Running News Daily

Course records smashed in Amsterdam

Ethiopia’s Degitu Azmeraw smashed the women’s course record at the TCS Amsterdam Marathon with 2:19:26, the second-fastest debut in history for the distance, while Kenya’s Vincent Kipchumba won a close men’s contest in 2:05:09 at the IAAF Gold Label road race on Sunday (20).

On a morning with perfect windless conditions and temperatures between 10-12C, the pace in the women’s race was swift from the outset. Azimeraw was one of six athletes in the lead pack and passed through 5km in 16:26 and 10km in 32:49. The six women were still together through the half-way point, reached in 1:10:00 exactly, and 30km, covered in 1:39:40.

It was only after then that the real racing began and the group was whittled down to five at 35km (1:56:14) with Azimeraw, Tigist Girma, Azmera Gebru, Besu Sado and Mimi Belete still in contention.

The quintet eventually dispersed over the final few kilometres with Azimeraw – who had clocked 1:06:07 for the half marathon this year – forging ahead to win in 2:19:26, taking almost two minutes from Meseret Hailu Debele’s 2:21:09 course record set in 2012. Former world record-holder Paula Radcliffe is the only woman to record a faster marathon debut, having clocked 2:18:56 in 2002.

“I wanted to see what it was like to run a marathon,” said Azimeraw. “I was expecting a time of about 2:20 so this result is definitely a success.”

Girma was second in 2:19:52, taking almost seven minutes off the PB she set when winning in Ottawa earlier this year. Gebru finished third, replicating her position from last year, but was rewarded with a PB of 2:20:48, while Sado – a former 1500m specialist making her marathon debut – was fourth in 2:21:03, also inside the previous course record.

Bo Ummels, another debutante, was the top Dutch finisher and so became the national champion, clocking 2:32:34.

As was the case in the women’s contest, the men’s race really got going after 35km. Up until that point, a large pack of nine men were still in contention, having gone through 10km in 29:27 and the half-way point in 1:03:00.

Kenya’s Elisha Rotich and Vincent Kipchumba and Ethiopia’s Solomon Deksisa and debutant Betesfa Getahun took the initiative after going through 35km in 1:44:07. Just before entering Vondelpark at 39km, Rotich and Deksisa accelerated and built up a small lead. Both pursuers, however, came back under the leadership of Kipchumba.

After leaving the park at the 41-kilometre point, Kipchumba ran away from the others to finally finish in Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium in 2:05:09. Deksisa was second in 2:05:16, just holding off Rotich (2:05:18). Getahun also finished well below 2:06 on his debut with 2:05:28.

Kipchumba improved his personal record of 2:06.56 from April this year and was happy:

“We had a very strong group and the pace at the entrance to Vondelpark was very fast,” said Kipchumba, who improved on his PB of 2:06:56. “I started to close the gap with the two front runners. I was hoping for a time of 2:05:50, so I’m very satisfied with 2:05:09.”

The Dutch top runner, Abdi Nageeye, felt some pain in his right hamstring from 10km onwards and had to settle for ninth place in 2:07:39.

“My condition is fine, but mentally this was very tough,” he said. “Nevertheless, I am happy with my second-fastest time ever. Now I have to recover well and start planning smartly for the Olympic Games.”

Ethiopia’s Tsehay Gemechu smashes her own Airtel Delhi Half Marathon course record

Ethiopia’s Tsehay Gemechu retained her Airtel Delhi Half Marathon title in 1:06:00 on Sunday (20), taking 50 seconds off the course record she had set 12 months ago at the IAAF Gold Label road race.

Gemechu’s compatriot Andamlak Belihu also retained his title, clocking a PB of 59:10 to finish within four seconds of the course record.

The women’s race came down to a thrilling head-to-head duel over the final five kilometres between the 21-year-old defending champion and her compatriot Yelamzerf Yehualaw.

A large pack went through 5km in 15:43 before the male pacemakers brought the leading group of six past 10km in 31:22, indicating that the course record was very much under threat. One by one, runners became detached until only Gemechu and Yehualaw remained as they went through 15km in 47:05.

Coming into the final kilometre, Yehualaw – who won the African Games half marathon title in August – edged in front and briefly looked like she was going to cause an upset. But with the finish line approaching, Gemechu dug deep and managed to claw her way past her rival to notch up a personal best while becoming just the second woman to retain a title in Delhi.

“I was tired after Doha (where she finished fourth in the World Championships 5000m two weeks ago) but I wanted to come here and fight for the course record. I knew I was mentally strong,” said Gemechu, who becomes the sixth-fastest Ethiopian woman for the distance.

