Running News Daily

Jenny Simpson is Retiring after the New York City Marathon and Starting a New Adventure

After concluding a stellar, 20-year career, the Olympic bronze medalist will embark on a 50-state running-infused van-life tour of the U.S. with her husband, Jason, in 2025

Jenny Simpson will go down in the annals of American running as one of the greatest of all time. No question about it.

So as she approaches what is likely the last elite-level race of her long and storied career at the November 3 New York City Marathon, she has nothing to prove, no one to impress, and no specific performance goal that she needs to attain to secure her legacy.

As a four-time global championship medalist in the 1500 meters—including a victory in the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, Diamond League title in 2014, and bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics—Simpson has long been destined to go down as one of the best runners in U.S. history.

Add to that three Olympic appearances, 11 U.S. titles, three NCAA championships, eight top-10 finishes in international championships, eight Fifth Avenue Mile victories, six NCAA records (in six different events), and two American records (in the 3,000-meter steeplechase), and Simpson will rank among American legends for decades to come.

The fact that she’s been earnestly training to finish her career with a strong marathon performance in New York City epitomizes much of what the 38-year-old runner from Boulder, Colorado, has been about during her 20-year career. She’s not necessarily going out on top—that, she says, would have entailed making the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon for the Paris Olympic Games. But she is going out on her terms: focused, tenacious, and relentless to the end. It’s an opportunity afforded to few athletes, and even fewer distance runners.

“When I say I’m feeling good, it’s that I’m really excited for New York and I feel like I have a really, really good sense about my ability to run well,” she says. “I’m not going into it saying I’m gonna set the world on fire and be the top American or run 2:25 on that course. But I just know as good as I feel and as good as the training has gone, I know I’m capable of having a good day, and, most importantly, I have peace about it all.”

But as this chapter of life closes for Simpson, another very exciting one is about to begin, and that one will include quite a bit of running, too. She and her husband, Jason, are planning to embark on a year-long tour of the U.S. in 2025 that will take them—and their two Jack Russell Terriers, Truman and Barkley—to all 50 states while living out a van-life adventure focused on immersing in America’s thriving running culture.

From participating in races and visiting national parks to running iconic routes like Rim to Rim across the Grand Canyon and discovering hidden trails, Jenny and Jason have said their goal is to capture the heartwarming and inspiring essence of the country through the eyes of runners.

“We want to experience the beauty of this country firsthand, meet the incredible people who call it home, and celebrate everything that makes the U.S. so special,” says Jenny Simpson, who has represented the U.S. on the world stage for nearly two decades. “Through this journey, we hope to show that America’s beauty is not just in its landmarks, but in its people and the unique places they live, run, and explore.”

Out of the Ashes

In December of 2021, a devastating wildfire ripped through the south end of Boulder County—including the communities of Marshall, Louisville, and Superior, where it burned more than 1,084 homes and killed two residents and more than 900 pets. Miraculously, it didn’t burn the Simpson’s house—a restored circa-1900 schoolhouse they bought several years ago that was less than a half mile from the fire’s origin—but the house did incur significant smoke damage that needed mitigating.

The Simpsons were displaced and spent several months living in an apartment with little furniture, which forced them to live a rather spartan lifestyle. While Jason was still able to work as a creative director for a design firm, Jenny’s contract hadn’t been renewed by New Balance, and she wasn’t sure what the future held.

During that time, she had been doing a weekly call with her sister, Emily, and Jason’s sister, Annie, to discuss the book Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life, a guide aimed at helping people to reimagine their professional and personal lives. It was through those discussions that Jenny came up with an idea of buying a Winnebago so she and Jason could drive around the country with Truman, who they rescued in 2020 just before the Covid lockdown. (They got Barkley about three years later.)

“My idea was that we can just drive around America and see the place that I’ve had stamped across my chest on my Team USA gear all these years,” she says. “I have been on Team USA, but I really want to know what that means. I’ve raced in some amazing places all around the world, but I really haven’t seen much of our own country. I want to go see the places and the people that I haven’t seen. And then I had this idea of doing a 50 states, 50 weeks tour.”

Jenny told Jason about the idea and he was interested from the start, but it was initially just a fun distraction while Jenny was battling injuries. Jason was so intrigued, though, that he started searching for information about vans online and indulging in YouTube content from a variety of van-life influencers. Eventually, Jenny was healthy and racing on the roads for Puma, ultimately with a quest to qualify for the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon.

A year later, they were still casually talking about the enticing “what if” possibilities of owning a van.

“So by 2023, we were like, ‘What do these vans look like? What do they cost? What kind of different layouts are best?” says Jason, 40, a 20-time marathoner with a 2:18:44 personal best. “And then I got really into the travel influencer YouTube videos and at some point told Jenny, ‘Hey, let’s just go look at them.’ And that led to looking at the timelines of: if we were to do this in 2024 or 2025, what would it take? It takes like a long time to build out the vans, and we are definitely not build-it-yourself van people.”

On Her Own Terms 

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Simpson’s career has been her consistency. She qualified for every U.S. national team on the track between 2007 and 2019. Not only did she put in the work and remain virtually injury-free during that time, but she also raced fiercely and rose to the occasion every single time without a single hiccup in any of her preliminary races. (She also made it to the 1500-meter final of the Covid-delayed U.S. Olympic Trials in 2021 at age 35 after what she admitted was a rough gap in competition during the pandemic.)

For most of that time, she was coached by her University of Colorado coaches Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs. They continued coaching her as she transitioned to road running over the past three years and ultimately to the build-up to the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon in Orlando, Florida. Although she had brief moments of success on the roads—finishing second in the U.S. 10-mile championship in 2021 and turning in a solid ninth-place, 1:10:35 effort in the Houston Half Marathon in 2023—the first injuries of her career disrupted her training and delayed her debut at 26.2 miles until the Olympic Trials.

Over the past three years, continuing to adhere to the rigid lifestyle needed to keep racing competitively was increasingly met at an internal crossroads of wondering when it would feel OK to retire and move on in life and what that would look like.

“Running the Olympics Trials and then running Boston, I would say those were not successful outings,” Simpson says. “I did the best that I could and I got as prepared as I could, but they weren’t what I had hoped for, neither of them were what I’m capable of. I’m really proud of how I ran in Boston because I ran entirely alone after mile 3, but that’s not how I wanted to end my career.”

After Boston, Jenny still wasn’t ready to retire. But she’d heard the chatter that suggested she could give up the ghost and not try to remain competitive on the roads, knowing her legacy was already secure. After she took some time off to recover and reflect, she knew she wanted to get back into training and target one more race on the biggest stage and settled on the New York City Marathon.

She parted ways with Wetmore and Burroughs in the spring and decided to train on her own, although she’s continually received subtle guidance from Jason, who qualified for and raced in the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials in Atlanta. Although he has imparted bits of knowledge to help keep her balanced, Simpson has been following a training plan in her marathon buildup that she designed.

From Best in the U.S. to Across the U.S.

Casual interest in buying a van led to more in-depth investigation and, after what was an otherwise random training run on the dirt roads north of Denver last year, they passed an RV sales lot and decided to take a look. One thing led to another and they put down a small, refundable deposit that would hold a fully appointed 23-foot Winnebago Ekko during what was expected to be nearly a year-long wait until it was built and delivered.

Fast forward to 2024 and Jenny made her marathon debut on February 3 in Orlando, but it didn’t go at all as she had hoped. She had been running among the top 20 early in the race but  eventually dropped out at mile 18. She returned 10 weeks later to run a respectable Boston Marathon in mid-April (she placed 18th overall in 2:31:39 and was the fourth American finisher), and although her effort was commensurate with her inner drive—and some degree of success felt good—she still wasn’t ready to call it a career.

Finally, in April, several days before they were going to travel to Boston, the RV dealership called and told them the van had arrived and they had a week to consider buying it. At that point, Jenny was eager to run Boston to make amends for her Olympic Trials experience, but she was also physically and emotionally fried.

“And I was like, we’re doing it,” she says. “It was the perfect time in the perfect year. Because I was like, ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to be done.’ It was killing me. I actually might perish in the middle of the Boston Marathon. I just was so burnt out, and so it was the perfect time for them to call and essentially say, ‘Do you want to drive away into the sunset?’ And I was like, ‘Yes, I do. I really do.’” 

Two days after the Boston Marathon, they paid the remainder of the balance on the van and picked it up, immediately sending them into daydreaming mode about where they wanted to go.

Although their plans are still being formulated, they intend to rent their house and hit the road with the charming dogs in January, officially starting their “Jenny and Jason Run USA” tour in Florida. Along the way, they plan to see numerous sights, host or join at least one fun run in every state, promote dog adoptions by publicizing local humane societies, and create a wide range of engaging social media content on their Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube accounts along the way. Given that their longest stint in the van so far was the six-day trip they took to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming early last summer, they know they’re going to have to learn on the fly and continually adapt. But that’s what an adventure is all about.

“I’ve been nothing but focused on running New York, but I am excited about what’s next,” Jenny said this week. “As I have been tiptoeing toward the idea of being retired from professional running, I don’t know that I’m going to be really great at it or that it’s going to come easily for me. That’s why it’s so wonderful to have a partner in life like Jason because I think he sees that, too. So our goal is to create a lot of time and space to figure that out. I think the year will be kind of interesting and fun and wild and I really don’t know how it’ll end up, and I think that’s really good.”

Approaching the End … and a Beginning

Simpson admits her post-Boston malaise contributed to her having an inconsistent summer of training, in part because she was listening to voices that suggested she should relax and not be so rigid in her approach. When she showed up to run the Beach to Beacon 10K in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, on August 3, she admits she wasn’t very fit, and, as a result, finished a distant 12th in 34:30.

“My Beach to Beacon race was just so bad that it was like validation to me that caring less and trying less doesn’t work for me ever in anything,” she said. “I’m just not that person. It works for some people, but that’s not who I am. I used to joke that when you show up to the track and someone asks, ‘How do you feel?’ I always thought to myself it doesn’t matter how I feel. It’s about doing the work. I always feel like it’s execution over emotion for me all the time and that I have a job to do. I know who I am and I know how I operate, and how I operate is great.”

Simpson got back to work immediately after that race, ramping up her weekly mileage to the 100-mile range in the high altitude environs of Colorado. She says she’s done more than half of her long runs between 8,500 and 10,500 feet, including runs on Magnolia Road above Boulder, Golden Gate Canyon State Park near Golden, and even a loop around the paved Mineral Belt Trail in Leadville.

Her return to rigidity and improved fitness helped bring mental clarity that not only convinced her that she’d be ready to run a strong marathon in New York City, but also brought the revelation that she was ready to admit it was her last race knowing it would allow her to retire on her own terms.

Two months after feeling flat in the 10K, she won the Wineglass Half Marathon on October 5 in Corning, New York, running a near-PR of 1:10:50 (5:24 per-mile pace) as she ran stride-for-stride to the finish line with Jason. (She broke the women’s finisher’s tape for the win, while he ran slightly to the side as the 12th-place men’s finisher and 13th overall.) Now she’s likely in sub-2:30 marathon shape, even though the hilly New York City Marathon course is as equally challenging as Boston in its own way. Jason, meanwhile, will race in the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K the day before the marathon, not only so he can track Jenny on Sunday and meet her at the finish line, but also because he’s running the California International Marathon on December 8.

2025 and Beyond

Simpson arrived in New York City on October 30 healthy, happy, and ready to run hard—definitely not the feeling of holding on for dear life that she felt going into the Olympic Trials and the Boston Marathon. She says she couldn’t be more excited to run through the city’s five boroughs to the finish line in Central Park that she hopes will come with a satisfying result, as well as the beginning of closure to her star-spangled career.

Who knows what’s next after that—Coaching? Law school? A corporate career with a shoe brand? The world seems to be her oyster, but for the time being the cross-country tour might be just what she needs most. She’s excited to detach a bit from the rigid schedule and identity she’s clung to for the past 20 years and enjoy the freedom of the open road. She knows it will be a complete departure from the essence of what she’s all about, and to that point, she’ll likely dig into planning and scheduling early next week even before she recovers from the marathon.

Although she admits she was intrigued while watching some of the top runners finish the Leadville Trail 100 this summer, she says she’s decidedly not interested in running ultras. (However, Jason might be, and Jenny says she’s been keen to pace and crew him.) She might get more into trail running, something she did a little bit early in her University of Colorado career. Or she might even return to road running, but she’s not thinking that far ahead. For now, she’s focused on racing in New York and then continuing to run in 2025—on the magical mystery tour that awaits—and beyond.

“I feel a lot of peace about it, but it’s not like I’m over running. I want to retire so I can do more running and to explore the beautiful country I raced for,” she says. “I wanted to be world class at the marathon, and I’m not. I gave it a good try, and now it’s time to try something else, and I just feel really good about it.”

(10/31/2024) Views: 157 ⚡AMP
by Brian Metzler

Simpson, Frisbie, Rodriguez, Estrada Commit to Run Crazy 8s 8K Hoping for USATF National Championshisp

With the announcement that the Ballad Health Niswonger Children’s Network Crazy 8s 8K Run will host both the USATF Men’s & Women’s 8K Road Championship Presented by Gatorade on July 20th, competition is heating up for both championships.

Olympic bronze medalist Jenny Simpson and Annie Frisbie will be two of the headliners in the women’s field with Isai Rodriguez and Diego Estrada the early favorites on the men’s side.“We’re off to a good start,” said co-director Hank Brown.

“We are receiving tremendous interest from some of the best runners from around the country. We’re expecting 40-50 elite runners in the USATF championship which will be very exciting.”

Simpson is arguably one of the more recognizable women’s middle/long distance runners in the United States. She won the bronze medal in the 1500 meters at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the gold medal at the 2011 World Championships, and followed with silver medals at the 2013 and 2017 World Championships Simpson is a former American record holder for the 3000 meter steeplechase and has represented the United States at three Olympics – 2008 Beijing, 2012 London, and 2016 Rio.

Frisbie is on a personal tear recently, running personal bests in 2024 for the 10K (31:49), 15K (49:28), 25K (1:22:37), and half marathon (1:07:34, 1st place). She is running her best and is in excellent shape.In 2023, the men’s race came down to a sprint finish in J. Fred Johnson Stadium with Clayton Young outlasting Andrew Colley and Isai Rodriguez. Young will be going to Paris to run the marathon and Colley is nursing a sore foot, so Rodriguez will be the top returning finisher (Colley is still tentative).

Rodriguez has a 10,000 meter personal-best under 28 minutes and was the Pan Am Games 10k champion in 2023.Estrada is a veteran runner making a successful comeback in 2024. He represented his native Mexico in the 10,000 meters in the 2012 London Olympics, but became a US citizen in 2014 at which time became eligible to represent the USA in international competition.

He has an impressive 10k time of 27:30 set in 2015, and 5K of 13:31 at the Carlsbad 5K in 2014. He is now 34 and quite possibly running his best times in 2024.

He placed fifth at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in January, running a very fast 1:00:49, which is a personal best at that distance and tnen followed that a thrid-. place finish at the USATF 15K Championship in Jacksonville. In May he set an American best of 1:13:09 at the USATF 25K Championship, winning the Amway 25K River Run in Grand Rapids, MI.

“We are thrilled to have these guys and gals at Crazy 8s,” said Brown. “When we decided to host the USATF 8K Championship this is exactly the caliber of runners we were hoping to attract to Kingsport.”

The Regional Eye Center is offering a $10,008 American Record bonus for men who can break Alberto Salazar’s record of 22:04 (1981) or women who can break Deena Kastor’s record of 24:36 (2005).

In addition to the bonus, the race is offering prize money to the top 10 in the USATF Men’s and Women’s Championships.Sponsors are Ballad Health Niswonger Children’s Network, Gatorade, The Regional Eye Center, Eastman Credit Union, Kingsport Pediatric Dentistry, Food City, Martin Dentistry, Mycroft Signs, Culligan, Associated Orthopaedics of Kingsport, and JA Street.

(07/04/2024) Views: 273 ⚡AMP
by TriCitiesSports.com

U.S. Olympic Marathoners Will Race the Bolder Boulder 10K as a Pre-Paris Tune-Up

Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and Leonard Korir will run in the International Pro Team Challenge on May 27.

Memorial Day is always an exceptional celebration for runners in Boulder, Colorado, but this year, it will have some extra special Olympic flair.

On Monday, May 27, more than 40,000 runners will run through the city that’s known for the iconic Flatirons rock formations, the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, and an exceptionally active population in the annual Bolder Boulder 10K. Now in its 44th year, it’s been one of the top road running races in the U.S. since its inception, and this year will serve as one of the final tune-ups for the men’s U.S. Olympic marathon squad before racing in the Paris Olympics later this summer.

Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and Leonard Korir, the top three finishers in the 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials who will be racing the marathon in the Paris Olympics on August 10, will be competing as Team USA Red in the Bolder Boulder’s International Pro Team Challenge that follows the citizen’s races. (Korir is expected to officially be named to the U.S. team in early May based on final pre-Olympic international rankings.)

The pro race, which has a prize purse of $83,700 before potential bonuses, is one of the things that makes the Bolder Boulder so unique. After all the runners in 98 citizen waves have completed the race, professional men’s and women’s international teams from more than a dozen countries compete on the same course for team and individual titles. The races feature a staggered start, with women beginning 15 minutes before the men so the winners of each race will finish about 10 minutes apart inside the University of Colorado’s Folsom Field football stadium.

The finishing moments are among the thrilling spectacles in American running. By that point, the stadium is filled with a near-capacity crowd of roaring runners, family, and friends who have been watching the action play out on the massive video screens.

“The finish in the full stadium is like nothing else in the sport,” says Mantz, 27, who won the men’s race last year in 29:08 with a thrilling late-race surge to pass Kenya’s Alex Masai in the final 200 meters before the finish. “It was pretty electric. It took away all the pain you’re feeling mid-race. I was like, ‘Just race as hard as you can.’”

Team USA Red will have plenty of competition, from Team USA White, the secondary American team of Jared Ward, Futsum Zienasellassie, and Sam Chelanga, as well as teams from Kenya, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Rwanda. Teams are scored like a cross country race, with points awarded on the basis of finishing place, which means the team with the lowest combined score for all three runners is the winner. Ties are decided by the positions of the third-place finishers.

The women’s Team USA Red team will be led by defending champion Emily Durgin, along with Sara Hall and Boulder native Nell Rojas. Durgin finished ninth at the U.S. Olympic Trials in February and won the USATF 10 Mile Championships on April 7 in Washington D.C. At last year’s Bolder Boulder, she stormed to victory in 33:24, winning by 24 seconds over Kenya’s Daisy Kimeli.

Hall placed fifth in the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon on February 3 in a U.S. master’s record (2:26:06) and 15th in the Boston Marathon on April 15. The women’s Team USA White roster will be composed of an all-University of Colorado alumnae squad—Makena Morley, Sara Vaughn, and Carrie Verdon.

