón de Sevilla, a bunch of fast times were put with the following catching our attention:
- 40-year-old Ayad Lamdassem of Spain ran 2:06:25 to set both a masters world record and the overall Spanish record (previous record was 2:06:35) to place 6th in the race.
- 2019 Rome winner Alemu Megertu of Ethiopia, 25, lowered her pb from 2:21:10 to 2:18:51 to get the win in the women’s race.
- In the men’s race, compatriot Asrar Abderehman, who doesn’t even have a date of birth on his World Athletics bio, lowered his pb from 2:07:33 to 2:04:43 to get the win.
- British Olympian Jess Piasecki, who was only 71st in Tokyo (2:55:39), ran a huge pb of 2:22:37 to move to #2 on the all-time British list (previous pb of 2:25:29) behind only Paula Radcliffe.
- 2015 world champ and 2016 NYC champ Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, still only 26, lowered his pb from 2:07:11 to 2:05:44 to get third.
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Camille Herron Beats the Men And Her Own Record
Lamdassem wasn’t the only fast 40-year old last week. At the Jackpot 100 Mile, in her first race as a master, 40-year-old American Camille Herron set the women’s 100-mile world best of 12:41:11 and the 12-hour world best of 94.5 miles as well as the 50-mile world best for women over the age of 40 (6:08:24). She also beat the men’s winner (Arlen Glick) by 29:15 to win the race — which served as the USATF Championship — outright.
View this post on Instagram
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Keely Hodgkinson Opens Her Season and Closes Out Her Teenage Years In Style
You don’t have to be 40 to run well. In one of her final races as a teenager, Keely Hodgkinson, the Olympic 800 silver medallist, opened up 2022 with a super impressive 1:57.20 in Birmingham. Hodgkinson’s time broke the British record and is the fastest time by anyone indoors since the current world record of 1:55.82 was set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak on March 3, 2002 — which just so happens to be the day Keely Hodgkinson was born.
It’s the second straight year that Hodgkinson has opened up super quick. Last year, she opened up with a 1:59.03 and eventually got down to 1:55.88 in Tokyo.
It will be interesting to see how the Hodgkinson-Athing Mu rivalry plays out over the rest of their careers. Will they end up being roughly equal like we have seen with Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic in men’s tennis or will they end up more like Paul Tergat-Haile Gebrselsassie?
In case you are wondering, Mu turns 20 on June 8.
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Other News of Note
- Shelby Houlihan runs 14:47 5000 in time trial – says she’s “gearing up something fun in a few weeks”
- Newbury Park Crushes 3200m At Sundown Track Series – Colin Sahlman Wins In 8:33.32, Leo Young (8:39.57) And Lex Young (8:43.93) Sahlman’s time was the fastest ever high school 3200m. Plus freshman Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High 4:38.24 to break the freshman girls’ mile record.
- MB: Newbury Park is CRACKED
- MB: What IN THE WORLD are the Newbury Park boys doing??
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Recommended Reads
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Excellent column by Grant Holloway on how he grew up and became great “To me, that’s the line-up of the eight greatest sprint hurdlers of all time. Many years from now, when they talk about who’d be in that race, and who’d get those middle lanes, I want to be part of that conversation. How do I achieve that? Discipline and consistency.” And he gives a shout out to Mike Holloway who told him “You can be good at two sports, but if you want to be great at one, come to the University of Florida. I can get you there.”
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Josh Kerr Wants To “Leave A Stamp On The 1500” As He Looks To Upgrade His Bronze Medal From Tokyo In Eugene This YearKerr: “Myself and (Jake) Wightman, we’ve run faster than all those guys (GB milers Seb Coe, Steve Cram, Steve Ovett, Peter Elliott) but they’re not known for how fast they ran, they’re known for what medals they won and what colors they are. We hadn’t won an Olympic medal in 33 years and hopefully we’re moving back into an era people will remember as the Kerr-Wightman era.”
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Blessing Okagbare Gets 10-Year Drug Ban For “Multiple Anti-Doping” BreachesShe got 5-years for multiple drug offenses and 5-years for not cooperating with the investigation. At 33-years-old, the multiple time global medalist’s career is most likely done.
To see our favorite reads from other weeks, go here.
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Quotes Of The Day And Last Week’s Home Pages
To see the quotes of the day from last week or last week’s home page or any home page, go to our archive page.
Got a tip, question or comment? Please call us at 844-LETSRUN (538-7786), email us or post in our forum.