Yehualaw, even younger than the winner having turned 20 in August, took more than three minutes off her previous best for the distance when finishing just one second behind Gemechu in 1:06:01.

Zeineba Yimer, who started to lose contact with the leading pair just before 15km, held on to make it an Ethiopian 1-2-3 when she crossed the line in third place in 1:06:57, the same position as she had finished in 2018. Kenya’s 2017 world cross-country champion Irene Cheptai had a solid half marathon debut to finish fourth in 1:07:39.

The men’s contest also saw a thrilling head-to-head battle over the final few kilometres.

Six men passed 10km in 28:08. Belihu was still accompanied by another Ethiopian, Solomon Berihu, and the Kenyan pair of Kibiwott Kandie – who had made much of the pace in the middle stages of the race – and Alfred Barkachas.

The lead quartet reached 15km in 42:11 but between 17 and 18 kilometres firstly Barkach and then Kandie couldn’t stay with the relentless momentum and surges from the two Ethiopians and drifted backwards.

Berihu pushed again at 18km and Belihu looked in trouble for several minutes but recovered his poise and reeled in his rival with little more than a kilometre remaining before pulling away for victory.

“At about 18km I started to suffer some back pain; that possibly cost me the course record,” said Belhiu, who still managed to take eight seconds off his PB to move to seventh on the Ethiopian all-time list. “I have been mainly focusing on the track season in my training until recently but I always knew I was going to come here and so I had that in mind.”

Berihu, just 20, posted one of the fastest half marathon debuts ever when he came home second in 59:17 while Kandie hung on for third in 59:33.

Radcliffe admits to mixed feelings as Kosgei breaks marathon record

Paula Radcliffe's world marathon record, which had stood imperiously for over 16 years, has been obliterated by Brigid Kosgei at the Chicago Marathon.

The 25-year-old Kenyan ran 2:14:04 to beat Radcliffe's best of 2:15:25 by an astonishing 81 seconds.

The whispers all week in Chicago had been that Kosgei was intending to make a serious assault on Radcliffe's time. In cold and sunny conditions - perfect for the marathon - she knew the attempt was on, especially when the winds died down yesterday morning.

Kosgei immediately set out her stall by going through five miles in 25:10, way inside world record pace.

Some feared that she had massively overcooked her pace and would eventually boil over. But even though Kosgei slowed her pace she still went through halfway in 66:59, over a minute faster than Radcliffe's time in setting her world record in 2003.

There was a moment when Kosgei appeared to not quite be as comfortable, but when she ran the 5km between 25km and 30km in 15:45 it was clear that the record was in her grasp. And so it proved.

Afterwards, an elated Kosgei admitted: "I am feeling good, and I am happy because I was not expecting this. But I felt my body was moving, moving, moving so I went for it."

Meanwhile, Radcliffe, who posed for photographs with the Kenyan afterwards, admitted it was a bittersweet moment.

"If you had told me when I set it in 2003, that it would last that long I wouldn't have believed it," she said. "But I always knew this time would come - and when I saw how fast Brigid was running I knew the record would go if she could maintain her pace."

If there is one question mark over Kosgei's thundering achievement it is that her agent, Federico Rosa, has had a high number of athletes who have been banned. They include Asbel Kiprop, the former world 1,500m champion, Jemima Sumgong, the 2016 London marathon and Olympic champion, and Rita Jeptoo, who won this race in 2013. However, there is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Kosgei or Rosa.

Some will also point out that Kosgei was wearing the Nike Next% training shoes, which have been estimated to give between 60-90 seconds of performance benefit over other shoes. But on a stunning day in Chicago, few appeared to care as she blasted into the history books.

Eliud Kipchoge Sues NRG Radio Through Lawyer Donald Kipkorir

NRG radio was heavily bashed on social media this week when they used Eliud Kipchoge‘s name and likeness to run their own campaigns. This was soon after Kipchoge became the first human being to run a marathon in under 2 hours.

The former home of Andrew Kibe and Kamene Goro re-branded some of its properties to ‘Kipchoge radio’, also using his image.

For instance, the Kevin Mulei-owned station changed its morning show to ‘KipchogeBreakfastClub’, and went on to push the hashtag on social media.

What however pissed off most Kenyans was NRG’s unsanctioned plan to award Kipchoge a BMW i8, that the station regularly uses for its own promotion work.

The whole fiasco was championed by Eric Omondi, and it was clear this was an unachievable target. They promised to give Kipchoge the car if their Instagram page reached 1 million followers within 24 hours.