“I can’t wait to be back in Boulder for the best day of the year,” says Durgin, 29, who will compete in the U.S. Olympic Trials 10,000 meters on the track in late June with the hopes of making the U.S. Olympic team. “Competing with Nell and Sara will make the experience even better.”

The women’s U.S. Olympic marathon team of Fionna O’Keefe, Emily Sisson, and Dakotah Lindwurm were invited to race in the Bolder Boulder but each runner declined, citing scheduling timing conflicts or a disinterest in racing at Boulder’s lofty altitude (5,430 feet). All of the runners who are racing for the U.S. teams in Boulder live at 4,500 feet or higher.

An Olympic Legacy

Boulder is known as one of the top running  meccas in the U.S., in part because elite-level American and international runners have made it their training base since Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter arrived in the early 1970s. Emma Coburn, Jenny Simpson, Yared Nuguse, Joe Klecker, Jake Riley, Hellen Obiri, and Edna Kiplagat are among the many top-level runners who are currently training in Boulder.  Shorter, the 1972 marathon gold medalist, was a co-founder of Bolder Boulder 10K in 1979, and helped it grow into one of the country’s largest races. 

Since then, numerous U.S. Olympians have raced in the Bolder Boulder, including Deena Kastor (a three-time women’s champion), Aliphine Tuliamuk (the 2022 women’s winner), Alan Culpepper, Elva Dyer, Ryan Hall, Abdi Abdirahman, Jorge Torres, Shalane Flanagan, Amy Cragg, Magdalena Boulet, and Libby Hickman, as well as Korir (who won it in 2022), and Ward (who was fourth in 2022).

Thanks to Boulder’s robust running community and the prestige of the race, the Bolder Boulder has also always featured fast sub-elite runners competing in the early citizen waves. Yet, the race has also celebrated dedicated middle-of-the-pack runners, as well as the first-time runners and walkers in the later waves. It was one of the first races to have bands playing along the course (as well as belly dancers and other entertainers), runners dressed up in costumes, elite wheelchair races, and in recent years, it has been known for a mid-race slip-and-slide and unofficial bacon aid station.

For the past 25 years, the Bolder Boulder has organized a special Memorial Day tribute—one of the largest in the country—that honors military veterans and new cadets.

The U.S. men’s Olympic marathon team competing in this year’s Bolder Boulder will be a legacy moment for the race, says Bolder Boulder race director Cliff Bosley.

“Having the three men that will represent our country in the marathon at this summer’s Paris Olympic Games is something we are extremely proud of,” Bosley says. “All three ran here last year, and to have them back is just incredible for the race, the city of Boulder, and the sport of running.”

(05/08/2024) Views: 440 ⚡AMP
by Brian Metzler

How to Watch the 2024 Boston Marathon

The world’s oldest annual marathon is back for its 128th edition.

On Monday, April 15, the World Marathon Majors will return stateside to the 2024 Boston Marathon. In its 128th year, the world’s oldest annual marathon features must-see storylines, including the return of defending women’s champion Hellen Obiri and two-time men’s winner Evans Chebet.

The point-to-point race is scheduled to begin in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and ends in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. The weather forecast for Patriots’ Day is showing slightly warmer temperatures than average in the city. The conditions could make race day more challenging on a course famous for its hills (we ranked Boston as the second-toughest of the six World Marathon Majors).

Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s race. 

How to watch the 2024 Boston Marathon

ESPN2 will broadcast the Boston Marathon from 8:30 a.m. ET to 12:30 p.m. ET. You can also live stream the race with an ESPN+ subscription, which costs $10.99 a month. 

For those tuning in from Boston, live coverage will be provided by WCVB beginning at 4:00 a.m. ET and lasting throughout the day.

Boston Marathon start times (ET)

Men’s wheelchair division—9:02 a.m.

Women’s wheelchair division—9:05 a.m.

Men’s elite race—9:37 a.m.

Women’s elite race—9:47 a.m.

Para athletics division—9:50 a.m.

First wave—10 a.m.

Second wave—10:25 a.m.

Third wave—10:50 a.m.

Fourth wave—11:15 a.m.

Race preview

This year’s elite race comes with added high stakes for many international athletes. Countries that don’t host Olympic Trials for the marathon are currently in the national team selection process. A standout performance in Boston could be a game-changer for athletes looking to represent their country in Paris this summer. 

Women’s race

On the women’s side, Boston podium contenders Hellen Obiri and Sharon Lokedi were included in the shortlist of marathoners under national team consideration by Athletics Kenya. 

Obiri, 34, is set to return to Boston after a stellar 2023 campaign. Last year, the On Athletics Club runner won the Boston Marathon and the New York City Marathon. A former track standout with two world championship titles, Obiri aims to continue her winning streak on Monday. 

Lokedi, 30, is looking to top the podium at a key moment in her career. The University of Kansas graduate is set to run her first 26.2 since finishing third at the New York City Marathon last fall—a race she won in her marathon debut two years ago. 

Kenya will also be represented by 2022 World Championship silver medalist Judith Korir and two-time Boston Marathon champion Edna Kiplagat, among other standouts. 

The Ethiopian contingent should be strong as well. Ababel Yeshaneh finished second at Boston in 2022 and fourth in 2023. Plus, 2:17 marathoner Tadu Teshome will be one to watch in her Boston debut. 

In the weeks after the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February, more Americans were added to the field. Sara Hall, 40, enters the race after finishing fifth in a new American masters record (2:26:06) at the Trials in Orlando, Florida. 2015 Boston champion Caroline Rotich, 39, joins the field after placing sixth at the Trials. Jenny Simpson, 37, also entered after dropping out in her marathon debut in Orlando. And keep an eye out for 2018 Boston Marathon champion Des Linden, 40, and Emma Bates, 31, who finished fifth in Boston last year. 

Men’s race

Evans Chebet is looking for a hat trick. Last year, the Kenyan became the first athlete to repeat as men’s champion since Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot won three in a row between 2006 and 2008. In the process, the 35-year-old took down two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge in Boston. 

His biggest challenger will likely be Sisay Lemma of Ethiopia, who is returning after a breakthrough season in 2023. In December, Lemma, 33, won the Valencia Marathon in 2:01:48, making him the fourth-fastest marathoner in history. Lemma also won the Runkara International Half Marathon in 1:01:09, a new personal best. 

Gabriel Geay, last year’s Boston runner-up, is returning to the field on Monday. The 27-year-old from Tanzania is coming off a fifth-place finish at the Valencia Marathon. 

Other runners to watch include 2023 New York City runner-up Albert Korir; Shura Kitata, who placed third in New York last year; and Zouhair Talbi, who finished fifth in Boston last year. 

The American men’s field also grew after the Olympic Trials with the addition of Elkanah Kibet and Sam Chelanga. Kibet finished fourth in Orlando in a 2:10:02 personal best, and after dropping out after mile 18 of the Trials, Chelanga will aim for redemption in Boston. They join 50K world record-holder CJ Albertson and the BAA’s Matt McDonald in the elite race. 

(04/14/2024) Views: 594 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Grovdal, Kipchumba Take Victories At United Airlines NYC Half

Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal and Kenya’s Abel Kipchumba won this morning’s hilly and chilly United Airlines NYC Half in 1:09:09 and 1:00:25, respectively.  Grøvdal, 33, a three-time European Athletics cross country champion, became the first European woman to win the race since Britain’s Mara Yamauchi in 2010. 

Kipchumba, 30, last November’s B.A.A. Half-Marathon champion in Boston, was the race’s ninth Kenyan male champion over its 17-year history.  Both athletes won $20,000 in prize money.

The two dozen women in the elite field were in no hurry to establish a fast pace when the race set off from Prospect Park in Brooklyn just after sunrise.  Calli Thackery of Great Britain, recently named to her country’s Olympic Marathon team, was the early leader and a pack of seven went through the 5-K checkpoint in a gentle 17:07.  Grøvdal was in that pack along with Kenya’s Gladys Chepkurui, Edna Kiplagat and Cynthia Limo; the Netherlands’ Diane Van Es; and Switzerland’s Fabienne Schlumpf.  The two top Americans, Des Linden and Jenny Simpson, were five seconds back.

The next five kilometers would be critical.  As the leaders ascended the Manhattan Bridge to cross the East River, the pace became too difficult for Thackery, Van Es and Schlumpf who all slid back.  At the 10-K mark on the Manhattan side (33:26) the race was down to four: Grøvdal, Chepkurui, Kiplagat, and Limo.

Limo, the reigning Honolulu Marathon champion, was next to lose contact after Chepkurui pushed the pace up the FDR Drive along the East River. By 15-K, Limo was nearly 20 seconds behind and would finish a distant fourth in 1:11:54.

Grøvdal Comes Back

But Grøvdal was also hurting.  In the tenth mile (17th kilometer) as the race went up Seventh Avenue past Times Square, Grøvdal began to lose contact with Chepkurui and Kiplagat.  It looked like she would finish third for the third year in a row.

“I was so tired then,” Grøvdal told reporters.  “Just thinking, it’s third this year also.  But then, I don’t know.  I just tried to don’t get the gap too big.  Suddenly, I was just behind them again.”

The final seven kilometers of this race are particularly tough.  The race climbs about 30 meters from 15-K to the finish, and the finish straight itself is uphill.  Grøvdal knew the course well and was ready.

“Then something in me just, OK, now it’s the finish,” Grøvdal explained.  “It’s 3-K left, so I was planning to have a strong finish the last 2-K and I did that.”  She added: “I just went for it.”

The men’s race began much more aggressively than the women’s.  By the 5-K mark (14:23) Kipchumba and Morocco’s Zouhair Talbi had already reduced the lead pack to four.  Along for the ride were two Olympic steeplechasers, American Hillary Bor and Eritrean Yemane Haileselassie.  The four stayed together through 10-K (28:38), but then Kipchumba and Talbi began to trade surges.  That kind of racing was too punishing for Haileselassie, who drifted off the pace.  Bor, running in just his first half-marathon, hung on.

“I wanted a fast race and I think the same for him,” said Talbi, who is observing Ramadan and had to fast in the days leading up to today’s race.  “He (Kipchumba) wanted to push… so both of us keep pushing from the start.  I pushed until the end, basically.”

By 15-K (42:54) Bor was 12 seconds back and Haileselassie was 32 seconds in arrears.  It would be either the Kenyan or the Moroccan who would take the victory today.  Kipchumba was determined and recognized Talbi as a formidable opponent.

“Today was not easy,” Kipchumba told Race Results Weekly.  “The guy was strong.”

Kipchumba finally shook off Talbi in the race’s final stages, leading by 10 seconds at 20-K (57:18) and, ultimately, 17 seconds at the finish.  His time of 1:00:25 was the fastest since 2017 when the race was held on a different –and much easier– course from Central Park to lower Manhattan.

“I tried my best; I won the race,” Kipchumba said.  “(With) three kilometers remaining I said it’s time to win.”

Talbi was second in 1:00:41, and Haileselassie passed Bor in the final kilometer to take third in 1:01:37 to Bor’s 1:01:47.  Another American, Reed Fischer, rounded out the top 5 in 1:03:06.

(03/19/2024) Views: 518 ⚡AMP
by David Monti

Edna Kiplagat to fight for top honors at NYC Half Marathon

Double world marathon champion, Edna Kiplagat will lead a stellar team of deep elite women at the 18th edition of the New York City Half Marathon scheduled for Sunday (17) in New York City.

The 44 year-old who is the oldest athlete to grace this event, comes to this race with the second fastest time on paper of 1:07.52 that she got last year at the Houston Half Marathon.

Kiplagat who is also a four time world major marathon winner will have to get past the two-time U.S. Olympian and Boston Marathon winner Des Linden and Rio Olympics 1500m bronze medallist, Jenny Simpson.

Other title contenders include former European 10,000m bronze medallist, Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, who is also the fastest athlete on paper with a time of 1:07.34, world marathon bronze medallist, Fatima Gardadi, and Canadian marathon record holder Malindi Elmore.

The race organisers have assembled this strong team to target the race course record of 1:07.35 set eight years ago by Molly Huddle of United States.

LEADING TIME

21KM WOMEN

Karoline Grøvdal (NOR) 1:07.34

Edna Kiplagat      (KEN) 1:07.52

Malindi Elmore    (CAN) 1:10.11

Des Linden           (USA) 1:10.34

Jenny Simpson     (USA) 1:10.35

Fatima Gardadi    (MOR)1:10.28

(03/15/2024) Views: 371 ⚡AMP
by James Koech

Jenny Simpson Targets NYC Half

For the first time in her running career, Jenny Simpson faced a decision that she’d never considered in a race. At mile 18 of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, her debut at the distance, the most decorated U.S. 1500-meter runner in history made the difficult choice to drop out of the competition on February 3.

The marathon leaves runners vulnerable to a number of challenges—nutrition issues, tough terrain, the rigors of high mileage—which can derail even the most experienced runners on a bad day. When Simpson, 37, started cramping with 16 miles left in the race, the setback shocked her. After spending months transforming her body from an explosive middle-distance runner to a long-distance athlete on the roads, Simpson felt ready to take on 26.2, which made the race in Orlando, Florida, all the more confusing.

“One of the beautiful things about running is that so often what you put in is what you get out, but the [Olympic Marathon Trials] wasn’t that way at all,” Simpson told Runner's World.

After the race, Simpson took time to reflect. For two days, the three-time Olympian relaxed with her family in Oviedo, Florida, her hometown located just outside Orlando. In between playing with her nieces and enjoying home-cooked meals, she expected to feel sad following the race. But to her surprise, that feeling never came. Instead, Simpson felt motivated to find another opportunity to show her fitness.

While riding in an Uber on the way home from the Denver airport to her house in Marshall, Colorado, Simpson sent a text message to a contact at the New York Road Runners (NYRR), asking if there were any spots available to race the NYC Half. The event in New York City on March 17, one of 60 adult and youth races organized by NYRR throughout the year, will include Simpson in her third half marathon.

Coming out of a tough few years of personal and professional hardships, Simpson has a new perspective on disappointment. For her, the Olympic Trials is just another exercise in the importance of having faith in the process and her ability to bounce back.

“The race didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but I still believe in myself,” Simpson said. “I’m up at the plate, gripping the bat and I swung once, totally missed, but I’m gonna swing again because I believe I’m ready for it.”

Marathon metamorphosis

After spending well over a decade dominating American middle-distance running and collecting medals on the global stage—including world championship gold (2011), two silver medals (2013 and 2017), and Olympic bronze at the 2016 Rio Games—Simpson’s streak of making U.S. teams ended during the pandemic. In 2021, she made the finals of the 1500 meters at the Olympic Trials, but she finished 10th.

That fall, she started to transition to the roads with her first 10-mile race. But at the end of 2021, her life was upended by injury, the conclusion of a longtime sponsorship with New Balance, and a devastating wildfire that she and her husband, Jason, narrowly escaped on December 30, 2021. While their home was spared, most of their neighbors’ houses were destroyed. For three months, the couple was displaced while damage was repaired.

By the spring of 2022, things started to turn around for Simpson. Her sports hernia was healing, she and her husband returned to their home, and she was in conversations with shoe companies. That fall, she signed with Puma and shared her intent to focus on the roads.

In January 2023, she made her debut in the half marathon with a 1:10:35 in Houston. That summer, she announced her plans to race the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, her first 26.2.

In collaboration with her longtime coaches, Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs, Simpson threw herself into the event. She built up to 100-mile weeks during the training cycle, worked with a nutritionist on mid-race fueling, and spent three weeks in Orlando acclimating to the heat in preparation for the championship.

Lessons learned

On race day, Simpson started out at a pace that felt manageable (she ran between 5:23 and 5:38 per mile through the first 10), resisting the urge to go with the blazing pace set by the leaders. Just past halfway, Simpson got a side stitch, and then she started cramping, first in her toes and then in her calf and hips. “Over the course of a few miles, I went from being able to race, to feeling like I was in trouble being able to move through my normal range of motion,” she said.

Simpson tried to double down on hydration at the aid stations, but the muscle cramps got worse as the race progressed. While battling through the setback, Simpson ultimately decided to accept the loss. For an athlete who is used to being on the podium, dropping out was an agonizing choice, but the crowd’s support on the course helped her cope.

“It’s one thing for people to say, ‘We’re proud of you no matter what,’ and I’ve heard that my whole life. I’ve been the woman who can make the team,” Simpson said. “To actually be in the position where I’m not doing well and I’m not making the team and everyone is good on that promise to be proud of me no matter what, I’m just so grateful.”

Now almost three weeks out from the race, Simpson and her team are determining takeaways from the competition. After spending many years following a set schedule of Diamond League competitions and international championships on the track circuit, Simpson wants to choose races that excite her. Right now, that means conquering a half marathon through Times Square and Central Park.

“2024 for me is gonna be about embracing the freedom to dial in on the experiences that I want to have before this is all over,” Simpson said. “It’s not going to last forever, and that doesn’t mean I’m retiring tomorrow or anytime soon, but we’ve been through some tough years, and I still think life is beautiful.”

(02/29/2024) Views: 522 ⚡AMP
by Tailor Dutch

Kenenisa Bekele, Connor Mantz & Clayton Young To Headline 2024 United Airlines NYC Half

The New York Road Runners (NYRR) has announced that the 2024 United Airlines NYC Half, taking place Sunday, March 17, will feature 11 Olympians, seven Paralympians, and several more professional athletes who have their eyes on the Paris 2024 Games this summer.

Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, fresh off finishing first and second, respectively, at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, will headline the men’s open division at the United Airlines NYC Half, while two-time U.S. Olympian Hillary Bor will race 13.1 miles for the first time in his career and the world’s most-decorated distance runner, Kenenisa Bekele, will return to New York for his second NYRR event. The women’s open division will be chock-full of established contenders, including Olympians Des Linden, Jenny Simpson, Edna Kiplagat, Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal, and Malindi Elmore, in addition to World Championships marathon bronze medalist Fatima Gardadi.

These athletes will lead more than 25,000 runners during the United Airlines NYC Half, the world’s premier half marathon, organized by NYRR, which runs from Brooklyn to Manhattan, passing historic landmarks, diverse neighborhoods, and sweeping views of the city along the way before finishing in Central Park.

Men’s Open Division

Mantz and Young, training partners from Provo, Utah, will line up together at the start in New York less than two months after finishing one-two at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando and qualifying for the Paris 2024 Games. Mantz was fifth in his first United Airlines NYC Half in 2022, and last year became the seventh-fastest American marathoner in history when running 2:07:47 to finish sixth at the Chicago Marathon. Young finished right behind him in seventh in 2:08:00 and will be making his United Airlines NYC Half debut.

“I think I have a lot of room to improve in the halfs,” Mantz said on the latest episode of NYRR Set the Pace, Feb. 22, 2024. “I want to get these halfs in so I can have more confidence heading into Paris. I ran [the United Airlines NYC Half] in 2022…which was probably one of the most special experiences and it was a huge learning [experience]. It was probably my first race where I was competing against a big international field…so it was a really good experience for me, and I think it’s one I want to repeat and take what I’ve learned in the last two years and use it.”