Many Kenyans interpreted it as an attempt to gain followers using Kipchoge’s name, with no intention of handing over the car to him.

Their page had slightly over 100,000 followers and would have needed nearly 900,000 more.

Today, through flamboyant city lawyer Donald Kipkorir, Kipchoge has struck back.

NRG Radio has been issued a demand notice to remove any reference to Kipchoge on all their properties, to expunge his image from all their platforms, and to issue an ‘unqualified apology for violation of his rights and misuse of his image.’

As if that’s not enough, once the station complies with the above, they shall enter discussions on how much money they will pay for this gross miscalculation.

Well, Kipchoge might end up getting more than just the car.

Boosting testosterone levels significantly improves female athletic performance, according to one of the first randomised controlled trials

Testosterone was assumed to be performance-enhancing and a factor in explaining differences in strength and endurance between men and women. However, there was a surprising lack of evidence on the impact of testosterone in women and the question had become mired in controversy following a series of rulings in professional sport.

The latest research confirmed that testosterone significantly increases endurance and lean muscle mass among young women, even when given for a relatively short period.

Angelica Hirschberg, a gynaecologist for the Swedish Olympic Committee based at Karolinska University Hospital and the study’s first author, said the results were the first to show a causal effect of testosterone on physical performance in women. “This has not been demonstrated previously because most studies have been performed in men,” she said. “Furthermore, the study shows the magnitude of performance enhancement by testosterone. Testosterone levels increased more than four times but were still much below the male range. The improvement in endurance performance by the increased testosterone levels was more than 8% – this is a huge effect in sports.”

Prof Chris Cooper, emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Essex, who was not involved in the work, said: “The data is really clear. This adds further evidence that if you give testosterone to female athletes. you improve their performance. Some people have suggested that testosterone is not the only sex difference, but it’s clearly the best indicator.”

Cooper added that, despite growing interest in the issue, the challenge in gaining ethics approval to give healthy women testosterone had resulted in a lack of empirical studies.

The IAAF ruled this week that trans female athletes must keep their levels of natural testosterone below 5 nanomoles per litre of blood to compete in the female category. The new regulation follows a similar limit imposed on athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD), including the South African Olympic gold medallist, Caster Semenya.

Semenya is challenging the IAAF’s new rules that athletes with DSD must take testosterone-reducing medication to compete in track events from 400m to the mile or change to another distance.

The athlete argued that the rules were discriminatory and unfair. In May, she said: “For a decade the IAAF has tried to slow me down, but this has actually made me stronger.”

The Court of Arbitration for Sport in May found that the rules for athletes with DSD were discriminatory, but that the discrimination was “necessary, reasonable and proportionate” to protect “the integrity of female athletics”.

Critics of the limit have argued that testosterone is not the dominant factor in giving men a performance advantage in certain sports.

In the study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 48 healthy 18- to 35-year-old women were randomly assigned to 10 weeks of daily treatment with 10mg of testosterone cream or 10mg of a placebo.

The scientists tested the hormone’s impact on aerobic performance measured by how long the women could run on a treadmill before reaching the point of exhaustion, and leg power, muscle strength and lean muscle mass.

Circulating levels of testosterone rose from 0.9 nmol/litre of blood to 4.3 nmol/L in the women given the hormone cream. This was below the recent 5 nmol/L IAAF limit and below the normal male range of 8-29 nmol/L.

Running time to exhaustion increased significantly by 21.17 seconds (8.5%) in the testosterone group, compared with those given the inactive substance. The group given the hormone also had significant changes in lean muscle mass, gaining 923g vs 135g overall and 398g vs 91g in their legs.

Eric Kiptanui was involved in Eliud Kipchoge's record-breaking feat in Vienna, and now he is set to run the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon

Kiptanui was part of a 41-member pacemaking team at the Vienna event that ran in front of Kipchoge in a V-formation, protecting him from drag caused by wind, allowing the main runner to save energy in the process — a technique known as drafting or slipstreaming in running events and in motorsports.

"My family was happy. Everybody at home was happy. Eliud is a friend to me, always encouraged me to train. Has done a lot for me. So I think it’s very special for me and for my family," said Kiptanui at an event in New Delhi in the build-up to the 15th edition of the event certified as an IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

When asked about his standout memory from the record-breaking feat, Kiptanui picked the moment when his compatriot finally crossed the finish line to complete the historic feat. The sight of Kipchoge raising his arms in celebration, as did his pacemakers behind him, before embracing his wife on the other side of the finish line has now become an iconic sporting moment.