Ethiopia’s Bekele, a four-time Olympic medalist, 16-time world champion, and the third-fastest marathoner in history, will challenge the American duo, racing with NYRR for the second time after finishing sixth at the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon. He will be joined at the starting line by Kenya’s Abel Kipchumba, the reigning champion of the B.A.A. Boston Half Marathon who owns one of the top-10 half-marathon times in history.

(02/24/2024) Views: 580 ⚡AMP
by Letsrun

Malindi Elmore and Tristan Woodfine to run 2024 NYC Half

On Thursday, the New York Road Runners (NYRR) announced the field for the 2024 NYC Half on March 17, which will feature Canadian marathoners Malindi Elmore and Tristan Woodfine alongside 11 Olympians and one of the world’s most decorated distance runners, Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele.

This will be Bekele’s first time at the NYC Half and only his second career road race in New York City. (He finished sixth at the TCS New York City Marathon in 2021.) Bekele is one of the most prolific runners of all time, having been at the top of the sport for more than two decades. His personal best of 2:01:41 from the 2019 Berlin Marathon still stands as the Ethiopian national record, and makes him the third-fastest marathoner in history.

Bekele will headline the men’s race alongside top U.S. marathoners Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, who are fresh off finishing first and second, respectively, at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 3. Also joining the men’s field is Cobden, Ont.’s Woodfine, who is coming off an impressive 2:10:39 personal best and sixth-place finish at the 2024 Houston Marathon. The 30-year-old is currently training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, where he hopes to place in the top five to potentially secure a spot on the Canadian Olympic marathon team in Paris.

The women’s elite field will be full of established distance runners, including Olympians Des Linden, Jenny Simpson, Edna Kiplagat and Elmore, who was recently nominated to her third Olympic Games. Elmore secured her spot on the Canadian team last fall with a 2:23:30 clocking at the 2023 Berlin Marathon, the second-fastest Canadian women’s marathon time. Like Woodfine, Elmore is also training for the 2024 Boston Marathon, which she hopes will prepare her for the hilly marathon course at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which is expected to be the hilliest Olympic marathon course to date.

The men’s and women’s elite field will lead more than 25,000 runners during the United Airlines NYC Half, the world’s premier half marathon, which runs from Brooklyn to Manhattan, passing historic landmarks, diverse neighbourhoods and sweeping views of The Big Apple before finishing in the middle of Central Park.

(02/24/2024) Views: 512 ⚡AMP
by Marley Dickinson

Paul Chelimo is set to make marathon debut at Olympic Trials

Paul Chelimo, an Olympic 5000m silver and bronze medalist, will make his marathon debut at the U.S. Olympic Trials on Feb. 3 in Orlando.

“Ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of running a marathon… The day has come- this is it!” was posted on his social media Friday.

Chelimo, 33, qualified for the marathon trials by running a 1:02:22 half marathon last April 2, safely quicker than the 1:03:00 minimum to get into the field.

He didn’t publicly commit to racing the marathon trials until now. He could still contest the track trials in June.

“Let’s start by Orlando... then we will see!” Chelimo’s agent wrote in an email when asked about track trials.

At marathon trials, the top three finishers on Feb. 3 are likely to make up the team for Paris. Since Chelimo has never raced a marathon, he also must run 2:11:30 or faster to hit a minimum qualifying time for Olympic eligibility.

Chelimo made five of the last six Olympic or world outdoor championships teams on the track in the 5000m. He won Olympic silver in 2016 and bronze in 2021, the latter being the lone U.S. men’s distance medal at the Tokyo Games.

Now, he joins a recent list of American global track medalists to move up to the marathon after Kara Goucher (2007 World 10,000m silver), Shalane Flanagan (2008 Olympic 10,000m silver), Galen Rupp (2012 Olympic 10,000m silver) and Bernard Lagat (world 5000m medals in 2007, 2009 and 2011).

Jenny Simpson, a world champion and Olympic bronze medalist at 1500m, also plans to make her marathon debut at the Feb. 3 trials.

Rupp made the 2016 Olympic marathon team in his debut at the distance at those trials. Molly Seidel did the same for the Tokyo Games. Each won a bronze medal in their first Olympic marathon.

Rupp, eyeing a fifth Olympics, headlines the men’s trials field along with Conner Mantz, the fastest American marathoner in 2022 and 2023 going for his first Games.

(01/27/2024) Views: 528 ⚡AMP
by Olympic Talk

Annie Rodenfels Wins Boston 10k For Women

The 47th running of the Boston 10K for Women, presented by REI, returned to the Boston Common and the streets of Boston and Cambridge on Saturday.

Over 4,000 women participated in the autumn classic, which began at 8:50 a.m. for handcycle and wheelchair participants and at 9 a.m. for all runners.

Formerly known as the Tufts Health Plan 10K for Women, the race is New England's largest all-women's sporting event.

The 6.2-mile course brings runs through Boston’s Back Bay and into Cambridge and finishes on Charles Street between the Public Garden and Boston Common.

This year's race was won by Annie Rodenfels, who broke the tape in her 10K debut in a time of 32:08. She was followed by Emily Venters with a time of 32:31 and Jenny Simpson at 32:39.

A Boston resident, Rodenfels surged on the Massachusetts Avenue bridge and ran uncontested through the last mile until the Charles Street finish line.

“I thought I would sit back and wait and out-kick them at the end, like -- their mistake if they leave me until the end -- because besides maybe Jenny Simpson I think I’ve probably got the best kick in the field,” Rodenfels said afterward, with an American flag draped around her shoulders. “But I just felt too good, I figured I’d just go for it. What do I have to lose?”

For Rodenfels, who trains along the banks of the Charles River, the familiarity aided her approach in the new distance.

“I like the course a lot – I love running in Boston, I feel like I can have a mediocre year the rest of the year and then when I get a race in Boston, I knock it out of the park. I feel like I get more cheers because I am from around here,” said Rodenfels, who earned $9,000 with the victory.

Winning the Masters Division and finishing 11th overall was Sara Hall, who clocked a 33:19. Fourteen-year-old Madelyn Wilson won the wheelchair division in a time of 35:50, racing for the first time in a larger chair.

 

(10/09/2023) Views: 827 ⚡AMP

Jenny Simpson, U.S. mile legend, to race Olympic marathon trials

Jenny Simpson, the most decorated U.S. female miler in history, is moving up in distance and plans to race the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials on Feb. 3 in Orlando, near where she grew up.

“It’s an easy decision for me to run the marathon Trials in Orlando,” she wrote in an email after making the announcement in an Instagram live video with the Orlando Track Shack. “For a long time I’ve flirted with the idea of going the full distance and with Orlando hosting the Trials, I just can’t miss the chance to go back home.”

Simpson, 36, announced last October that she was shifting focus from the track, where she was a world champion and Olympic bronze medalist in the 1500m, to longer races on the roads.

Typically for distance runners that accomplished, it means an eventual move all the way up to the marathon. Simpson messaged then that her chances of racing over 26.2 miles were “51% :).”

A month later, Orlando was announced as the host of the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials. Simpson’s family moved to Florida when she was in third grade, and she went to high school in Oviedo, which is 15 miles northeast of Orlando.

“It’ll be fun to literally come back to the beginnings of my running and take in the scenery of the place where I ran my first few races,” Simpson said in Tuesday’s video.

Simpson’s last track race was at the Tokyo Olympic Trials, where she was 10th in the 1500m final. It was her first time not placing in the top three at a U.S. outdoor championships since 2006 and first time not being on an Olympic team since 2004.

In September 2021, Simpson ran the Cherry Blossom 10-mile road race in Washington, D.C., nearly three times as long as the farthest distance she had raced as a pro up to that point.

She then focused much of her time in 2022 helping her Colorado community heal and rebuild from a late December 2021 fire.

She ran 5km and 10-mile road races late in 2022, then on Jan. 15 of this year placed ninth in the Houston half marathon in 70 minutes, 35 seconds to beat the Olympic Trials qualifying time of 72 minutes. That was her most recent race, according to World Athletics.

Simpson attended the 2020 marathon trials to watch husband Jason run. Jason has not qualified for next year’s trials yet but is still hopeful.

One U.S. woman has made Olympic teams in both the 1500m and the marathon in her career -- Francie Larrieu-Smith, who made her first team in the 1500m at age 19 and her last in the marathon at 39, according to Olympedia.org.

Simpson hasn’t said whether she will race a marathon in the fall or if the trials will be her debut at the distance, “but the next six months will be all about getting ready to go the extra 25.2 miles,” she wrote.

The list of marathon trials qualifiers already includes nine of the 15 fastest American women in history. The top three finishers on Feb. 3 will likely make up the Olympic team.

“As I get older, I didn’t want to run out of really good years to give to something that was so intriguing to me for so long,” Simpson said of the marathon. “I’ve accomplished a lot already, and now I can do something that I want to do, not necessarily something that’s going to just objectively, absolutely pay off.”

(08/02/2023) Views: 648 ⚡AMP
by Nick Zaccardi

Faith Kipyegon smashes women’s 1500m world record in Florence

Kenyan Faith Kipyegon smashed the women’s 1500m world record, clocking 3 minutes, 49.11 seconds at a Diamond League meet in Florence, Italy, on Friday.

Kipyegon, a two-time Olympic champion and two-time world champion, took 96 hundredths of a second off Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba‘s world record from 2015. Kipyegon began the day as the second-fastest woman in history at 3:50.37.

The 29-year-old was already the most decorated female miler in history, the only one with four global 1500m titles. Her Olympic gold medals in 2016 and 2021 were separated by a 22-month maternity leave from competition (that included 12 months without running).

Kipyegon was the eighth of nine children growing on a farm in the Kenyan Rift Valley. She was a soccer player at age 14 when she lined up for a one-kilometer run in PE class, according to World Athletics.

“I won that race by 20 meters,” Kipyegon said, according to World Athletics in 2016. “It is only then I knew I could run fast and be a good athlete.”

In 2010, a barefooted Kipyegon placed fourth in the world cross country championships junior race as, at age 16, the youngest finisher in the top 21. The next year, she won it. The year after that, she made her Olympic debut at age 18. By 2015, Jenny Simpson, arguably the best American miler in history, had a nickname for her: “The Sniper,” for her ability to run people down in the final lap.

She ran her last lap on Friday in under 59 seconds.

Next year, Kipyegon can become the second person to win the same individual Olympic track race three times, joining Usain Bolt. She said last year that she may shift to the 5000m after the 2024 Paris Games, according to Olympics.com.

Also in Florence, world champion Fred Kerley extended a year-plus win streak in the men’s 100m, prevailing in 9.94 seconds over Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala (10.04) and American Trayvon Bromell (10.09).

(06/02/2023) Views: 708 ⚡AMP
by Olympic Talk

Emily Sisson sets a new half marathon American record in Houston

Emily Sisson shattered her own American record in the half marathon by finishing in 1:06:52. She is now the first American woman to break the 1:07 barrier after placing second behind race winner Hiwot Gebremaryam of Ethiopia, who ran 1:06:28.

Ethiopian Leul Gebresilase Aleme won the men’s half in a sprint finish. He ran 1:00:34—less than a second ahead of runner-up Wesley Kiptoo of Kenya.

Emily Sisson Re-Breaks Her Own American Record

Sisson improved on her record the hard way by going out fast, slowing down slightly through the last sections, and kicking it in towards the finish. After Gebremaryam broke the race open in the first few miles—by 5K, she was already 17 seconds ahead of the chase pack—Sisson ran with Jessica Warner-Judd of Great Britain through 15K. The American record-holder averaged 5-minute mile pace through the first 5K but struggled in the latter half of the course, clocking 5:12 miles around 20K.

“I went out a little too fast the first 5K or so, so the last few miles I was definitely feeling it,” Sisson said on the ABC 13 broadcast.

But Sisson pushed through the discomfort as she neared the finish line to make history once again. “I’m really excited about it. I really wanted to break 67 minutes and I’m happy I did,” she said. “I actually think I could have run a little more evenly so I’m already hoping to run another half and even try to run faster.”

Sisson broke the American record for the first time in May 2022 at the USATF Half Marathon Road Championships in Indianapolis. The Providence College alum won the national title in 1:07:11, four seconds faster than the previous American record set by Sara Hall less than four months earlier at the 2022 Houston Half Marathon.

Prior to the U.S. championships, Sisson came extremely close to the mark on two occasions. When the record was 1:07:25 (held by her former training partner Molly Huddle), she ran 1:07:30 in 2019 and 1:07:26 in 2020.

Last year, the momentum continued in a big way for Sisson when she broke the American record in the marathon. In October, she demolished the time by running 2:18:29 in Chicago—lowering the previous record set by Keira D’Amato at the 2022 Houston Marathon by 43 seconds.

Close Finish in the Men’s Half Marathon

The men’s half marathon featured one of the most exciting finishes of the day. After pulling away from the chase pack together with a few miles remaining, Aleme and Kiptoo battled down to the wire. The East African competitors fought through the homestretch—where Kiptoo kept looking back to assess the distance between himself and his rival—until Aleme sprinted ahead at the last second to claim the victory.

Aleme’s performance follows a breakthrough season, which included a runner-up finish at the 2022 London Marathon in October.

Conner Mantz was the first American to finish after placing sixth in 1:01:12.

Past Greats Return to Racing, While Familiar Faces Make Debuts

In addition to Sisson’s record, there were several other notable performances in the Houston women’s half marathon, including Huddle in her postpartum return to competitive racing. The previous American record-holder finished fifth in 1:10:01 almost nine months after welcoming her daughter. In her 13.1 debut, former 1500-meter specialist and Olympic bronze medalist Jenny Simpson placed ninth in 1:10:35. Also making her debut, Vanessa Fraser finished 13th in 1:11:00. All three had room to spare in achieving the standard to compete at the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

Three-time Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba also made her highly anticipated return. In the Ethiopian's first race in four years, she finished 16th in 1:11:35.

(01/15/2023) Views: 1,181 ⚡AMP
by Runners World

Track legend Jenny Simpson puts her most challenging year behind her as she turns to the roads in 2023

After a year in which her world was turned upside down, the track legend has a new sponsor and new event as she makes her half marathon debut in Houston on Sunday.

As the Marshall Fire approached her house on December 30, 2021, there was a brief moment where Jenny Simpson thought to herself, I can’t believe I’m doing this. The house Simpson shares with her husband Jason was formerly a schoolhouse, built in 1900 and located in Marshall, Colo., 15 minutes southeast of Boulder. And on that day, it was under threat from what would eventually become the most destructive fire in state history.

The fire, spread by wind gusts of over 100 miles per hour, was moving quickly. As thick smoke enveloped their property, choking their lungs and blocking their vision, the Simpsons prepared for the worst. Trying to limit the burn, they watered down the yard with hoses, inadvertently soaking their clothes as the wind blew the spray everywhere. Then, as the flames moved in, Simpson took one last lap around the house, grabbing their laptops, their Jack Russell terrier Truman, and a bag containing her running medals and memorabilia — one she had assembled a month earlier while being interviewed for a documentary and fortunately had yet to unpack.

Simpson, like many of us, had previously had that conversation about the one thing you would grab if your house was burning down. She had always answered with her Bible, handed down to her from her great-grandmother Genevieve Schermerhorn (“Grandma Jenny”), for whom she was named. So, as she grabbed the Bible from her office and dashed out of the house, it hit her: I think I’m grabbing the thing that you get because we might lose everything.

By the time Simpson made it to her car, she no longer knew where Jason was or whether he would make it back to the car — the smoke was so dense, it was difficult to see. He eventually made it and they sped away from their house, not knowing when they would return — or if the house would still be there when they did.

Over the course of two days, Marshall Fire would ultimately burn over 6,000 acres, destroy over 1,000 buildings, and cause over $500 million in property damage, making it the most destructive fire in Colorado history. It was a traumatic event for Simpson and her community.

Though the Simpsons’ home survived the fire, it sustained damage, forcing them to live elsewhere while it was repaired. They bounced around from a hotel to the spare bedroom of some friends from church to, eventually, a sparse apartment near the University of Colorado campus, living out of a backpack with the few things they had managed to grab from their home before the fire hit.

“It’s hard to describe how stressful that time was,” Simpson says.

On top of that, Simpson was working through a sports hernia and stress reaction in her right hip — the most significant injury of her career — and her professional future was less certain than ever. During the 2010s, few athletes were more consistent and dependable than Simpson. From 2007 through 2019, Simpson made all nine World/Olympic teams for the United States, piling up 11 national titles, three World Championship medals, and an Olympic bronze in 2016. That success led to a series of lucrative contracts from her sponsor, New Balance, and, as a highly-ranked athlete, health insurance from USOPC.

But Simpson’s New Balance contract expired at the end of 2021 — just two days after the fire that displaced her from her home. On January 1, she lost her health insurance coverage from USOPC (to qualify for coverage, an athlete had to have medalled at either the 2019 Worlds or 2021 Olympics, finished in the top 12 at the 2021 Olympics, or finished the season ranked in the top 15 in the world in their event; Simpson no longer met any of the criteria). As 2022 began, she still had Jason, and she still had the support of her longtime coaches, Mark Wetmore and Heather Burroughs. But the other constants in her life suddenly weren’t so constant.

“This last year, I felt more vulnerable than ever,” Simpson says. “The major safety nets in my life have been being a top-performing athlete and being in the tier system and in the USATF system, being a New Balance athlete and knowing I have a future there and my security at home. And my health. All of those things were really wobbly and testy and some of them fell apart in the last year.”

Rebuilding and replacing

One year has passed since the fire that upended Simpson’s world. Some elements of her life have been rebuilt, others replaced. The Simpsons moved back into their house in Marshall on April 1, and after months of work, she says it is 100% back to normal. Her body is also back to full health. That too required months of work.

Simpson had felt pain in her hip area during the fall of 2021 and though she didn’t give it much thought initially, it grew into something that significantly disrupted her training. Even as 2022 began, she remained in denial. After her streak of making teams ended at the 2021 Olympic Trials, Simpson knew she couldn’t afford to miss time if she was to return to her best.

“Pushing through cross training, pushing through the life challenges that we were going through, I definitely made my circumstances a lot worse,” Simpson says. “And I don’t think that’s unusual for runners. That’s kind of in our nature.”

Simpson was determined to avoid surgery, but realized such a path would require a more conservative approach. As winter turned to spring, Simpson, reluctantly, began to back off the intensity to allow her body to heal.

“The toughest thing about having a sports hernia injury and choosing to rehab and go that route and not jump straight into surgery is that it’s just slow,” Simpson says. “And none of us that are athletes, I think in particular runners, want to take anything slow.”

Simpson did not race at all last spring or summer, missing USAs for the first time since 2006 and missing the chance to represent the US at the first World Championships held on American soil. Simpson is now healthy again, but she’s still rebuilding the fitness she lost in 2022.