Can a feat like this be achieved without a team of in-and-out pacemakers? Kiptanui replied by saying: "It’s possible, and even now it’s possible. Even now one can say 'I want to run alone, maybe one pacemaker along the course of the 30k.'"

Life however was far from easy for Kiptanui. Early in his career, the runner resorted to washing toilets to make ends meet, which he now says has been a learning experience and has only made him a stronger person.

"In college, I had nothing. I had no money. I had to look for a job. I got a job for washing toilets. That experience made me a stronger person, because where I am today, and what I did some time back, it tells a lot. I believed in myself, that one day, one time, I will be somebody. No matter who I am now, I will be somebody one day one time," said Kiptanui.

Being part of Kipchoge's 41-member team of pacemakers at Vienna however, isn't his only claim to fame, for he is a serious contender himself as far as long-distance IAAF events are concerned. Kiptanui enjoyed a good run in 2018 by winning the Berlin (58.42 seconds) and Lisbon (60.05 seconds) half marathons, and had won the Barcelona half marathon earlier this year.

For Kiptanui, part of his training for the Delhi half marathon came in the form of his pacemaking duties at Vienna, and has had a fair bit of training in the build-up to the Delhi event in order to keep his body in shape.

East African runners have dominated long-distance running events across the world for decades now, and the Delhi Half Marathon is no different — nearly all the winners in both the men's and women's categories in the event hailing from either Ethiopia or Kenya — both titles being won by an Ethiopian last year.

Come Sunday, Kiptanui will face a stiff challenge from defending champion Andamlak Belihu and debutant Hagos Gebrhiwet. In the women's category, its defending champion and course record-holder Tsehay Gemechu will be in the spotlight along with Kenya-born Kazakh runner Caroline Kipkirui. Over 40,000 are expected to take part in the upcoming event, which begins in the wee hours on Sunday in the national capital, across five categories — Half Marathon (21.097 km), Great Delhi Run (5 km), Open 10K, Senior Citizens' Run (3.2 km) and Champions with Disability (3.2 km).

Ethiopian Junior World Record Holder Tsegaye Mekonnen joins the Frankfurt marathon

“The addition of Meskerem Assefa and Tsegaye Mekonnen means two more top stars have joined our race. It says a lot for the quality of the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon that these two athletes want to run their autumn marathon here. If weather conditions are right, we have a good chance for very fast races,” said the race director Jo Schindler.

A year ago Meskerem Assefa set a course record of 2:20:36 despite windy conditions which was also her personal best. The 34-year-old has the potential to target a sub-2:20 time for her latest appearance in Frankfurt. She may well have company in this challenge since the Kenyan Valary Aiyabei has a best of 2:20:53, only 17 seconds slower than Meskerem’s course record in Frankfurt.

Sylvia Kibet can also be expected to produce a considerable improvement on her fastest time.

The 35-year-old won in Rabat in Morocco in April, setting a personal best of 2:25:52. Her pedigree for the marathon includes impressive speed over shorter distances on the track which helped her win two silver medals over 5,000m in the 2009 and 2011 World Championships and an Olympic bronze for the same distance in 2008.

Another newcomer to the women’s race in the Mainova Frankfurt Marathon is Fabienne Königstein, better known as Fabienne Amrhein.

The 26-year-old made her breakthrough last year, improving to 2:32:34 to win the women’s title in Düsseldorf, followed by becoming the top German finisher in 11th place in the European Championship Marathon in Berlin. Injuries have prevented her from racing in the early part of 2019 but she is likely to be aiming for the Olympic qualifying time of 2:29:30 in Frankfurt.

Tsegaye Mekonnen is a runner with enormous potential. In 2014 the Ethiopian was the shooting start of the international marathon scene, running, as an 18-year-old, an unofficial junior world record in Dubai on his debut at the distance of 2:04:32 (the IAAF does not record official marathon world records for juniors).

Since then Tsegaye Mekonnen’s progress has been restricted by a succession of injuries. He also suffered misfortune when making his Frankfurt debut in 2014, recovering from a fall during the race but subsequently dropping out.

In 2017 Tsegaye Mekonnen won his second marathon with 2:07:26 in Hamburg. He has not raced internationally this year but the flat and fast course in Frankfurt should give him the opportunity to show what he can do.

Mike Reynolds will run his 39th Columbus Marathon on Sunday

Mike Reynolds opens a scrap book full of his biggest running memories, including his race bib from the first Columbus Marathon in 1980.

“It cost $7 to enter,” Reynolds says. “And you had to finish to get your windbreaker.”

A lot has changed since 1980, including the entry fee (now $145) and runners getting their race swag in the days before the race at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

As organizers plan to hold the 40th running of the marathon, which is set to start Sunday at 7:30 a.m., Reynolds will step to the starting line for the 39th time. He missed the 1983 race because of illness.

So what else has changed since those early days?

“We started at noon because we were concerned about the church crowd,” Reynolds says. Another big distinction between the early 80s and now is the addition of electronics and breathable fabrics.

“We were all wearing cotton and nylon,” Reynolds says.

“They bragged that were five water spots on the course.” Reynolds says, adding that runners didn’t get any snacks unless they brought them with them. There are 17 water stands now, many of them passing out energy bars and Powergel packets.

As far as changes he’d still like to see, Reynolds says he wishes organizers gave more recognition to people who’ve hit milestones, like participating in their fifth or 10th marathon.

His advice for people running their first marathon on Sunday?

“I always say get a friend. Find somebody else to run with,” Reynolds says. “If you’re very good, that’s a different situation, but if you’re a normal person, find somebody who’s a friend and share that situation with them.”

There is a good chance the course record will be broken at the EDP Lisbon Marathon

With two IAAF Label road races being held on the same day – the LUSO Lisbon Half Marathon (Gold) and the EDP Lisbon Marathon (Silver) – and competitive fields lined up for both, there’s a strong chance of at least one course record being broken in the Portuguese capital on Sunday.

Kenya’s 2016 world half marathon champion and former world record-holder Peres Jepchirchir leads the women’s field for the half marathon. The 26-year-old, who had a baby at the end of 2017, has returned to action this year with a best of 1:07:36, two-and-a-half minutes shy of her lifetime best.

She’ll face defending champion Yebrgual Melese of Ethiopia, who set a course record of 1:07:18 last year.

Others in the field include Kenya’s Vivian Kiplagat, 10km world leader Dorcas Kimeli, Monica Jepkoech, Ethiopia’s Waganesh Amare, South Africa’s Glenrose Xaba and Portuguese duo Jessica Augusto and Catarina Ribeiro.

With a PB of 58:48, Kenya’s Jorum Okombo is the fastest in the men’s half marathon field and has the ability to challenge the course record of 1:00:13, but he heads to Lisbon with a season’s best of 1:02:31 so might not be at his absolute best.

Eritrea’s Amanuel Mesel, who has a best of 1:00:10 and finished seventh at the 2018 World Half Marathon Championships, will be keen to improve on his third-place finish from last year. Uganda’s Thomas Ayeko, seventh at this year’s World Cross Country Championships, and Kenya’s Daniel Rotich also have PBs inside 61 minutes and should contend for top honors. Hermano Ferreira, who has a best of 1:01:24, is the leading Portuguese entrant.

The course record of 2:07:34 will be the prime target for the leading men in the marathon field.

Kenya’s Stephen Chemlany, who has a best of 2:06:24, is the fastest in the field, but his PB was set back in 2014 and the 37-year-old hasn’t raced this year. Fellow Kenyan Samuel Wanjiku won in Lisbon in 2014 in 2:08.21, but his PB of 2:07:04 dates back even further to 2012.

Barnabas Kiptum, however, heads to Lisbon off the back of a 2:08:02 lifetime best at the Gold Coast Marathon just three months ago. Likewise, Ethiopia’s Andualem Shiferaw (2:08:16) and Birhanu Teshome (2:08:20) have set PBs earlier this year.

Others in the field with PBs inside 2:09 include Kenya’s former steeplechaser Patrick Terer, Joseph Aperumoi and Richard Mengich.

Fatuma Sado’s lifetime best of 2:24:16 is just three seconds shy of the Lisbon course record. The Ethiopian won in Osaka earlier this year in 2:25:39, the second-fastest performance of her career, and will start as the favorite on Sunday.

Compatriot Sechale Dalasa set her PB of 2:26:27 on her debut at the distance back in 2012 but has come close to it on several occasions since then, including her 2:28:46 run in Houston earlier this year. Kenya’s Truphena Chepchirchir, meanwhile, set her PB of 2:27:52 at this year’s Dongying Marathon.

Others in the field include Ethiopia’s 2008 world U20 5000m champion Sule Utura, Kenya’s Helen Jepkurgat and 2010 Commonwealth 10,000m silver medalist Doris Changeywo.

Kenya’s Linet Masai and Ethiopia’s Solomon Deksisa are running the TCS Amsterdam Marathon hoping to claim victory on Sunday

Deksisa clocked 2:04:40 to finish third in the Dutch city last year and placed third, finishing just 34 seconds behind Lawrence Cherono, who set a course record of 2:04:06. “The course is completely flat and I am really looking forward to it,” Deksisa said at the pre-race press conference.