Another pillar of Simpson’s life — her New Balance contract — had to be replaced rather than rebuilt. Simpson did not want to go into specifics, but says that while New Balance verbally offered her a deal at a reduced level from her previous contract, the two sides ultimately could not reach an agreement. Eventually, Simpson, who had not used an agent since 2014, hired Hawi Keflezighi to negotiate a new deal and announced a sponsorship agreement with Puma in October.

Leaving New Balance behind was painful. Simpson signed with the company coming out of the University of Colorado in 2010, and after 12 years together had envisioned staying with the brand in some fashion for the rest of her life. Seconds after crossing the finish line in 10th in the 2021 Olympic Trials 1500, Simpson looked at the scoreboard and saw that Elle St. Pierre, Cory McGee, and Heather MacLean — all New Balance athletes — had gone 1-2-3 to make the team; Simpson was the first to congratulate them. She figured that, even once her racing days were over, there would still be some sort of role for her at New Balance.

“My whole future in sport and beyond was about how can I take what I’m learning in my career and make that in any possible way benefit the women’s team in the future,” Simpson says. “So seeing that [1-2-3 at the Trials] and knowing there was a strong middle distance future here and how can I continue to pour into that, that’s what I thought my future was.”

A move to the roads and a new beginning

For the first decade of her professional career, Simpson’s running life was fairly straightforward. She was consistently one of the best in the world in her event, meaning she could enter any race she wanted and was always in-demand from her sponsor (two of the reasons she went without an agent for so long). Every year since rejoining Wetmore and Burroughs in 2013 (she was coached by Juli Benson from 2010-12), she would sit down with them and figure out how to be at her best in the biggest race of the year, either the World Championship or Olympic final. More often than not, she succeeded.

But after failing to make the Olympic team in 2021, Simpson began to ponder her athletic mortality. She was nearing her 35th birthday and had a few options if she wanted to stay in the sport.

“The biggest consideration was, do I move up to the 5k, do I try to run a great 10k, or do we do something totally different?” Simpson says.

(LetsRun founder Robert Johnson will be devastated to learn Simpson did not mention the steeplechase, the event in which she won two US titles and set the American record in 2009).

Simpson dipped her toes into Option C by running the Cherry Blossom 10-Miler in September 2021 (she finished 2nd in 52:16). Midway through 2022, she had fully committed to the roads.

“It’s always been part of the plan that I would give the roads some good years of my career,” says Simpson. “And I think I just saw those really good years becoming fewer and fewer and I realistically wanted to make the transition before I was so, not just physically tired, but also just emotionally drained and psychologically drained from the intensity of it.”

The last few years, Simpson carved out a niche as a mentor to some of the up-and-coming athletes in the Colorado program. As a volunteer assistant at CU, Simpson was able to watch runners like Dani Jones and Sage Hurta at practice, then aid their transition to the professional ranks by traversing the circuit alongside them as a competitor/friend. With Simpson’s move to the roads, that period of her career is over.

“I think that’s what I’ll miss the most, is feeling like I get to be a little bit of a mother hen for the [Colorado] women that are doing really well and have a future as a pro in the sport,” Simpson says.

Now, Simpson is heading into the unknown. The training, obviously, is different. Though Simpson ran relatively high mileage for a 1500 runner — it was not uncommon for her to hit 80 miles in a week — she is now running 80+ regularly, doubling up to five times per week. During her track career, a long workout for Simpson would consist of 12 or 14 by 400m. Now she’s running 2k and 3k repeats on the track.

“That’s a long way to go for someone like me,” Simpson says. “…You go out on the first lap or two and you think, Are you kidding me? This is it? But it doesn’t stay easy for very long.”

Simpson has also had to educate herself about the road races themselves. When we first spoke for this story in November, Simpson admitted that, outside of the World Marathon Majors, she didn’t know many of the major road races and was still learning about how they stacked up against each other in terms of prestige.

Part of that is due to how the sport is structured. Track is simple: Worlds or the Olympics is the end goal and the rest of the season is built around that. The roads are different — people reach top fitness at different times. For marathoners, it’s fairly intuitive — pick one race to peak for in the spring and one in the fall. But Simpson isn’t a marathoner (yet). For road racers at shorter distances, it’s more choose-your-own-adventure.

Simpson’s plan: sit down with Wetmore and Burroughs, pick a race to gear that year’s training around, and attack it like they would a World Championship or Olympics.

“Even though it’s not to the world a big World Championships, it will be Mark and Heather and Jenny’s World Championships,” Simpson says.

As for the marathon, Simpson would not commit to running one eventually, but did not rule it out either. She watched Jason, after years of grinding, finally qualify for the Olympic Marathon Trials at CIM in 2018 and knows how difficult the event is. She has no desire to rush into one.

“It is really freaking hard,” Simpson says. “You don’t know for sure that your body is suited for it just because you’ve been a good runner…What it will take for me to run a marathon? If I have a great half and I feel like my body’s handling that workload really well, we’ll absolutely do a marathon. Because at that point, you’ve gotta find out, right?”

Next stop: Houston

The big question hanging over all this: will Jenny Simpson be any good on the roads? It’s no certainty that prime Simpson, the one who won a record eight Fifth Avenue Miles, would have been a force over 10k and beyond, much less the 36-year-old version coming off the most disruptive injury of her career.

Thirty-six is not necessarily old by distance standards, though. Last year, Keira D’Amato broke the American marathon record at 37 and Sara Hall broke the American half marathon record at 38. Like Simpson, both were for a time milers on the track before moving up — though it took each several years before their big breakthrough.

After down years in 2021 and 2022, logic says Simpson could have a tough go of things. The bar for success, certainly, will have to be recalibrated. At her best on the track, Simpson was one of the top three women in the world in her event. That level of accomplishment is virtually impossible for her on the roads, but could she become one of the best in the US in the 10k, half, or marathon?

Her road debut at Cherry Blossom in 2021 was auspicious (2nd place, 52:16), her appearance at last fall’s USATF 5K champs in New York less so (she was 17th in 16:07, 39 seconds behind winner Weini Kelati) — though Simpson wasn’t fully fit in New York and knew that going in.

2023 will be the real test of whether Simpson has anything left to give on the roads. And for Simpson, 2023 begins in Houston, where she will make her half marathon debut on Sunday. There is a lot riding on the outcome, which is how Simpson likes it. She has yet to pick that one race that she will plan her 2023 season around; Houston will help her make that decision.

“This will kind of chart my course of whether we stick with the half marathon, whether I start dreaming about a marathon, or whether I say maybe it’s better for me to get back on the track, spike up, and do some faster stuff over the next year,” Simpson says.

Simpson says that while her training has gone well, the adjustment to training for the half marathon has been more challenging than she expected.

“When I ran Cherry Blossom and I ran 5:14/mile pace the whole way, the idea of running 5:10’s for a half marathon (67:43 pace) seemed right around the corner,” Simpson says. “Now having gone through a year of injury and a lot of other life challenges, I’m having to adjust what I think my half marathon debut is going to look like.”

Simpson will have Jason with her as a pacer on Sunday and said they will plan to go out faster than her pace at the Army 10-Miler in October, a race she won in 54:16 (71:08 half marathon pace). She says she has a time goal in mind but elected not to share it. Her main hope is that she can finish the race well. During her track career, Simpson was famous for her strength in the final 100 meters, but in her last two road races, she felt as if she was holding on for dear life at the end.

Simpson will step to the line on Sunday with an uncertainty that did not exist during her track career. When Simpson started a 1500-meter race, she came armed with knowledge gleaned from years of experience. She knew exactly what sort of time she could expect her workouts to translate to and how to respond tactically to every race scenario. In the half marathon, she’s starting over.

“That’s one of the trepidations of going into the race in Houston is that I’m so used to having such a clear idea of what I am capable of,” Simpson says. “My race in Houston will be as much of a discovery as the training has been.”

Even Simpson admits she doesn’t know how many more years she’ll continue to race professionally. A few years ago, she had scripted out a storybook ending for herself: a fourth Olympic team in Tokyo and a home World Championships in front of friends and family in Eugene. Make those two teams, she thought, and she would have total freedom to do whatever she wanted afterwards, whether it was continuing to race on the roads, pursuing a coaching career, or starting a family.

That, of course, did not happen. In professional sports, endings rarely go according to plan. But Simpson is embracing the adventure that comes with her new path, wherever it leads.

“The idea I had in mind was kind of cool, but there are some things that we’re now looking forward to that I couldn’t have even imagined,” Simpson says. “And if it turns out that way, it will end even better.”

(01/12/2023) Views: 1,235 ⚡AMP
by Jonathan Gault

Emily Sisson, Conner Mantz, Jenny Simpson, Tirunesh Dibaba Headline 2023 Aramco Houston Half Marathon

The Houston Marathon Committee announced today the elite athletes who will chase the $10,000 first-place prize in this historically fast race. Elite fields for the Chevron Houston Marathon which is held simultaneously on Sunday, January 15, will be announced tomorrow.

American records in the half marathon and marathon were set in Houston last year, but by the end of 2022, Emily Sisson had broken them both. Houston will be Sisson’s first race since running 2:18:29 at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in October, shattering Keira D’Amato’s record by 43 seconds. Earlier in the year, her 1:07:11 performance in Indianapolis shaved four seconds off Sara Hall’s half marathon record.

“I have really enjoyed racing here in the past and am excited to start my 2023 season in Houston,” said Sisson who finished fifth in the 2019 Aramco Houston Half Marathon. “I felt good coming out of Chicago and am really looking forward to another opportunity to race.”

Sisson will have to contend with one of the greatest distance runners of all time as Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia makes a return to competition after a more than four-year hiatus. The three-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion has not raced since 2018 but says after giving birth to a second child in 2019 and then battling COVID-19, she is ready to add another chapter to her storied career.

“Houston is a famous race and my training has been going well,” said Dibaba, the 2017 Chicago Marathon Champion. “It seemed like the best way to test myself and see what could be next.”

Other top contenders in the women’s half marathon elite field include 2021 Berlin Marathon runner-up Hiwot Gebrekidan of Ethiopia and 2022 World Championship Marathon fourth-place finisher Nazret Weldu of Eritrea. Dom Scott will attempt to break the South African half marathon record of 1:06:44, after a 3rd place finish in Houston last year. The top Americans include 28-time U.S. Champion Molly Huddle who set the then-American record here in 2018, as well as World Champion and Olympic Bronze Medalist Jenny Simpson who will make her half marathon debut.

“All of the racers I am learning from speak so highly of their experience with the Aramco Houston Half Marathon,” said Simpson. “It’s the perfect place for me to make my half marathon debut because the timing, course and organization are so well tested.”

In the men’s race, Edward Cheserek of Kenya, known to fans as “King Ches,” will look to trade in his crown for a king-sized belt buckle. Cheserek is coming off a 1:00:13 half marathon personal best in Valencia last month. “After Valencia this fall, I’ve trained harder and think sub-60 is possible,” said Cheserek, a 17-time NCAA Champion at the University of Oregon. “Houston is known for being a fast course and I want to have a chance at a personal best.”

Cheserek will face off against 2019 champion Shura Kitata of Ethiopia who lines up for his fourth Aramco Houston Half Marathon. With career marathon victories in London, Frankfurt and Rome, Kitata says he “feels home and comfortable in Houston.”

Other contenders to watch are Ethiopia’s Leul Gebresilase Aleme, runner up at last year’s London Marathon, and 2020 Olympian Mohamed El Aaraby of Morocco. The top American in the field is Conner Mantz of Utah. Mantz, the 2020 and 2021 NCAA Cross Country Champion at BYU, made his much-anticipated marathon debut in Chicago last October running 2:08:16, the fastest debut ever by an American-born runner.

Houston-native Frank Lara will return for a second consecutive year. Lara, a former Gatorade Texas High School Runner of the Year, was the top American finisher in the marathon last year. This year he competes in the half marathon.

The HMC is the only organizer to host two World Athletic Gold Label events simultaneously, which are Sunday’s Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon. These two races will have over 27,000 registrants, with an additional 6,000 registrants in the We Are Houston 5K presented by Aramco and Chevron, held on Saturday, January 14.

“Whether you are an elite athlete or a new runner, our committee is dedicated to hosting your individual pursuits with the utmost care and respect for the extraordinary efforts made to toe the start line with us,” said Wade Morehead, Executive Director of the Houston Marathon Committee.

The Aramco Houston Half Marathon and Chevron Houston Marathon will be broadcast on ABC13 from 7 a.m.-10 a.m., on Sunday, January 15 with a race day recap at 10:35 p.m. Joining ABC13’s Greg Bailey and Gina Gaston as expert commentator will be Des Linden, the 2018 Boston Marathon winner and 50K world-record holder. Linden made the first of her two U.S. Olympic Marathon teams in Houston in 2012. The trio will be joined by long-time analyst and Rice University cross country coach Jon Warren.

(01/04/2023) Views: 905 ⚡AMP
by Letsrun

Is Top Miler Jenny Simpson About to Become a Marathoner?

The Olympic medalist signs with Puma and moves to the roads—although she still hits the track in spikes. 

Jenny Simpson refuses to come out and say she’s training for a marathon. But all signs point to her training for a marathon. 

She’s consistently running the highest mileage of her life (85 miles per week). And she has a new sponsor, Puma. 

“It’s correct that my emphasis is on the roads,” she said on an October 6 call with Runner’s World. “These next few years is an exploration in the distances and some of the challenges in running that I haven’t tried yet. That’s what I’m most excited about.” 

Simpson, 36, has been a stalwart on the track since she was in college at the University of Colorado, going to Europe every summer and building her training around Olympics and World Championships cycles. Between 2011 and 2017, she won four global medals: a gold and two silvers in the World Championships 1500 meters, and Olympic bronze in the same event. 

Through 2019, she made every U.S. team going back to 2007. But the pandemic put a sudden halt to that streak. In 2021, she made the finals of the 1500 meters at the Olympic Trials for the postponed Games in Tokyo, but she finished 10th.

“I had such an incredible run on the track,” Simpson said. “And then, just like a lot of people starting in 2020, the vision that I had for those next few years of my career got derailed.” 

That fall, she began her transition to the roads, racing the Cherry Blossom 10-miler and finishing second in a sprint finish to Nell Rojas. But at the end of the year, Simpson’s life was upended.

Simpson suffered a stress reaction in her right hip, which took a long time to heal. She was diagnosed with a sports hernia in one of her adductor muscles, which pulled tissue away from one of the pubic bones. “A lovely place to be injured and have people poking and prodding,” Simpson said.

It was by far the most serious injury of her career, but she was able to avoid surgery with hours of physical therapy, working on her adductors, hamstrings, core, and glutes—anything near the hips. When she returned to running, she had several months of stopping and starting until she was finally pain-free. 

At the same time, she learned that her future with New Balance—the company that had sponsored her since the beginning of 2010—was not secure.

And then on December 30, 2021, a wildfire broke out close to Simpson’s home, an old schoolhouse in South Boulder, Colorado, that she shares with her husband, Jason, and their dog. They had to flee with little warning. Most of the Simpsons’ immediate neighbors lost their homes, and entire neighborhoods in the bordering towns of Louisville and Superior were destroyed. The couple was displaced for three months while damage was repaired. 

“So many things in my life were disrupted at the same time,” she said. “Between the fire and no longer having a sponsor and an injury, all those things swallowed up the first half of my 2022.” 

By late spring, things were starting to come around. The Simpsons were back in their home. Her injury was healing. And sponsors were still interested. Simpson, who had represented herself for years, enlisted an agent, Hawi Keflezighi, to help her with a new shoe deal. 

“Parting ways with New Balance will be one of the great heartbreaks of my life,” she said. “It was really hard. I didn’t want to make a change. But life is full of surprises. The change to doing a different event felt like this is going to give me some new energy and a new scene. Now that I’m on the other side of a contract with a new brand, I feel very much the same way. Puma believed in what I want to do. That’s really invigorating.” 

Puma has made a substantial investment in American women’s distance running over the past two years. The company has added marathoners Molly Seidel, Annie Frisbie, and Dakotah Lindwurm to its roster, and funds a Puma training group with Fiona O’Keeffe and others in North Carolina. But it’s not just 20-somethings. They’ve also signed track runner turned marathoner Sara Vaughn, and now Simpson. 

To be clear, Simpson doesn’t intend to just dabble in the roads. She wants to be excellent. And that’s the only thing that’s keeping her from saying “yes,” she’s doing a marathon. 

“I will do one if I believe I can be competitive at it,” she said. “We don’t have enough information yet to know if I’ll be really good at it. I have the desire to do it, if my body and mind can handle it.” 

Simpson is relishing the chance to reimagine what the end of her career might look like. For a long time, she said, she laser focused on the 1500 meters (and yes, she still spikes up for track workouts). “I’ve been one thing, a very good one thing, for a long time,” she said. 

But now it’s time to try something different. She sees American marathoners running well into their late 30s, and doing it after having children, and she realizes she has to adjust her own thinking about what’s possible. 

“This new wave of women racing later and having families and racing competitively at the same time, I feel like people just don’t remember how much of a zero option that was when I was younger,” she said. “And it’s not just the world is progressing. I have to progress. I don’t have to just pack it in.” 

Simpson said she wants to show that she can try to be good at something else. 

“I don’t know if I’m going to be great at the marathon,” she said, “but I really want to try.” 

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(10/10/2022) Views: 899 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Olympic 1,500m medalist Jenny Simpson is moving to the roads

One of the fastest U.S. milers in history is taking on a new challenge, according to her Instagram. The 2016 Olympic 1,500m bronze medallist, Jenny Simpson, may have hung up her spikes on the track, but will shift her focus to road races with her new sponsor, Puma.

“She’s ready to answer the call of the roads,” Puma’s Instagram reads. “Welcome to the FAM, Jenny. We are excited to see where this next challenge leads.”

Simpson, whose last race (according to World Athletics) was the Cherry Blossom 10-mile road race in Washington, D.C. in September 2021, will run what she called “a little rust-buster” at the Army Ten-Miler in Washington on Oct. 9. 

The Cherry Blossom 10-miler was Simpson’s first race longer than 5,000m. Although she has made the shift to distance running, the 36-year-old hasn’t hinted at whether she plans on moving up to the marathon distance. 

Simpson made her first Olympic team in 2008 in the 3,000m steeplechase, then in 2012 and 2016, she ran the 1,500m, earning a bronze medal in Rio behind Faith Kipyegon and Genzebe Dibaba. She is the only female U.S. athlete to win both a world championship title and an Olympic medal in the 1,500m.

She holds career PBs of 14:56 in the 5,000m, 4:16 in the road mile and 3:57.22 over 1,500m.

Throughout her career on the track, Simpson had a lot of success in road miles, winning eight NYC 5th Ave. Mile titles, including seven consecutive titles between 2013-2019.

Simpson focused much of her time through the pandemic helping her Boulder, Colo. community rebuild from a December 2021 fire. She is also a volunteer coach at the University of Colorado for the track and field and cross-country team.