Fellow Kenyans Elisha Rotich and Vincent Kipchumba head to Amsterdam off the back of PBs earlier this year. Rotich ran 2:06:12 in Seoul, while Kipchumba won in Vienna in 2:06:56.

Following the withdrawal of Ayele Abshero, who contracted food poisoning this week, Abdi Nageeye of the Netherlands has been added to the field. This year the 30-year-old has set Dutch records of 2:06:17 for the marathon and 1:00:24 for the half marathon. Nageeye, who trains alongside Eliud Kipchoge, also clocked 59:55 at the Great North Run, a course not eligible for record purposes.

“If you can keep up with him (Kipchoge) during the training sessions, you know that you have become a better athlete,” said Nageeye, “and you can believe that you will also go faster and faster in competitions.”

The lead pack will be paced through the half-way point in 1:02:30 with the aim of finishing in about 2:05:00.

Masai, the 2009 world 10,000m champion, set her PB of 2:23:46 to finish fifth in Amsterdam last year. Following a 1:07:44 run at the Great North Run, she returns to Amsterdam this year with one eye on the course record of 2:21:09, set by Meseret Hailu Debele in 2012.

Bahrain’s Mimi Belete is another former track specialist who has turned to the marathon in recent years. Her PB of 2:22:29, set when winning in Toronto last year, makes her the fastest woman in the field.

Azmera Gebru, who finished third in Amsterdam last year and improved her PB to 2:22:52 earlier this year in Paris, leads a strong Ethiopian contingent. She’ll be joined by 2018 Amsterdam runner-up Shasho Insermu and Guteni Shone, who have respective PBs of 2:23:28 and 2:23:32

The weather forecast for Sunday morning is good: dry with temperatures between 10-12C and a light breeze from the south.

Ethiopian Muktar Edris went from being an underdog to being a two time world champion

Rarely had a reigning world champion been such an underdog. Rarely had an athlete so accomplished, so dangerous, been so overlooked in the pre-race predictions.

But Muktar Edris has a habit of defying expectations.

When the 25-year-old Ethiopian launched his kick to grab gold in the men’s 5000m, many at the IAAF World Athletics Championships Doha 2019 turned to each other, as they had done in London two years earlier, in surprise: Where had he come from?

Edris’s second successive title proved a much bigger shock than his first, even if two years ago he had to defeat Mo Farah on his home turf to take gold, the Briton who had won the previous three world 5000m titles.

The reason for Edris being so severely doubted was simple: injuries.

After London he developed chronic pain and inflammation in his achilles tendon, and while it wasn’t the kind that completely side-lined him, it limited his training substantially. Edris could only do longer, slower running for much of the past two years, his achilles flaring up anytime he let rip on the track with shorter reps.

“One kilometre and under, no,” he said. “Because (practising the) kick is painful. I could just do slow running, lap after lap. The injury is still sore today.”

It was the reason he failed to fire in 2018 and for much of 2019, Edris’s two outings in the IAAF Diamond League resulting in an 11th-place finish in Oslo (over 30000m) and an 18th-place finish in Lausanne (over 5000m). In May he dropped out of the 10,000m at the Ethiopian Championships, which meant the only reason he was able to compete in Doha was via his wild card entry as defending champion.

But he had shown flickers of his old self in the summer, clocking a 7:39.52 3000m to finish second in Budapest – good, but not the kind of great form needed to win a world title.

Few had expected him to repeat his 2017 feat, with teammates Selemon Barega and Telahun Haile Bekele tearing it up on the circuit, the Ingebrigtsen brothers primed to utilise their fearsome kicks if the pace was slow, and accomplished 5000m performers like Mohammed Ahmed of Canada and Paul Chelimo of USA never to be discounted.

Edris himself didn’t expect it to win. “I had such problems with injury,” he said. “My hope was to be in the medals.”

Michael Davis runs Chicago Marathon with Cystic Fibrosis, sets record

More than 45,000 runners completed last Sunday’s Chicago Marathon, but none of them were quite like Townsend’s Michael Davis.

Davis became the youngest runner with Cystic Fibrosis in the event’s 42-year history to complete the 26.2-mile tour of the Windy City.

It’s a nearly perfectly flat trek through the city, until a hill inside the final half mile. Michael said he was so locked in; he didn’t even notice his mother.

“I had my headphones in, I turned the music up. She was actually at the 26-mile mark, and I was just looking at the ground trying to get up that hill. I didn’t even notice she was there until she showed me the video after. I was so zoned in to getting up that hill and finishing. I got to the top of the hill, the finish line was right there, and it was a good feeling.”

It's another finish line for Davis, who was named the 2017 Team Boomer Co-Athlete of the Year as part of the former NFL quarterback’s Boomer Esiason Foundation.

But it was another finish line that didn’t seem possible for Davis at one point when he was in elementary school.

“I had developed this bacteria in my lungs at one point, and my doctor actually told me that I was either going to die rapidly and fast, or slow and painful, and fast was going to be painful, and I was going to die. So that kind of sparked that I needed to make a change.”

That change? It turned out to be running.

“I was supposed to do a nine-month treatment, and I was going to lose my hearing along with other side effects. I started running, and I asked him if I could have one last summer to live my life, and start the treatment afterward. I picked up running, and surfing, and being around the salt air. I went back and my lung function actually had improved. I noticed that change and kept it up, and it’s made a huge difference.”

It was enough to spark Michael in the 5K game, and after he medalled in an event known as the Otter Trotter at Old State Elementary, he was hooked, but as someone always looking for a challenge, 3.1 miles wasn’t enough for Davis.

 “When I was 14 years old, I decided I wanted to more than 5K or a little run that I had been doing. I ran the New York City Half Marathon when I was 14. My lung function was pretty low, so I was in and out of the hospital a lot. After that, I kept running more and more, and my lung function started going up, and I felt better overall, along with the new medication. I then went on to do four half marathons, and decided I wanted to do a full marathon.”

Ultimately, Chicago became Michael’s goal, but there was still the matter of fighting the Cystic Fibrosis. Remarkably, as his stamina improved, his body was showing signs of winning some rounds of his health fight.

“Before I started running, I was in the hospital up to six times a year for 4-6 weeks at a time. Since I started running, now I’ve been out of the hospital for two years, and my lung function has been in the 80s [percent], and it used to be in the low 70s or even the 60s sometimes. I haven’t even seen that in two years, so it’s made a big difference.”

Ineos is using its vast profits to roll out a series of cutting-edge sporting projects in top-level cycling, football, athletics and sailing

When Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge became the first man to run a marathon in under two hours in Vienna this month, his performance had been meticulously planned by one of sport's major new players, the petrochemicals giant Ineos.

Founded and 60-percent owned by British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos is using its vast profits to roll out a series of cutting-edge sporting projects in top-level cycling, football, athletics and sailing.

"We make six or seven billion dollars a year in profit, so what's wrong with investing a bit of that in sport?" Ratcliffe said recently.

A highly driven amateur sportsman himself, the self-made businessman was on hand to personally congratulate Kipchoge as he crossed the finish line.

With Kipchoge and his pacemakers decked out in Ineos-branded vests as he triumphantly stopped the clock at 1hr 59min 40sec, the brand was broadcast to the four corners of the earth.

The feat has propelled marathon running into a new era, even though the world athletics body IAAF do not recognize it as a world record due to the conditions in which it was conducted. A group of 35 pacemakers worked in shifts to form a V-shaped aerodynamic drag position using expertise that Ineos gained from cycling's peloton, decreasing the impact of the air on Kipchoge's body by 50-70 percent whether there was wind or not.

Research into carbohydrate intake, which is key to enhancing performance in cycling, was also used during Kipchoge's exploit.

Under the slogan "No human is limited", Ineos's efforts, or sports marketing activities, have themselves few limits.

When the 21-year-old Colombian cycling prodigy Egan Bernal won the Tour de France in July he did do under the Ineos banner after Ratcliffe stepped in to sponsor cycling's most successful outfit, formerly known as Team Sky.

"Sky was the reference in terms of sports performance promoting the name of the sponsor," Vincent Chaudel, founder of France's Observatoire du Sport Business, told AFP of the setup that won five Tour de France titles in six years in the colors of the media company.

- "Red Bull-type strategy" -

Football is also part of the Ineos sports business plan and Ratcliffe, a lifelong Manchester United fan, has been mentioned as a possible future owner of Chelsea, if Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich ever sells the Premier League club. Its Stamford Bridge stadium is close to Ineos's Knightsbridge headquarters.

Having previously bought and so far failed to revive the fortunes of Swiss club Lausanne Sport, Ineos bought French top-flight club Nice in the close season with a view to helping them into the Champions League.

"Lausanne was an investment to be close to the major sports bodies," Chaudel said, noting that the International Olympic Committee are based in the city and UEFA's headquarters are in Nyon, 40 kilometers away. "The Nice investment came with a new stadium that is already built. And the Riviera has marketing potential."