(10/07/2022) Views: 1,058 ⚡AMP
by Marley Dickinson

Laura Muir and Jake Wightman are the winners of the 2022 NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile

The world’s top middle-distance runners took to the streets of New York City on Sunday morning for the Fifth Avenue Mile, one of the final races of the summer racing season. For the second year in a row, two Scottish runners took the win, with Laura Muir winning the women’s race in a course record time of 4:14.8 and Jake Wightman winning the men’s race for the second consecutive year.

The Olympic 1,500m silver medallist, Muir, won the women’s race by three seconds over American Nikki Hiltz, becoming the fastest female in the 41-year history of the race. Eleanor Fulton of the U.S. finished third in 4:18.0.

Muir had the fastest seed time heading into the race and led the race from the gun to tape. The previous mile record was set by Jenny Simpsonin 2019 (4:16.2)

Moments later, the world 1,500m champion, Wightman, successfully defended his 2021 title in 3:50.0 ahead of his British compatriot Jake Heyward. Wightman has now won the Fifth Ave. Mile in three of the last four years. American Sam Prakel finished third in 3:51.0, ahead of Canada’s William Paulson, who was fourth in 3:51.3.

Muir and Wightman took wins today despite both competing and earning medals at the Diamond League Finals in Zurich on Thursday night.

(09/11/2022) Views: 2,008 ⚡AMP
by Running Magazine

Runners in Flagstaff, Ariz. evacuated due to wildfires

Residents of Flagstaff, Ariz. have been placed on high alert as the Pipeline fire rages near their communities. Hundreds of people have been forced to leave their homes, with thousands more told to prepare to evacuate. The area is a popular place to live and train for elite athletes due to the high elevation (around 2,133m or 7000 feet).

The Pipeline fire was preceded this year by several other blazes, including the Tunnel fire, which also caused evacuations and resulted in over 19,000 acres burning.Many Canadian athletes live or spend time at training camps in the Flagstaff area, and we spoke to Canadian half-marathon record holder Rory Linkletter. Linkletter and his family have been evacuated, and he explained: “Flames were about 1km from our home. Water trucks were parked in our neighbourhood ready to fight fire from our street and protect structures.” Linkletter added that it was the second fire in the last few months within a mile of his home.

The Pipeline fire was reported on Sunday, and as of Monday afternoon, over 5,000 acres of brush and forest had burned. The Cococino National Forest reported that two additional fires, the Haywire and Double fires, are now being fought within the same area.

Firefighters have been working diligently to suppress the fires and keep them from entering the nearby communities, and temporary shelters have been designated for both people and animals.Strong winds and warm weather have made containing the fires particularly challenging. Linkletter said that fires this year had been worse than anticipated. His family includes pets and his 10-month-old son, Jason, which add challenges to being evacuated.

Linkletter added, “Last fire people were evacuated for just under a week, and we would love to get home as soon as possible. I just hope our home and everyone else’s is safe and we can come home to some normalcy. It’s obviously stressful to have the uncertainty and feel so hopeless.”Matthew Riser, 57, was arrested on Sunday in connection to the fires. Riser admitted to burning toilet paper and placing it under a rock, saying he hadn’t seen the “no campfire” signs. The Pipeline fire is named after a popular hiking trail and Riser had been camping in the area.

Linkletter expressed some optimism about the weather in the next few days. “The wind is supposed to die down tomorrow, and rain is possible on Saturday,” he said.

Olympian Jenny Simpson narrowly missed losing her house in Boulder, Co. last year in another wildfire. Boulder is another very popular city for runners to live or train, and the Marshall fire destroyed over 1, 000 homes and 6,000 acres.

(06/18/2022) Views: 804 ⚡AMP
by Running Magazine

Nell Rojas Outkicks Jenny Simpson at 2021 Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile

On a warm and crystal clear late summer morning in our Nation’s Capital, American Nell Rojas won a thrilling race among the top women runners at this year’s Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile (CUCB), while Kenyan Edwin Kimutai left the rest of the men’s field in his footsteps 25 minutes into the race to handily win the men’s race.

With his 33-second victory, Kimutai honored the recent passing of his wife, while Rojas surprised all the pundits when she sprinted away from Jenny Simpson with less than one half mile left in the race to win the 2021 USATF Women’s 10 Mile Championship Presented by Toyota.

“I had zero expectations on place or time,” said Rojas in a post-race interview. “At seven or eight miles, I could tell Jenny and the others were working hard, and I was like ‘I’m not working hard.’ At that point I was OK letting myself believe I could win.”

Rojas added: “With 800 to go, I knew Jenny was right there, I was really scared. I kicked around 600, and made that decision because I couldn’t let Jenny have the last 50-meter sprint. At that point, I was like ‘I’m fine with second, but just let me do this.’”

While she may have been a novice on the roads at anything longer than one mile, Simpson displayed confidence and savvy from the start. In fact, USATF.tv webcast commentator Carrie Tollefson remarked that Jenny cut the tightest tangent in the women’s lead pack of 14, going into a roundabout on the Virginia end of Memorial Bridge at a little more than 1 ½ miles into the race. Throughout the race, Simpson could be seen moving around the dwindling lead pack — side to side, forward and back — while eventual third place American Annie Frisbie oftentimes found herself in the lead, pushing the pace, or sharing pacesetting duties with Rojas and overall third place finisher Antonina Kwambai.

“When Nell pushed it up the last hill, once she got separation, I just couldn’t respond,” said Simpson. “She was really strong.”

Simpson added: “Sometimes the best thing that can happen with a new experience is to get second. I’m finishing hungry. Overall, the entire experience was 10 times better than I expected.”

In the men’s race, American Frank Lara —who would eventually finish fifth overall as fourth American — charged out hard from the start, and the men’s field quickly strung out. By 5K four men had broken away: Kimutai, Lara, and his fellow Americans Abbabiya Simbassa and Augustus Maiyo. By 10K, Kimutai had established a 17-second lead over the Maiyo and Simbassa, with Lara a few seconds adrift of his compatriots. As Kimutai’s lead grew, Maiyo and Simbassa continued to run side-by-side through 15K. Two minutes later, the 28 year-old Simbassa began to pull away from 38-year-old Maiyo, building himself a five second margin by the finish.

When asked if he felt guilty taking the 2021 USATF Men’s 10 Mile Championships title from the 38-year-old Maiyo, Simbassa replied: “I respect those guys, they know more than I do. I’m just out to do my best.”

Well, today, Simbassa’s best earned him the title of America’s best after so many recent second-place finishes in USATF Championship races, and elicited this comment: “It feels good. I’ve been hunting for a long time, and it finally happened today.”

Here’s a compilation of place, times and money earned by the top-10 American women and men as well as open prize money winners, and RRCA Roads Scholar-RunPro Development Award winners.

(09/13/2021) Views: 1,730 ⚡AMP
by Running USA

Three time Olympian Jenny Simpson to Make Her Long Distance Road Racing Debut at 2021 Credit Union Cherry Blossom 10M

Organizers of the 48th edition of the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run announced today that Jenny Simpson, three time Olympian (2008, 2012 and 2016 bronze medalist) and three time World Championship medalist (gold in 2011, silver in 2013 and 2017) would be making her long distance road racing debut in Washington, DC on September 12 at the USATF Men’s and Women’s Ten Mile Championships Presented by Toyota. While Jenny is no stranger to racing one mile on the roads — having won seven straight NYRR Fifth Avenue Mile events from 2013-19, and eight overall — she’ll be racing ten times as far on a flat, fast course that passes in sight of all the major Washington DC Memorials.

When Simpson was discussing her decision to explore new horizons with Cherry Blossom race organizers, she recalled: “My earliest memories and my introduction to the running world was through a community road race. As I pursued a professional career on the track, I’ve had the incredible joy of experiencing road racing as a spectator through my husband’s marathoning.”

She then added: “When I found myself this summer with the freedom to train for anything I wanted, my memory of the challenge and the fun of racing the roads tugged at my heart. I’m excited to take on the challenge of racing the Cherry Blossom 10 mile run. After years of battling within the oval track, I’m anxious to find out what I’m capable of on the roads of our Nation’s Capital. This race is so different in so many ways from what I know best. It’s exciting to know that after the success I’ve already experienced as a runner, there are still so many hard and rewarding challenges to take on.”

And Jenny is certainly taking on a big challenge right off the bat. While Keira D’Amato, who set American and World Records for 10 miles (51:23) at last November’s Up Dawg 10 Mile has withdrawn from Cherry Blossom in favor of continued training for the 2021 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Simpson will face plenty of top-flight competition. Jordan Hasay now boasts the fastest personal best among the American women (52:49), with Emma Bates not far off Hasay’s mark (52:51).

As of today, 17 elite American women are entered in the USATF 10 Mile Championships. The women will start 12 minutes before the men so performances will be eligible for ratification as women's-only records. This eliminates any benefit of being paced by males and also provides increased visibility for these talented female athletes.

With $26,000 in U.S. championship prize money on offer as well as a $10,000 bonus for an American Record (the bonus will be split if both the first-place male and female break the American records), road racing fans can look forward to hotly contested races among both the men and women. The race also will feature its traditional strong field of international runners competing for a $20,000 purse and a $10,000 bonus if a world record is broken by the winning male or female (split if both the male and female break the World Record).

With virtual editions held in April 2020 and 2021, the in-person Fall Edition of the 2021 Credit Union Cherry Blossom Runs marks the 20th year of title sponsorship by Credit Union Miracle Day. Since 2002, over $10 million has been raised for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, including $439,000 in 2020. Of that $439,000, $66,000 came from runners donating their entry fees instead of asking for a refund when race weekend in our Nation’s Capital was wiped out by Covid-19.

(08/26/2021) Views: 1,407 ⚡AMP
by Running USA

The Weird and Wonderful Moments From the Olympic Trials That You May Have Missed

Want to run fast? Try wearing a pair of Doritos earrings, just like Christina Clemons.

During the 2021 Olympic Track and Field Trials, held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, we watched as the nation’s best athletes competed for spots to race at the Tokyo Games—the pinnacle for these runners. But we also some wacky, weird, and wonderful moments, reminding us that no matter how fast these athletes can run, they’re still human.

Lewis Johnson goes for a dip in the steeplechase water pit

Before the first round of the women’s 3000-meter steeplechase on Sunday, June 20, NBC broadcaster Lewis Johnson was tasked with explaining exactly what the steeplechase race is. (Runners jump over 35 barriers, seven of which are over a water pit. It also started as a horse race. Read more here!) Not only did he show viewers on TV all around the barriers, he actually took his shoes and socks off and waded into the water pit to show how deep it was. Talk about dedication to his craft.

A short time later, Allyson Felix qualified for her fifth Olympic team, finishing second in the 400 meters—and when Johnson was interviewing her trackside, his shorts appeared to be dry. Did he bring an extra pair of shorts and change? Was it so hot that his shorts dried? I haven’t stopped thinking about this for over a week. — Bette Canter

Christina Clemons makes the Olympic team wearing Doritos earrings

Forget the Wheaties cereal box. Christina Clemons, who made her first Olympic team in the 100-meter hurdles during the opening weekend of the Trials, has her face on a bag of Doritos!

How did this happen? According to The Washington Post, Clemons was looking for new earrings before the meet and purchased a pair of Cool Ranch Doritos bling at a Hot Topic. We’re so thankful that eagle-eyed viewers and on-site photographers spotted the awesome earrings, helping the selection go viral and providing Clemons this unique opportunity. May I suggest for her Olympic run, she get mini earrings of her favorite high-end car? — Brian Dalek

New England Pride in the Women’s 1500

I’m not a “real” New Englander—I’ve lived in Maine for only 18 years, or about 200 years shy of many natives’ standards for sufficient family roots. But from the fan boy angle, close enough. So it was a treat to see Vermonter Elle Purrier St. Pierre and Heather MacLean of Massachusetts finish first and third, respectively, in the women’s 1500 final amid the usual west-of-the-Mississippi-based candidates.

The moment was made sweeter by MacLean nabbing the Olympic standard, her and Purrier St. Pierre’s modest college running achievements, and the fact that they’re New Balance Boston teammates and close friends. Or, as their coach, Mark Coogan, told Runner’s World in his best southern Massachusetts intonation, “A girl from UMass and a girl from UNH are going to the Olympics, in the mile. Top that!” — Scott Douglas

Michelle Obama congratulates Sha’Carri Richardson

After Sha’Carri Richardson dominated the women’s 100-meter final with a winning time of 10.86, her performance and reaction afterwards (she ran into the stands to hug her grandmother right after the victory) went viral. Even former First Lady Michelle Obama took notice and tweeted a message congratulating the national champion. Obama tweeted a video clip of Richardson’s post-race interview in which the sprinter shared that her biological mother passed away before the championship. Richardson also thanked her family, especially her grandmother who witnessed Richardson become an Olympian.

“Without my grandmother, there would be no Sha’Carri Richardson,” Richardson told Lewis Johnson on NBC. “My family is my everything, my everything until the day I’m done.”

Richardson responded to the Becoming author’s tweet with a message of her own.

“I am up right now losing my mind!” Richardson wrote at 2:41 a.m. PDT on June 23. — Taylor Dutch

Even the pros sometimes borrow gear from their significant other

She’d sketched out her race plan lap by lap and even traded out her pre-race coffee for caffeinated gum to stay cooler. But there was one minor detail Emily Sisson realized she forgot as she was stepping onto the track to dominate the women’s 10,000 meters Saturday morning: shades. Fortunately, her husband, Shane Quinn, had a pair he was willing to part with.

“I stole them off him as we were walking into the warm-up area,” she said post-race. Those red-and-black frames—which appeared to be from goodr—made her look even more like a boss as she lapped nearly everyone en route to a new meet record and her first Olympic spot. — Cindy Kuzma

Runners warming up ... around a cemetery

Eugene Pioneer Cemetery, on the National Register of Historic Places, is also a destination for U.S. elite distance runners, warming up and cooling down for the races in Hayward Field.

The cemetery, which has a dirt trail around its perimeter that’s roughly 0.6 miles long, saw plenty of use during the Olympic Trials. Before the semifinal round of the women’s 1500, Runner’s World spotted Jenny Simpson, Dani Jones, Amanda Eccleston, Sarah Lancaster and others jogging the loop before heading one block east to the athlete entrance to the track. After the semis of the men’s 800, Bryce Hoppel went over for a cooldown.

The cemetery isn’t affiliated with the University of Oregon, but it’s adjacent to the campus, and many Duck track athletes over the years have used it for their runs. It’s an easy target for, well, gallows humor—as athletes hope warming up their doesn’t signal the death knell of their careers.

(07/10/2021) Views: 1,122 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Emma Coburn continues to dominate the 3,000-Meter Steeplechase

As predicted, it was a race for third place in the 3,000-meter steeplechase final on Thursday, at the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials, in Eugene, Oregon. And for Val Constien, third probably felt a lot like first.

Emma Coburn and Courtney Frerichs were the known entities. They’ve never missed making a national team in the event and their results on Thursday were no different. Coburn won in an Olympic Trials record of 9:09.41 and Frerichs was runner-up in 9:11.79. Then came Constien, a University of Colorado grad and 2019 Pac-12 champion, in 9:18.34—a personal best by six seconds.

“I think the U.S. steeple right now is the deepest it’s been in years,” Coburn said, after the race. “There’s so many women who have run under 9:30 this year. Knowing that strength and that depth, I wanted to just play off some of some of my strengths. If we were running 9:30 splits early in the race, I knew that was well within my comfort zone and I could push really hard the last year.

Since 2016, the U.S. team for world championships and the Olympics has remained constant: Coburn, Frerichs, and Colleen Quigley. And until Quigley announced her withdrawal from the race due to injury just days ago, many assumed the trio would make Team USA once again.

Quigley’s absence opened up an array of possibilities for a field that included eight athletes who had the Olympic qualifying time already (9:30). Until 800 meters to go, it looked like Leah Falland might have had a lock on the podium, but she caught a toe on a barrier and fell to the track. Although she got back up quickly and regained position, the combination of adrenaline and trying to regain position was too much. She had nothing left in the last 200 meters and placed ninth.

“I was just really cooked after all of it,” Falland said, in an emotional post-race interview. When asked how confident she was that she could have made the team, she said, “I knew I could do it. I knew it was in there. It was kind of shocking, to be honest. I worked really, really hard to get back to a place where I could contend for that team.”

When Constien saw Falland stumble, she recognized she had an opportunity.

“I kind of knew that was my shot…and then with 400 meters to go, I just ran as hard as I possibly could,” Constien said. “I had no idea where [Falland] was…I just gave it my all.”

Frerichs, 28, was analytical about her race, already identifying what she wants to work on between now and competing at the Tokyo Games. A member of the Bowerman Track Club, she’s the American record holder (9:00.85) and 2017 world championships silver medalist in the event, as well as 2016 Olympian. She said her second-to-last water barrier needs work, as well as her closing speed.

“I think we’re bringing an incredibly strong team [to Tokyo],” Frerichs said. “I mean, it took 9:18 to make the team today. That’s the fastest third-place finish that’s ever happened. That’s incredible. And then I think that Emma and I have consistently been battling up at the front and that force together makes a statement. We’re ready to have a special moment in Tokyo.”

Coburn, 30, is the 2017 world champion and the 2016 Olympic bronze medalist, the first American woman to medal in the steeple. She and Joe Bosshard, her husband and coach, have created a Boulder, Colorado-based training group that includes Cory McGee, who just qualified for the Tokyo Games in the 1500.

Constien is a first-time Olympian who works a full-time customer support job for Stryd, a company that makes power meters that runners put on their shoes to figure out the optimal training intensity. She receives free apparel from TrackSmith but otherwise self-funds her running career, including paying her way to Eugene to compete at the Trials.

“I think that being a blue-collar runner is really cool. Anybody with a full-time job can still have Olympic aspirations,” she said.

Training in Boulder, Constien often runs with Jenny Simpson. She ran the Olympic qualifying time at the Portland Track Festival at the end of May. It was then that she realized it wasn’t enough to just make it to the final—she wanted to make it to Tokyo.

“It just seems like three weeks ago I woke up and said, ‘I could do this,’” Constien said. “So it was really fun. Goals change and dreams get bigger, so I’m really happy that this has happened.”

(06/25/2021) Views: 1,144 ⚡AMP
by Women’s Running

Murphy, Purrier St Pierre and Nilsen among the winners on day of surprises in Eugene

With mayhem all around on the fourth day of action at the US Olympic Trials, two-time world pole vault champion Sam Kendricks is relieved to be going to Tokyo. Two other winners of global titles – world 800m champion Donavan Brazier and 2011 world 1500m champion Jenny Simpson – will not be heading to the Games.

“A gold medal brings golden handcuffs,” Kendricks said. “Wherever we go somewhere it’s a world champion, and they expect a world champion’s effort. People follow in your wake when you’re ahead of the game.”

Clayton Murphy stayed ahead on Monday night (21) in Eugene.

He ran an evenly split world lead of 1:43.17 to win the men’s 800m, showing the form he had as 21-year-old to earn Olympic bronze in Rio in 2016. It was an emphatic response to those who were unsure he would ever recapture that.

That 800m – plus a historic pole vault competition won by Chris Nilsen and a front-running 1500m by Elle Purrier St Pierre – were the highlights of day four ahead of two rest days.

Shockingly, Brazier faded to last in the 800m and will miss a second successive Olympics. He was a pre-trials favourite in 2016, at age 19, coming off a 1:43.55 and NCAA victory, but he failed to get out of the first round then.

This time, NCAA champion Isaiah Jewett bolted ahead and built a lead with an opening lap of 50.60. Brazier crossed the 400m in 51.00 and attempted to reduce that gap on the final backstretch.

“I think I made a move a little too early and paid the price for it in the last 200,” he said.

Murphy, fifth at the midpoint at 51.67, said afterwards that he executed a perfect plan. He caught and passed Jewett, covering the second lap in 51.50. He said he had a “pretty serious hamstring issue” a few days before the trials but overrode it with adrenaline. He also overrode pre-trials form charts leaving him out of the requisite top three.

“It is hard not to read the middle-distance preview,” he said. “I kind of just accept it. As long as I handle it the right way, it is only motivation.”

Jewett was second in a PB of 1:43.85 and Bryce Hoppel, fourth at the 2019 World Championships, finished third in 1:44.14. Brazier eased to the finish in 1:47.88.

USA is sending “a pretty damn good team” to Tokyo, Murphy asserted. Jewett and Hoppel now sit at fourth and seventh on the 2021 world list, respectively.

“I think this is the most special moment in our sport,” said Murphy. “It is the most pure way to pick a team. This is what all those workouts pay off.”

Murphy and Brazier are qualified to run in the 1500m, but both said they probably would not. Brazier did not elaborate but said he was not running at 100 percent.

Jewett said his night was not over. He had a 10-page paper due for a course at the University of Southern California because a teacher had not granted his request for an extension.

Nilsen, an 18-year-old at the 2016 trials, said his goal then was to have his photo taken with Kendricks. In 2021, his 5.90m vault was enough to beat Kendricks and KC Lightfoot, second and third at 5.85m.

Matt Ludwig and Jacob Wooten were fourth and fifth at 5.80m, making this the first national competition ever featuring five men over 5.80m and 11 over 5.70m. It was also the first US meet ever to have three over 5.85m.

“This’ll go down in history as the hardest team ever to make,” Kendricks said.

The team in the women’s 1500m was also hard to make. An early stumble startled Purrier St Pierre, who on the spot decided to push the pace and led all the way thereafter.

Her time of 3:58.03 broke a trials record of 3:58.92 that Mary Slaney held for 33 years. Cory McGee was second in 4:00.67 and Heather MacLean, Purrier St Pierre’s training partner, was third in 4:02.09 as the top three all ran PBs. Shannon Osika was less than a tenth behind in 4:02.18.

Purrier St Pierre grew up on a dairy farm in rural Vermont and runs on dirt roads with her dog. She was shaken by the bumping to start the race.

“I couldn’t believe I’d just been shoved off the track,” she said. “After that, I thought I’d just go for it.”

Simpson, 34, the 2016 Olympic bronze medallist, was aiming for a fourth Olympics but finished 10th in 4:07.76. Coincidentally, she was Purrier St Pierre’s roommate in Doha.

Simpson conceded it was “hard to believe” she had not made the team; she had been on every Olympic or World Championships team since 2007.

“The sport goes on without you,” she said. “You don’t make the Games, and the Games are fine and they go on without you.”

With temperatures soaring past 32C, Elise Cranny won the 5000m in 15:27.81. Karissa Schweizer was second in 15:28.11 and Rachel Schneider third in 15:29.56. Abbey Cooper, who met the Olympic standard by running 15:07.80 in the heats on Friday, was fourth in 15:31.05.

In the absence of the injured Christian Taylor, Will Claye took the triple jump with 17.21m (0.1m/s). Donald Scott was second at 17.18m and Chris Bernard third at 17.01m. “My sights have always been on the gold medal,” Claye said. "I want to win whether Christian is there or not. I feel for Christian. A year ago, I was going through the same thing.”

Curtis Thompson had the four longest throws of the competition and won the javelin with 82.78m.

Roy Jordan for World Athletics

(06/22/2021) Views: 1,302 ⚡AMP
by World Athletics

Sarah Lancaster was born to run but she also excelled in tennis and basketball too

If you’ve spent early mornings on the trails near downtown Austin, Texas you’ve probably crossed paths with Sarah Lancaster — 5 feet, 8 inches of mostly limbs and ponytail, casually eating up miles faster than you could drive on the Hike and Bike Trail, or sprinting so fast around the Austin High track off Lady Bird Lake that her male training partners have to tag each other in for pacing duty.

Lancaster is not just the fastest runner in Austin. She's one of the fastest women in the entire country, and she's competing at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Ore., on Friday in both the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs.

Her personal bests of 4 minutes, 5.55 seconds and 15:13.56 are only a few seconds off the Olympic standards of 4:04.20 and 15:10, meaning she can make this summer's Tokyo Olympics team if she can shave a few seconds off her best times and place in the top three.

Texas legend Trey Hardee, a 2012 Olympic silver medalist in the decathlon, recently declared Lancaster the best athlete in Longhorns history on Twitter, although that actually has as much to do with her pedigree as a dual-sport athlete at UT in tennis and basketball as it does her running resume.

At 33 years old, Lancaster is nearly 15 years behind most of her competitors in terms of specific training for distance running. She works full-time as an attorney in Austin, but nearly everyone who has run with her or coached her agrees: the former tennis ace possesses an unbeatable work ethic and killer instinct that makes her a natural on the track, no matter how late she found the sport.

Tennis beginnings

Lancaster grew up in San Antonio playing every sport offered, but quickly found herself drawn to tennis and basketball. She started taking tennis lessons when she was six years old and was competing in statewide tournaments by the time she was 11.

Lancaster's mother, Kelly, says Sarah was competitive "in everything. It wasn't necessarily sports," and that she inadvertently stoked the fire a few times when Sarah drew a tough opponent during a travel tournament. 

“I would say, ‘Oh gosh, you play so-and-so today, I just hope you get a point,’” Kelly Lancaster said. “Because maybe it was one of the top girls in Texas. She’s commented that I’d pack up our bags to check out of the hotel because I knew she was playing somebody (who was a top seed). And you can always go check back in, but if you don’t check out by 10 or 11, then you have to pay for a whole ‘nother day.

“She said, ‘I’d see mom packing up the bags and think, ‘Obviously, she doesn’t think I’m gonna win today, so I’m gonna show her!' I really didn’t do it for that reason. I was thinking, ‘We’re done, I’m tired, we’re going home.’ Little things like that, I guess, motivated her a little bit to prove me wrong.”

Lancaster played tennis, basketball and ran track during her freshman year at Alamo Heights High School before deciding to enroll in a tennis academy that her coach established more than 200 miles away in Conroe. The academy is no longer in existence, but at the time was affiliated with John Roddick, the older brother of tennis star Andy Roddick.

“I was 15 at the time and, looking back at it, I can’t believe my parents let me do that,” Lancaster said.

A typical day at the tennis academy included two hours of practice in the morning, home school sessions for five to six hours, and another afternoon practice session that could last anywhere from two to three hours. There were about five other female boarders, more young men, and a number of local kids from the area who drove in for practice every day.

“We had a good time,” Lancaster said. “It was definitely not your normal high school experience. ... We were at tournaments a lot, we would go to the movies or just normal things like that ... (but) you’re there to play tennis and you’re there to get good, you’re not there to be partying and having fun.”

Lancaster thrived in the environment, improving her national and state rankings to become one of the best players in Texas.

“For me, it was — I want to go and I want to get as good as I can and see what I can do,” she said of her motivation to attend the tennis academy. “Maybe a little part of me thought I was going to play professionally one day, but I think the focus for me was more on college ... making sure I was going to be recruited.”

Lancaster committed to Texas — "hands down my first choice" — but then suffered a stress fracture in her back and had to take a few months off from tennis. She moved back home and re-enrolled at Alamo Heights, where her old friends convinced her to play basketball again.

It was an easy sell. After all, she was already the best player when she was only a freshman.

"I talked to the UT tennis coach," Lancaster said. "'Hey, you know, I'd kind of like to play basketball. I think it would be fun for me and it might be good for me, coming back from this injury, to do a different sport.'" And she was agreeable to it as long as I taped my ankles for every practice or game."

The move was eerily prescient for her career at Texas. Also prescient — she ran a few track races (she said her best time was a 58-second 400 meters as a freshman).

Texas fight

Given her experience living away from home at the tennis academy, Lancaster’s transition to college and NCAA athletics was pretty seamless. The Texas women’s tennis team, which recently captured its third national championship, was solidly ranked within the top 10 to 20 programs in the nation during her years there, and as a senior in 2010, she helped the Longhorns to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament while totaling a 25-8 singles record, including an 11-0 mark in the Big 12.

“She is one of the best competitors I ever coached,” former UT women’s tennis coach Patty Fendick-McCain said in a text message. “She was the most solid player I ever coached at her position and when the chips were down, I always knew she would come through. She didn’t care what line she played, but that she would get a ‘W’ and contribute to the team.”

Of her own heroics on the court, Lancaster says simply that her personal highlight of her college tennis career was “probably the fact that we beat A&M every time we played them.”

Bored over the summer after her senior year and with one extra semester of school to complete, Lancaster and one of her tennis teammates filmed a video of her doing a trick layup shot. They sent it to their coach, who forwarded the video to the women’s basketball coach at the time, Gail Goestenkors.

To Lancaster’s surprise, Goestenkors told her to go play some pick-up games that summer with the team.

"I went and played with them over the summer, and it was really just pick-up games, coaches couldn't come," Lancaster said. "I didn't really feel like I was completely in over my head, you know — I wasn't like, 'Oh, I'm better than any of these people that have been playing their whole lives and have been recruited to play at the University of Texas,' (but) I felt like I could hold my own."

Sight unseen, based on positive feedback from the players on the team, Lancaster was invited to officially join the roster in the fall.

"None of the coaches had ever seen me play and they basically told me that they would let me play on the team, which was a little bit terrifying,” she said. “The first practice, I was like, please do not miss a layup, please do not miss a layup.

"I think part of it was, the team was really young, there were six or seven freshmen. There was really only one other senior at the time on the team and I think they were just kind of like, 'Sarah knows how to be a student-athlete, she can help these freshmen.' And I guess they confirmed with some other people that I wasn't a terrible basketball player."

Lancaster stepped into the leadership role naturally, had fun at practice and was fine with getting less minutes as the season went on. Her personal highlight from her basketball career didn’t even take place in the Big 12.

"My only basketball highlight is in seventh grade, when I scored 46 points in a game," she said with a straight face. 

'That’s just not something you see every day'

Paras Shah remembers the first time Lancaster showed up to a casual evening workout with RAW Running a few years ago. She made it up Wilke Road — a notoriously brutal 300-meter, 10.8% grade hill in the Barton Hills neighborhood — for all eight repeats, just a few strides behind Shah and the other former NCAA Division I male runners in the group.

"I asked her where she ran in college and she said she didn’t," said Shah, who ran at LSU. "(I thought) that’s obviously not possible. I just didn’t believe her.”

Lancaster was always naturally fast.

In mile time trials throughout her athletic career, she’d routinely clock in just under 5:30.

"Every running drill we did, Sarah was fastest and had the best endurance," Fendick-McCain said. "Her attitude was to leave blood on the court if necessary. She had better endurance than any other player I ever coached or that she played against. If it was a test of wills and endurance, she would always find a way to win."

When Lancaster started law school, she played in various recreational leagues and just had fun ("law school was the most free time I've ever had in my life," she said) while casually completing her first half-marathon. But a few years into the workforce, she happened to meet UT club running coach Kyle Higdon, a UT graduate student, and she asked him to train her to break five minutes in the mile.

"I just felt like that would be a cool thing to say I could do," she said. "And I had actually talked to multiple guys who told me that they tried to do it and couldn't do it. So I was, you know, even more motivated to try."

With light mileage (20-25 miles per week) and a few basic workouts under her belt, she clocked 4:46 in her first 1,500 meter race — the equivalent of a 5:07 mile. By the end of the spring, she had improved to about 4:30 for the 1,500, an incredible time for a brand new runner, albeit one who was 28.

As she watched the Rio Olympics that summer, she wondered: Could she qualify for the 2020 Olympic Trials?

“I had no concept of what a good time was,” she said.

The idea of the Trials wasn’t quite a solidified goal at that point — just a little bug in her head that popped up every now and then. With Higdon finishing his studies and moving on with his career, Lancaster evaluated her group running options, which, in Austin, are mostly marathon training groups that meet in the wee hours of the morning, or more casual after-work clubs.

She chose the latter, and started showing up to RAW. That’s where she met Shah, who helps organize the annual Schrader 1600 every May for high school runners and members of the community. 

At the 2018 event, with about two years of casual training under her belt, Lancaster ran 4:37.55 for 1,600 meters. The girl who kicked the boys’ butts at RAW workouts every Tuesday was legit.

Mike Kurvath remembers the race very vividly. Then 28, the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) track alum ran 4:17 in his section. At the time, he was thinking of moving on from running competitively.

"I remember that very specifically, because in the final 200 meters, she elbowed her way through a couple of high schoolers and it was a really strong move," Kurvath said. "That’s just not something you see every day.

"I was thinking that I was going to be done with running. After I saw that race ... it was actually quite inspiring. After a couple weeks of training with Sarah, you knew the potential was there. It gave me a second chance at my own running."

Kevin Kimball, a UT track alum, offered to help train her.

"Kevin was like, 'you could definitely run the Olympic Trials qualifying time,'" Lancaster said. “In the back of my mind, I had always thought I could … I haven't really been doing that much training and I can already run this fast, like, why can't I run, you know, sub-4:10 in the 1,500? I mean, looking back, that is kind of crazy to think about, but it probably benefited me that I had no real knowledge of running because I didn't see any limitations for myself.”

To make the 2021 Olympic Trials, the qualifying time in the 1,500 meters was 4:06, the equivalent of a 4:25 mile and 4:24 1,600 — a full 13 seconds faster than she had just run.

"Kevin was like, 'I think you can do it,' and I was like, 'all right, well, I'll give it a go.'"

2021 Olympic Trials

Lancaster definitely falls into the camp of athletes who benefited from having an extra pandemic year to train in preparation for the Olympic Trials.

She struggled with injuries in 2019 but regained form in early 2020, running an impressive 15:56 in a 5K time trial at the beginning of the pandemic. That made her consider switching events. She improved her time to 15:34 in December, then ran her Olympic Trials qualifying marks in a two-week period in May.

The major change she made in that six-month period was working with 1996 Olympian Juli Benson. The longtime coach has mentored some of the world’s best distance runners, including Jenny Simpson, whom she guided to a gold medal in the 1,500 at the 2011 World Championships.

"I was very taken aback," Benson said when Lancaster reached out to her. "That’s how unusual it is. I’ve been in the sport for a very long time and her story is really unique.

"I was certainly curious, but it was fairly late into the Olympic year to take on a new athlete who was trying to qualify for the Trials, but her story was so unique and her approach and perspective so intriguing that I definitely wanted to take up the challenge and she’s proven to be remarkable at every turn.

"She can handle everything I throw at her and it’s been really fun. It’s so rare and unique and surprising and refreshing and all of those adjectives, but she is an incredible athlete, I’ll say that."

For the Trials, Lancaster decided to focus on the 1,500, where she's the 14th seed, but also declared in the 5,000, where she's the 17th seed, as a backup plan in case she were to fall or otherwise not advance from her preliminary race. The first round of both races are Friday; the finals are on Monday.

Kurvath, who recently clocked his own personal best of 14:34 in the 5,000, said he knows Lancaster is capable of breaking the 15-minute barrier because they do all of their workouts together.

"I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the workouts, I’ve done the workouts," he said. "She’s been there with me and I just ran 14:34."

Benson thinks Lancaster is just tapping the surface of what she can do in the sport. 

"The other thing that's really, really fascinating about Sarah — she has got the most incredible race instincts," Benson said. "She races as if she's been on a world-class stage for seven or eight years. Her instincts are brilliant. ... I think she really loves to compete and it’s really no more complicated than that. Yes, she has interesting genetics, yes, she has really interesting talent, but I think she keeps it really simple and just wants to go out and see how many people she can beat.”

Lancaster isn’t sure if she’ll keep racing after this year. The World Athletics Championships are hosted by the United States next year, which presents a unique opportunity. She’s engaged to be married this fall. She’ll be 34 next year. For right now, it’s all about soaking in the realization of a long-awaited dream. 

And no, she’s not totally sure where her affinity for middle-distance running comes from, either.

"Tennis is an individual sport," she said. "It’s a high-pressure situation, you know you’re out there playing someone and you can only look at yourself (for) the outcome. You can’t blame anyone else. I think that translates to running. It’s you out there.

"I think I’ve always just wanted to win, I’ve always wanted to compete well and that’s just kind of ingrained in me. So I don’t know if I have a better answer for you than that.”

(06/18/2021) Views: 1,447 ⚡AMP
by Johanna Gretschel

Three American Records and 10 National Records Fall at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix

Elle Purrier’s indoor two-mile American record was just one of many highlights in New York.

Many of the best track and field athletes in the world returned to competition—some for the first time in several months, due to the COVID-19 pandemic—at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix on February 13. The event, typically held at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston, was relocated to the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in Staten Island, New York, because the Boston venue is serving as a mass vaccination site.

And the athletes made the most of this racing opportunity by breaking three American records and 10 national records total on Saturday.

Almost one year after shattering the American record in the mile at the Millrose Games, Elle Purrier broke another national record by winning the women’s two-mile in 9:10.28. Her time improves on the previous American record (9:18.35) set by Jenny Simpson in 2015. Purrier’s performance is also the third-fastest two-mile ever run in history. For Purrier, the victory follows a runner-up finish and 2:02.05 personal best in the 800 meters at the Prickly Pear Invitational in Phoenix, Arizona on February 6—her first race of 2021.

“I felt pretty confident going in, but you never know when you’re just training,” Purrier told journalists in a virtual mixed zone. “[Coach] Mark [Coogan] felt pretty confident about my fitness level, but after that [race] I’m feeling pretty good now.”

Looking back on her mile record a year ago, Purrier—who trains under Coogan with the New Balance group in Boston—said navigating the challenges of 2020 brought some silver linings to her process.

“Millrose was probably one of the biggest highlights of my career, and I think stopping after that was kind of a bummer because I felt like I was on a roll and the team was on a roll,” Purrier said in the mixed zone. “But we were able to kind of just wait it out this summer and get into some great training. And I went home and I find a lot of happiness there, and so I think that built this up to another great training block this fall and this winter.”

The 2018 NCAA mile champion followed the pacemaking set by Leah Falland, who brought the field through the first mile in 4:41. For the remaining laps, Purrier and steeplechase world champion Emma Coburn ran 1-2 in the front. With three laps to go, Purrier broke away from Coburn to seal the win and the record, running the final 400 meters in 63 seconds.

Five seconds behind Purrier, Coburn finished second in a personal best of 9:15.71. In the same race, Julie-Anne Staehli of Canada (9:22.66) and Amy-Eloise Markovc of Great Britain (9:30.69) broke national records for their respective countries.

Hoppel Sets a World Best for 2021

About 20 minutes later, Bryce Hoppel followed the momentum by running a world lead and U.S. national record in the 1,000 meters. The former Kansas Jayhawk and NCAA 800-meter champion broke the previous American record (2:16.76) set by the late David Torrence in 2014.

“It means everything,” Hoppel said. “It’s just something you dream of as a kid, and I couldn’t have done it without all the support that I have, my family, and my coach. They all make it possible. I mean, it feels awesome to get it. That was what I was going for.”

Behind Hoppel, Marco Arop of Canada finished second in 2:17.10, and Charlie Grice finished third in 2:17.20, a national record for Great Britain.

An American Record for Donovan Brazier

Two weeks after being forced to withdraw from the American Track League meet due to COVID-19 exposure, Donavan Brazier returned to the track with a vengeance.

The 2019 world champion lowered the American record by winning the men’s 800 meters in 1:44.21, more than two seconds ahead of runner-up Jamie Webb of Great Britain. Brazier set the previous American record (1:44.22) at the Millrose Games last year.

After Saturday’s victory, Brazier said his coach, Pete Julian, didn’t want him to hold back, and the strategy proved to be successful.

“Pete wanted me to go out and die. That was literally what he said, word-for-word,” Brazier said. “He said, ‘go out hard, see if you can hold it, and we’ll just gauge where you’re at from a fast pace.’ ... I don’t think I’m quite where I was at in Millrose last year, but I still think I’m in decent shape.”

Ajeé Wilson Returns to Competition

The women’s 800 meters featured an unexpected performance from a four-time world championship medalist and American record-holder.

Ajeé Wilson was a late entry to the meet after receiving treatment for a hamstring injury earlier in the week. Unlike her signature racing tactic of leading from the gun, Wilson ran behind the race-leader Kaela Edwards until the homestretch, where she sprinted ahead to finish first in 2:01.79.

“Not knowing exactly how things will play out with my body, I wasn’t trying to take any chances and felt a little more comfortable hanging behind,” Wilson said. “That’s something that we’ve been working on in practice. We’re maybe five strong in our group now, so that definitely prepared me for today and just being comfortable and also making sure I was still in a good position so when I wanted to move, I could.”

The performance is Wilson’s first race since winning the 800 meters at the 2020 USATF Indoor Championships on February 15, 2020. After Saturday’s race, Wilson said she didn’t feel comfortable traveling for competition last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as she interacts with people who are more at risk of catching the virus. Instead, she focused on training at her home base in Philadelphia. Her next competition will be the Texas Qualifier in Austin, Texas from February 26 to 27.

“Although things aren’t much better, I'm feeling a little more comfortable with the precautions we're all taking to be safe,” she said.

Behind Wilson, Sophia Gorriaran—a 15-year-old high school sophomore from Rhode Island—finished fifth in 2:03.94. One week earlier, Gorriaran notched the standard to compete at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team Trials by running 2:02.44 against a professional field at the American Track League meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Two National Records in the Men’s 1500

The men’s 1500 meters featured two national records. Oliver Hoare—who trains under coach Dathan Ritzenhein with the On Running pro group in Boulder, Colorado—kicked to victory in 3:32.35, a national record for Australia. Jake Wightman of Great Britain finished second in 3:34.48, and Sam Tanner—a sophomore at the University of Washington—finished third in 3:34.72, breaking the national record for New Zealand.

The women’s 1500 meters was won by Heather MacLean who out-paced Cory McGee in the final lap to win in 4:06.32.

Michael Norman Races the 400 Meters for the First Time in a Year

For the first time since the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, track fans got to see Michael Norman compete in his signature event, the 400 meters.

The former USC Trojan and NCAA champion—who broke the world record in the indoor 400 meters (44.52) at the NCAA championships in 2018—battled with his training partner Rai Benjamin down the homestretch to secure the victory in 45.34. Benjamin finished second in 45.39.

“The instinct just kicked in,” Norman said. “We're very competitive at practice, especially when it comes to competition. So having that little fun practice rivalry going on, I couldn't have Rai beat me in the race, but he's an amazing competitor, so it was a lot of fun.”

In 2019, Norman failed to make the world championship final in Doha after suffering from an injury in the semifinals. He raced once in 2020—9.86 in the 100 meters at a COVID-adjusted meet in Fort Worth, Texas last July. After a long hiatus from competition, Norman said he felt pleased with the effort on Saturday.

“I’m feeling good,” Norman said. “There's a lot of work that needs to be done, but the main purpose of today was just to go out and compete, have fun and to kind of knock the cobwebs off because it's been over a year since I’ve run that distance.”

Another National Record for Shaunae Miller-Uibo

In her second meet of the year, Shaunae Miller-Uibo broke another Bahamian national record by running 50.21 to win the women’s 400 meters. The time makes her the eighth-fastest performer all-time indoors. The 2016 Olympic champion achieved the mark two weeks after breaking the national record in the indoor 200 meters at the American Track League meet, where she ran a personal best of 22.40.

World record-holder Keni Harrison also ran a world leading time on Saturday. The 2018 world indoor champion won the 60-meter hurdles in 7.82 seconds.

In the same race, Sydney McLaughlin finished last in 8.56. The race was McLaughlin’s highly anticipated return to the track after earning silver in the 400-meter hurdles and contributing to Team USA’s winning performance in the 4x400-meter relay at the 2019 World Championships. Saturday’s race was McLaughlin’s first time contesting the event since 2015, when she was in high school.

After the race, she said the race was an exercise in training with her non-dominant leg over hurdles. “It’s something we've been thinking about for awhile, just being able to hurdle efficiently with both legs, and what better way to do that than the short hurdles?” McLaughlin said. “It's such a short race and such a fast-paced race that you can really work on that technique. It was good to get into a fast race and really be forced to use it without being able to think that much.”

Noah Lyles Keeping His Eyes on Tokyo

Noah Lyles did double duty in the sprints on Saturday. The 2019 200-meter world champion ran the first round of the 60 meters in 6.76 seconds and returned to the track to contest the 200 meters. Holding off competitors Deon Lendore and Jaron Flournoy, Lyles made it to the finish line in 20.80, well off the typical winning times in his signature event.

While Lyles admitted he wasn’t pleased with the time (and his body language conveyed as such), he still took the experience as a lesson moving forward in his bid to represent Team USA and win more medals at the Tokyo Games this summer.

“We’ve been training for a lot of strength and endurance and it obviously paid off because I was able to come into the 60, warm up, and then I was able to shake off any type of fatigue I had from it,” Lyles said. “I still feel really good, even coming off of the 200, like I could run three more. So I actually feel strong, which is really what we were trying to get out of training, and coming here was to see how much speed we got in the tank. To be honest, it actually proved that what we’re doing is working.”

Trayvon Bromell Crosses First in the 60 Meters

After battling a series of injuries for the past few years, Trayvon Bromell returned to his winning ways on Saturday. After leading the 60-meter semifinal in 6.53, the 2016 world indoor champion won the final in 6.50 by breaking away from his competition in the second half of the race. Runner-up Demek Kemp followed in 6.65.

Looking back on the challenges of the past few years, Bromell credited his spirituality with his return to form and a newfound motivation.

“I'm here to run and make an impact on kids, adults who may have lost hope,” Bromell said. “I feel like my testimony of what I’ve been through gives people that, and it shows the sport in another light than just winning medals or running fast times. That’s all good, but what impact do you leave? I’m trying to be impactful, not impressive.”


(02/14/2021) Views: 1,232 ⚡AMP
by Runner’s World

Keira D’Amato Is Trying to Break the American 10-Mile Record on Monday. It Could Cost Her Thousands of Dollars.

Since 2011, Keira D’Amato has been part of the race committee for the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run, the famous Washington, D.C. road race held along the banks of the Potomac River. She’s held a few different roles over the years; recently she’s been responsible for coordinating speakers for clinics at the race expo. This year, Molly Huddle was one of the scheduled speakers, and D’Amato told her she believed Huddle could break the women’s-only American record of 52:12, set by Janet Bawcom at Cherry Blossom in 2014 (coincidentally, D’Amato held the finish line tape for that race). After telling Huddle about the record, D’Amato realized something: I can run that fast too.

Over the following six months, as D’Amato has risen from obscurity to one of the best distance runners in the United States, that statement has become blindingly obvious. After running a personal best 2:34:24 to finish 15th at the Olympic Marathon Trials in February, the 36-year-old has spent the summer and fall demolishing her pbs, from a 15:04 time trial 5,000 on the track in June to a 32:33 10,000 at the MVMNT Race Series in July to a 68:57 to win the Michigan Pro Half Marathon on October 28.

On Monday, D’Amato will try to back up her claim from the spring: she’s going for Bawcom’s record at the Up Dawg Ten Miler, where she’ll face a five-woman professional field that includes Olympian Molly Seidel. And that leads into one of the oddest statistics of a very odd year.

If D’Amato had broken the record at Cherry Blossom in April (which cancelled its 2020 edition due to COVID-19), she would have earned a $10,000 bonus.

If D’Amato breaks the record on Monday — or even if she doesn’t — she could end up out around $8,000.

That’s because D’Amato is covering most of the costs of the Up Dawg Ten Miler, which will take place in an undisclosed location in the DC area. Even though D’Amato is staging a race for five athletes rather than Cherry Blossom’s typical 17,000, several key expenses remain: getting the course USATF-certified and measured, securing park permits and road closures. It can add up quickly.

And then there is drug testing. USATF rules state drug testing is only required to ratify American records in events for which World Athletics recognizes an official world record. Since 10 miles is a “world best” distance, that means drug testing isn’t required to ratify an American record at the Up Dawg Ten Miler — but D’Amato is leaning toward including it anyway to avoid all doubts. However, based on the quote she received from USADA, it would run her an extra $3,000-$3,500. She hasn’t made a final decision yet.

There is an online store selling race merchandise to help offset the cost of the event. And around 20 members of the CUCB organizing committee have also chipped in a total of $2,000 — and, more importantly, their time — so that D’Amato can chase the record.

“If there was a way to measure intensity per person, this race would be much more intense [than the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile Run],” says CUCB event director Phil Stewart. “We’re not dealing with getting 17,000 people entered in the race and moving them around or ordering as many porta potties or things like that, but this is a group of special individuals. I’ve spent a lot of time being consumed by making sure that we have all of the conditions set for the record to be accepted if the record is broken. If Keira or anybody breaks the record here, the worst nightmare would be that there was some little USATF rule that I didn’t know about that was required for an American record to be set.”

Stewart knows that feeling all too well; last year, Stanley Kebenei thought he had broken Greg Meyer‘s American 10-mile record at Cherry Blossom, only for it to be revealed that a set of cones had been improperly placed, making the course 240 feet short (CUCB still paid Kebenei the $10,000 bonus).

With no mass race entries to fund the Up Dawg Ten Miler, CUCB will lose money on the event. But it’s worth it to Stewart to support D’Amato, whose meteoric rise he has followed first-hand — Stewart was among a group of CUCB committee members who traveled to Atlanta to support her in the Trials in February.

“One of the things that has been fun about [this event] is that in a time when there’s so much downbeat news, I think a lot of people have gotten excited about working on something that’s upbeat,” Stewart says.

And D’Amato? Well, in keeping with her carefree, laid back demeanor, she’s trying not to think about the cost and electing to focus on the positives. Five fast women (Susanna Sullivan, Bethany Sachtleben, and Emily Durgin round out the field) are gathering on Monday at 8 a.m. to race 10 miles. There will be a free live stream, with commentary, on the CUCB Facebook page. This should be fun, right? No. This will be fun.

“For me, it’s not about the money at all,” D’Amato says. “Right now when everyone’s starving for motivation and opportunity, I felt like this would be a service to the running community. And it fell in line really perfectly with my training too.”

Keira D’Amato’s return to competitive running began with a joke. Which, if you know anything about D’Amato, could not be more fitting.

D’Amato loves all things humor. The name of Monday’s race, Up Dawg, was her idea — a nod to a joke from The Office. When D’Amato joined Strava a few years ago, she began using jokes or puns to title her runs. Sample entry: November 16. My cousin, a magician, decided to incorporate the use of trapdoors in his shows. But I think it’s just a stage he’s going through. She used to rely on her children’s popsicle sticks for material or by asking her Amazon Alexa, “Tell me a joke.” As she amassed Strava followers (she’s over 2,600 now), she began receiving suggestions from fans — which delights her to no end.

“You have no idea how awesome it is that when people hear a funny joke, they think, Oh, I need to send this to Keira,” she says.

D’Amato’s impishness was on display during Christmas 2016, when she decided to gift her husband, Anthony, an entry to the 2017 Shamrock Marathon, held in March in Virginia Beach.

“Who gives someone a gift of a marathon entry?” D’Amato says. “Because that means you have to start training a lot. It’s kind of a backhanded compliment gift, I guess. But then I felt a little bad, so I signed up too.”

D’Amato was no stranger to running. A four-time All-American at American University under coach Matt Centrowitz, she finished 6th at the 2005 NCAA XC champs as a senior, ahead of future stars Amy Cragg, Molly Huddle, and Jenny Simpson. She remains friendly with the Centrowitz family, and is even in a fantasy football league with Olympic 1500 champ Matthew Centrowitz — let’s just say both D’Amato and Centro are better runners than fantasy football managers.

“I think at one point, I was in second-to-last and he was dead last,” D’Amato says. “But I also think Centro does a whole bunch of them, so maybe in his other leagues he’s doing better. But it was either the first or second week, I played him, and I crushed him.”

After graduating in 2006, D’Amato (then known as Keira Carlstrom) spent a few years running for DC Elite, a post-collegiate group coached by Scott Raczko — better known as the coach of Alan Webb. By 2008, she had lowered her 1500 personal best to 4:22, but was in constant pain, beset by a series of stress fractures and ankle pain. Her issues were the result of a condition known as a tarsal coalition — an abnormal bridging of bones in the foot — but the surgery to correct it was not covered by her insurance.

So D’Amato “retired” and got a job at mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Even after undergoing surgery to correct her condition in 2009 (her new job had better insurance), D’Amato ran sparingly for the next seven years. In her first run back after giving birth to her daughter, Quin, in August 2016 (she also has a six-year-old son, Tommy), D’Amato couldn’t make it through a three-minute run without walking. Yet she steadily built up ahead of Shamrock, and despite hail, sleet, and brutal winds on race day, D’Amato blew past her pre-race goal of 3:25.

“I couldn’t run slow enough to do that pace,” says D’Amato, who ran 3:14.

D’Amato felt there was a lot left in the tank, and took her next marathon, in Richmond in November, more seriously. After running 2:47 there — just two minutes off the Olympic Trials standard — she knew it was time to return to serious training. She reunited with Raczko, and steadily dropped her times while balancing running with her career as a realtor. When she ran a pb of 2:34 to finish 15th at the Trials at age 35, it looked like the culmination of a remarkable three-year journey.

In reality, D’Amato was just getting started.

Since the Trials, D’Amato has run personal bests over almost every distance. Her 15:04 5,000 doesn’t officially count because it came in a time trial rather than a race, but it’s faster than the Olympic standard of 15:10 and would have ranked her 6th in the US during the 2020 outdoor season.

Her most impressive performance came in last month’s Michigan Pro Half Marathon, where she clocked 68:57, 47 seconds ahead of runner-up Emma Bates, a 2:25 marathoner who finished 7th at the Olympic Trials. That made D’Amato the second-fastest American half marathoner on the year, behind Sara Hall, and 10th on the US all-time list. She is now in very elite company.

(11/22/2020) Views: 1,307 ⚡AMP
by LetsRun

First american trio Cory McGee, Dani Jones and Emma Coburn, to run sub 4:24 in the same race at Indiana Mile

Cory McGee, Dani Jones and Emma Coburn took advantage of racing at sea level for the first time outdoors this year and achieved history by becoming the first American trio to all run under 4 minutes, 24 seconds in the same race Saturday at the Team Boss Indiana Mile at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion.

McGee, a New Balance professional, surged with 250 meters remaining and never relinquished control, clocking a lifetime-best 4:21.81 to elevate to the No. 8 all-time American outdoor performer.

Jones (4:23.33), a first-year professional, and Coburn (4:23.65), also a New Balance athlete, achieved significant personal bests to ascend to the Nos. 10 and 11 outdoor performers in U.S. history.

Tripp Hurt won the men’s mile in a world-leading 3:56.18, just off his 3:56.02 lifetime best, with Nick Harris running a personal-best 3:57.11 and Mason Ferlic achieving a sub-4 clocking for the first time in his career to place third in 3:58.87.

McGee also achieved a 1,500-meter personal best en route of 4:03.82 to run the fastest female mile time ever on Indiana soil. Jones also ran 4:05 to lower her 1,500 personal best as well.

Canadian talent Nicole Sifuentes clocked 4:30.50 in the mile on the oversized indoor track at Notre Dame in 2016, to move just ahead of Suzy Favor Hamilton’s 4:30.64 on a standard 200-meter indoor banked track from 1989 in Indianapolis.

But thanks to the aggressive pacing of South African Dom Scott Efurd, an adidas professional who brought the group through 440 yards at 1:03.2 and the midway point in 2:10.08, all of her teammates benefited to post the top three outdoor marks in the world this year.

Coburn, who ran 4:32.72 at 4,583 feet elevation June 27 to win the Team Boss Colorado Mile at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, held the advantage with one lap remaining Saturday at 3:16.30, followed closely by McGee (3:16.56) and Jones (3:16.85).

On four previous occasions, a pair of Americans had both run under 4:24 in the same mile race, but never a trio of athletes. The most recent occurrence came at the 2018 Muller Anniversary Games, the annual London Diamond League Meeting, with Jenny Simpson placing fourth in 4:17.30 and Kate Grace taking eighth in 4:20.70 behind winner and Dutch star Sifan Hassan in 4:14.71.

Grace and Shannon Rowbury were the only tandem to achieve the feat indoors at the 2017 Wanamaker Mile at the NYRR Millrose Games, finishing second and third behind World 1,500-meter gold medalist Hassan.

The other two races where two Americans have run under 4:24 outdoors occurred at the 2015 Diamond League final in Belgium – with Rowbury and Simpson taking third and fourth behind Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon and Hassan – along with the 1998 Goodwill Games in New York, where Regina Jacobs and Favor Hamilton took second and third behind Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan.

The last country to achieve the feat of three athletes running sub-4:24 in the same mile race was Ethiopia, which had Gudaf Tsegay (4:18.31), Axumawit Embaye (4:18.58) and Alemaz Samuel (4:23.35) at last year’s Diamond League Meeting in Monaco.

Russia at the 1993 Golden Gala in Rome and Great Britain at the 2017 Muller Anniversary Games in London are the only other countries to accomplish the sub-4:24 trifecta in the same race.

Australian talent Morgan McDonald paced the men’s race through 440 yards in 58.9 and the midway point in 1:58.87. He brought his teammates through 1,000 meters at 2:28, before moving out wide to give way to Hurt just before the bell lap at 2:57.25.

Harris surged with 300 meters remaining to take a brief lead, but Hurt responded to regain the advantage with 200 left, as the athletes achieved the top two outdoor times in the world this year, with Ferlic elevating to the No. 4 global performer.

The fastest men’s mile time on Indiana soil remains a 3:54.48 from Irish star Marcus O’Sullivan in Indianapolis in 1993.

 

(07/27/2020) Views: 5,535 ⚡AMP
by Mile Split

The 113th NYRR Millrose Games will host the greatest array of talent ever assembled

The 113th NYRR Millrose Games will host many of the world’s best track & field men and women to perform on centre stage on February 8 at The Armory New Balance Track & Field Center in Washington Heights in New York City. 

This year’s NYRR Millrose Games field is arguably the most talented overall since the meet moved to The Armory in 2012.

NYRR Millrose Games Meet Director Ray Flynn takes it one step further: “This year’s Millrose Games features probably the greatest array of talent ever assembled in its 113-year history.”

Moreover, 16 women and 15 men are Olympians in the 113th NYRR Millrose Games.

Allyson Felix headlines the women’s side. Felix is a six-time Olympic gold medalist and is the most decorated athlete in the history of track & field. She is entered in the Women’s 60m and has her sights set on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics this summer.

Joining Felix as the top women track & field athletes in this year’s NYRR Millrose Games are: Ajeé Wilson (competing in the Jack and Lewis Rudin Women’s 800m), the American Indoor and Outdoor record-holder in the 800m, two-time World Championships bronze medalist and two-time World Indoor silver medalist, Laura Muir (Jack and Lewis Rudin Women’s 800m), a four-time European Indoor champion and 2018 European 1,500m champion. 

Sandi Morris (Women’s pole vault), the World Indoor champion in 2018 and 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist, Kenni Harrison (Women’s 60m hurdles), the 100m hurdles world record holder, 2018 World Indoor champion and 2019 World silver medalist, Nia Ali (60m hurdles), 2019 World gold medalist in 100m hurdles and 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist, Wadeline Jonathas (Women’s 400m), 2019 World Championships gold medalist in 4x400m Relay.

Konstanze Klosterhalfen (Women’s Wanamaker Mile), the defending Women’s Wanamaker Mile champion and 2019 World Championships bronze medalist in the 5,000m, Nikki Hiltz (Women’s Wanamaker Mile), 2019 World Championships 1,500m finalist and last weekend turned in a PR 4:29.39 to win the mile at the Dr Sander Invitational Columbia Challenge at The Armory, Elinor Purrier (Women’s Wanamaker Mile), the 2018 NCAA Indoor Mile champion, runner-up in the 2019 New Balance 5thAvenue Mile Presented by NYRR with a time of 4:16.2 on the heels of winner Jenny Simpson’s 4:16.1 and this past weekend set a personal-best 9:29.19 to win the two-mile race at the New Balance Grand Prix, Brittany Brown(Women’s 400m), 2019 World Outdoor Championships 200m silver medalist.

The top men competing for feature Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs, who will reprise last year’s duel in the men’s shot put from the centre of the infield. Crouser is the 2016 Olympic champion and 2019 World silver medalist, while Kovacs is the 2015 and 2019 World champion and the 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist.

Other top men competing in the 113th NYRR Millrose Games include, Omar McLeod (Men’s 60m hurdles), 2016 Rio Olympics gold medalist, Grant Holloway (Men’s 60m hurdles), the 2019 World Championships gold medalist in the 110 hurdles, Ronnie Baker (Men’s 60m), 2018 World Indoor Championships bronze medalist in 60m and third fastest 60m in history. 

Donavan Brazier (Men’s 800m) 2019 World Championship gold medalist and American indoor and outdoor record-holder in 800m; and in 2019 he broke the Indoor world record in 600m at USATF Championships, Michael Saruni (Men’s 800m), NYRR Millrose Games champion, NCAA record-holder and Kenyan Indoor 800m record-holder, Isaiah Harris (Men’s 800m), 2018 NCAA champion, Bryce Hoppel (Men’s 800m), 2019 NCAA champion and World Championships finalist, Rai Benjamin (Men’s 300m), 2019 World Championships silver medalist in 400 hurdles and 2019 U.S. Champion 400m hurdles.

Filip Ingebrigtsen (Men’s NYRR Wanamaker Mile), Norwegian National record holder in both the 1,500m and mile, and 2017 World Championships bronze medalist in 1,500m, Nick Willis (Men’s NYRR Wanamaker Mile), two-time Olympic 1,500m medalist, silver (2008) and bronze (2016). When Willis ran a 3:59.89 last weekend in the New Balance Grand Prix it marked the 18th consecutive year he ran a sub-4-minute mile, tying John Walker’s record. Willis won a record-breaking fifth title at the Fifth Avenue Mile last September, Chris O’Hare, (Men’s NYRR Wanamaker Mile), 2018 NYRR Wanamaker Mile champion, Eric Jenkins (Men’s NYRR Wanamaker Mile), 2017 NYRR Wanamaker Mile champion, Paul Tanui (Men’s 3,000m), 2016 Rio Olympics silver medalist in 10,000m.

(02/04/2020) Views: 1,992 ⚡AMP

Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei was voted the 2019 New York Road Runners Pro Performer of the Year after winning the TCS New York City Marathon

Joyciline Jepkosgei Voted 2019 New York Road Runners Pro Performer of the Year, in the second-fastest time in event history in her marathon debut and also winning the United Airlines NYC Half. The NYRR Pro Performer of the Year award recognizes the top athlete for his or her outstanding achievements at NYRR races over the entire year.

“Joyciline had an incredible year, becoming the first athlete ever to win an open division title at the TCS New York City Marathon and the United Airlines NYC Half in the same year,” said Chris Weiller, NYRR senior vice president of media, public relations and professional athletics. “She’s one of the world’s best runners and she showed it on streets of New York in her first two trips to the United States. We are extremely grateful at NYRR to have had Joyciline inspire our running community twice this year with her historic runs through the five boroughs.”

Jepkosgei, 26, won the 2019 TCS New York City Marathon in 2:22:38, just seven seconds off the women’s open division course record. It was the fastest time ever by a woman making her New York City Marathon debut. At the 2019 United Airlines NYC Half, during her first-ever trip to the United States, she won on a solo run to the finish in a time of 1:10:07. The world championship silver medalist in the distance became the sixth woman from Kenya to win the event, and the first to do so since 2014.

The finalists for the award were chosen based off their performances at the following NYRR races in the NYRR Pro Racing Series: NYRR Wanamaker Mile, United Airlines NYC Half, UAE Healthy Kidney 10K, NYRR New York Mini 10K and USATF 10 km Championships, New Balance 5th Avenue Mile, Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K and USATF 5 km Championships, and TCS New York City Marathon.

The other nominees for 2019 NYRR Pro Performer of the Year included: Geoffrey Kamworor (Kenya), Daniel Romanchuk (USA), Manuela Schär (Switzerland), Jenny Simpson (USA), and Nick Willis (New Zealand). The public vote accounted for one-third of the final tally, the media vote counted for one third, and an NYRR committee counted for one third.

(12/18/2019) Views: 1,928 ⚡AMP

Nick Willis and Jenny Simpson are the New Balance Fifth Ave Mile winners again

Nick Willis appears to be getting better with age.

The 36-year-old runner added to his legendary career with a record-breaking fifth victory at the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile Sunday in New York City.

Willis pulled out the victory with a time of 3-minutes,51.7-seconds in a photo-finish race.

The former University of Michigan runner and 2-time Olympic medalist has now claimed the men’s title five times, with victories in 2008, 2013, 2015 and 2017 and 2019, placing the New Zealand native alone atop the men’s division in the history books.

Willis still lives and trains in Ann Arbor and the win adds to his accomplishments, which include a silver medal in the Beijing 2008 Olympics, a bronze medal in the Rio 2016 Games and a bronze medal in the 2016 World Championships.

On the women’s side of the event, Jenny Simpson of Webster City, Iowa, claimed her seventh title in a row and eighth overall in 4:16.1 on Sunday. 

The New Balance 5th Avenue Mile race began in 1981 -- two years before Willis was born -- and overtime has become one of the world’s premier mile races.

(09/08/2019) Views: 2,384 ⚡AMP

Nikki Hiltz plans to race for the podium at Fifth Avenue Mile

Nikki Hiltz will compete against a stacked field that includes Olympic medalist Jenny Simpson at the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile on Sept. 8.

Simpson will race for her record-extending eighth title in the event, which stretches 20 blocks down Manhattan’s most famous thoroughfare and is expected to draw nearly 8,000 runners across 24 heats. NBC will broadcast the professional races live at 9 a.m. PDT.

Hiltz, who recently won gold in the 1,500-meter race at the Pan American Games, has been America’s best road miler in 2019 with wins at the BAA Mile, adidas Boost Games Mile, and the USATF Road Mile Championships.

The race is expected to be her final tune-up before she competes in the 1,500 at the IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, alongside Simpson and Shelby Houlihan.

Allie Ostrander, a three-time NCAA champion in the steeplechase who also qualified for her first World Championships this fall, will line up for her first road race as a pro athlete. Elinor Purrier, who also qualified for her first World Championships this year, in the 5 kilometers, will look to contend as well. Canadian Olympian Jessica O’Connell and 2019 10k national champion, Genevieve Lalonde, as well as Great Britain’s Jessica Judd, will lead the international contingent.

“Fast times don’t really give me confidence, but performances do,” she said. “I just want to race people. The Fifth Avenue Mile is an awesome race—I’m going to really go for it and it’ll be a really good springboard. It’s really what I need to be confident going into worlds.”

(08/22/2019) Views: 4,105 ⚡AMP

Jenny Simpson will race for her record-extending eighth title and Nick Willis will chase his record-breaking fifth men’s title at the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile

The New Balance 5th Ave Mile stretches 20 blocks down Manhattan’s most famous thoroughfare and is expected to draw nearly 8,000 runners across 24 heats. It includes specialty heats for youth and seniors, with the professional athlete races rounding out the day. In partnership with New York Road Runners and USA Track & Field, NBC will broadcast the professional athlete races live on NBC at 12:30 p.m. ET.

“The New Balance 5th Avenue Mile is such an iconic road race that allows people of all ages and abilities to participate in the event on one of the most famous streets in New York City,” said Michael Capiraso, president and CEO of New York Road Runners. “This year will be incredibly special, as we celebrate 20 years of NYRR’s free youth programs.”

In the professional women’s race, Jenny Simpson, who serves as an ambassador and special advisor to NYRR’s youth programs, owns the event-record time of 4:16.6 on Fifth Avenue, which she set when winning the race in 2017. She has earned three IAAF World Championships medals in the metric mile, beginning with a gold at the 2011 World Championships. She followed that with a silver in both 2013 and 2017. In 2016, she took bronze in the 1500 meters at the Rio Olympics, making her the first American woman in history to reach the podium in that event.

Simpson will be challenged in the professional women’s race by Nikki Hiltz, who just won gold over 1500 meters at the Pan American Games and has been America’s best road miler in 2019 with wins at the BAA Mile, Adidas Boost Games Mile, and the USATF Road Mile Championships. 

Allie Ostrander, a three-time NCAA champion in the steeplechase who qualified for her first World Championships this fall, will join them as she lines up for her first road race as a professional athlete. Elinor Purrier, who also qualified for her first World Championships this year, will look to contend as well. Canada’s 2019 national champion Genevieve Lalonde and Olympian Jessica O’Connell, and Great Britain’s Jessica Judd, will lead the international contingent.

Leading the professional men’s field will be nick Willis, a four-time New Balance 5th Avenue Mile champion and two-time Olympic medalist who finished second last year. Willis, who won the event in 2008, 2013, 2015, and 2017, is tied with Spain’s Isaac Viciosa for the most career victories in the men’s race.

Challenging him as he goes for a record-breaking fifth title will be Great Britain’s two-time New Balance 5th Avenue Mile runner-up Chris O’Hare and road 5K world record-holder Edward Cheserek, who is the most decorated athlete in NCAA history with 17 titles at the University of Oregon.

Also joining them at the start line will be Johnny Gregorek, who is fresh off a silver medal at the Pan American Games and the world’s fourth-fastest miler this year. 

(08/21/2019) Views: 2,652 ⚡AMP

Japanese Nozomi Tanaka missed the national record by miscounting her laps just misses national 3,000m record less than four seconds

This track season has seen a strange amount of mishaps. It started with Hagos Gebrhiwet miscounting his laps at the Lausanne 5,000m and was followed by Jonathan Jones missing the false start at the Monaco 400m and finishing the race.

The latest is from Japanese runner Nozomi Tanaka, who miscounted the laps in her national 3,000m record attempt on Wednesday. Japan Running News reported that with 800m to go (two laps) Tanaka broke away and opened up a sizable lead.

The runner said post-race, “It’s kind of embarrassing, but I lost count of the laps and thought I was on the last lap when I kicked. I didn’t have anything left after that.”

Tanaka finished in 8:48.38, under four seconds off of the national record of 8:44.40 set in 2002.

Jenny Simpson, one of the all-time greatest American runners, made a similar mistake in 2014 when she miscounted the laps in an indoor 2-mile, but still managed to come close to breaking the American record in the event.

World Championship finalist Lopez Lomong also fell victim to the lap miscount in 2012 at Payton Jordan, when he kicked too early but still held on to take the win in 13:11 over 5,000m.

(07/20/2019) Views: 2,342 ⚡AMP
by Madeleine Kelly

Ethiopian Yomif Kejelcha won the 5,000 easily at Payton Jordan invitational last night clocking 13:10 along with other top performances

The big names at the Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford's Cobb Track and Field stadium in Palo Alto, Calif. all got wins last night. 

Clayton Murphy won the 1500 (3:37.59) comfortably, Jessica Hull won the 1500 (4:12.08).

 Allie Ostrander the steeple, Jenny Simpson got the win (15:21) over Rachel Schneider in the 5,000.

Yomif Kejelcha won the 5,000 easily (13:10 for him, 13:17 for 2nd) and Sifan Hassan’s 10,000m debut (31:18) was a success.

Ben True won the 10k (27:52) but no one got the Worlds standard.

New Balance professional Jenny Simpson won the women's 5,000 meters in her outdoor season opener in 15:21.12.

Simpson, who last ran an outdoor 5,000 in August of 2013 in Switzerland in a personal-best 14:56.26 after capturing the USATF title that year, was competing at Payton Jordan for the first time since winning the 1,500 in 2010 in 4:08.11.

Simpson ascended to No. 3 in the world this year in the 5,000, also achieving the IAAF World Championships standard.

(05/03/2019) Views: 1,805 ⚡AMP

Laura Muir will start her summer by racing at the Vitality Westminster Mile

Racing for the first time since successfully defending her two European indoor titles, Laura Muir will look to pick up from where she left off as she seeks a strong start to her summer season at the Vitality Westminster Mile.

With the London race taking place on May 26, Muir will begin her outdoor campaign around the same time of year as she is used to, despite it being a longer season with the IAAF World Championships in Doha taking place in September and October. The difference now, however, is that the Scot heads into her summer as a full-time athlete for the first time, having juggled veterinary degree studies and exams with her athletics over the past seven years.

“The Vitality Westminster Mile will be my very first race of the outdoor season and then the plan is to get on the track the week or so after that,” explains Muir. “It’s a similar time I guess to normal for me opening up, but this time I won’t have exams a couple of weeks beforehand!

“I’m really excited. It was 2013 that I last competed there (at the Westminster Mile) and I remember it really clearly,” adds the 25-year-old, who clocked 4:46 then to place eighth in a race won by Hannah England in 4:31.

“For a race that was six years ago, I remember it really well. It’s so iconic, running on that course and finishing next to Buckingham Palace.”

Since then Muir has won four European indoor titles, including her 1500m and 3000m golds gained on home soil in Glasgow last month, plus two world indoor medals, 1500m gold at the European Championships in Berlin and two Diamond League titles.

As British 1500m record-holder with her time of 3:55.22 from 2016, Muir’s road mile best currently stands at 4:18.4 and she set that when finishing second behind USA’s Jenny Simpson at the 5th Avenue Mile in 2016.

While Muir says she doesn’t have Laura Weightman’s British record of 4:17.06 as a specific target next month, she could come close, especially as she aims for a maiden national road mile title, with the event incorporating the British one mile road championships.

“I just want to be competitive, go out there and race and really enjoy it,” says Muir, who broke the British indoor mile record with 4:18.75 in Birmingham in February. “Last time I recall there were a few corners and things, so I’m not sure if it’s going to be fast fast but it will still be a very high-quality race and at a really good pace.

(04/02/2019) Views: 1,877 ⚡AMP

Jenny Simpson becomes the first woman to win the iconic season-ending race seven times at New Balance 5th Avenue Mile

It was chilly and rainy in Manhattan Sunday as world and Olympic medallist Jenny Simpson won her seventh and consecutive New Balance Fifth Avenue Mile, running 4:19. This was the 38th running of the iconic season-ending race. Colleen Quigley of the U.S. was second, in 4:20, and the U.K.’s Melissa Courtney was third, in 4:21. The men’s race was swept by runners from the Commonwealth, including Jake Wightman of Nottingham, U.K. in first place, with a time of 3:54, defending champion New Zealander Nick Willis in second (3:55) and Neil Gourley of the U.K. in third (3:56). Wightman is the 2018 European Championships bronze medalist in the 1,500m, and it was his first win at this event. (09/10/2018) Views: 1,807 ⚡AMP

Three-time World Championships medalist Jenny Simpson and Nick Willis to Race the New Balance 5th Avenue Mile

18 Olympians will toe the line in the world’s most iconic road mile race, including Olympians Matthew Centrowitz, Emma Coburn, Lopez Lomong, and Boris Berian; Event to be aired live on NBC and feature 22 heats throughout the day, including Rising New York Road Runners heats for youth and the George Sheehan Memorial Mile for seniors.  Olympic bronze medalist and three-time World Championships medalist Jenny Simpson and two-time Olympic medalist Nick Willis will go for their record-setting seventh and fifth event titles at the 2018 New Balance 5th Avenue Mile on Sunday, September 9. Stretching 20 blocks down Manhattan’s most famous thoroughfare, the race will draw a professional athlete field from 11 countries. (08/28/2018) Views: 2,541 ⚡AMP