Ineos has also provided Britain's Olympic medal-winning sailor Ben Ainslee with a 110-million-euro ($121.6-million) yacht in a bid to bring the America's Cup back to Britain in 2021.

"The strategy is similar to Red Bull where they are not just sponsors but owners. Look at the marathon, they organized it down to the last detail, mastering every aspect of the operation," Virgile Caillet, the general delegate of' Union Sport & Cycle, a body representing 1,400 sports businesses.

"Ineos is a big international group working in a sector which is not the most virtuous sector. While cycling, running, sailing are all environmentally sound sports."

Olympic champion Kikkan Randall who was diagnosed with breast cancer is set for New York City Marathon

Kikkan Randall, who was diagnosed with breast cancer soon after a gold medal in the cross-country skiing team sprint at the 2018 Olympics, will run Nov. 3 in the New York City Marathon as part of a group of people with inspirational stories, race organizers announced Monday.

Randall has been named as one of 26 runners on Team #MovedMe. Other runners in the group include Dave Fraser, who was born with cerebral palsy and will be running his 12th NYC Marathon; Sean Hennessey, a former college athlete and recovering addict; and Mama Cax, a model with a prosthetic leg.

Randall racked up medals in World Cup and World Championship competition from 2009 to 2014 and went into the 2014 Olympics as a heavy favorite in the sprint, but she struggled and lost in the quarterfinals. Four years later, after taking time off to start a family, she and Jessie Diggins teamed up to win the team sprint in Pyeongchang, only the second cross-country skiing medal the U.S. has ever won and the first for U.S. women.

She revealed her breast cancer diagnosis in July 2018 and blogged about her treatment for the next several months. Known for having pink streaks in her hair, she quickly went bald during chemotherapy and showed off her new look in an August 2018 blog post.

In the last few months, she has put more of her story on social media, and she showed that the pink is back.

On July 2, she announced that she had completed infusion treatment.

Randall will be running on behalf of AKTIV Against Cancer, which works to ensure physical activity for cancer patients. Coincidentally, the foundation was established by a nine-time NYC Marathon winner, Grete Waitz.

She is also a board member of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

Brigid Kosgei says that Eliud Kipchoge inspires her to greatness

The day after Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge became the first to run a marathon in under two hours, Brigid Kosgei showed her country's dominance in distance running by setting a world record in retaining her Chicago Marathon title.

She finished with an unofficial time of 2hr 14min 4sec, shattering the 2:15:25 mark set by Britain's Paula Radcliffe in the 2003 London Marathon by more than a minute.

Sunday's display capped an unbelievable weekend for marathon running, with Kipchoge breaking the two-hour barrier in a special event in Vienna designed to show that a sub two-hour mark was possible despite the time not recognised as a world record as it was on a specially prepared course.

Former United States president Barack Obama yesterday lauded their achievements as "staggering", tweeting that "they're also remarkable examples of humanity's ability to endure - and keep raising the bar".

Kosgei also revealed that her compatriot's feat had inspired her to "be the second Kipchoge - the Kipchoge for women".

"They (spectators) were cheering, cheering and I got more energy to keep faster. I was not expecting this," she said. "I was expecting to run 2:16 or 2:17. It's amazing to run 2:14, but the world record was in my head. When I started the race, I was thinking I need 2:15 for Paula's record.

"I don't know how to explain how it feels to run a world record. I am so happy."

Radcliffe, who posed for photos with Kosgei later, admitted that she always knew the time would come when the record would be broken.

"When I saw how fast Brigid was running in the first half of the race, I knew that she had a good chance of getting the record," the four-time Olympian added. "I've always said 17 is my lucky number and it was exactly 17 years ago to the day that I set my first world record here in Chicago."

And like any true competitor, Kosgei does not plan to coast on her latest accomplishment as she believes "if a lady can prepare good and they have no injury... they can reduce to reduce to 2:12 or 2:13".

Making it clear that her sole goal was to get even faster, the youngest winner of the London Marathon said: "I'm still focusing to reduce my time again - if it's possible. If my body would be good, (I can) reduce little by little, slowly."

The IAAF has set the same limit for trans women, as expected that it imposes on female athletes with DSD

World Athletics (formerly the IAAF) has ruled that transgender women must maintain testosterone levels at a maximum of 5 nanomoles per liter for 12 months before being declared eligible to compete, it was announced. The limit is half the previous limit of 10 nmol/l, in effect since 2015.

The new rule, passed during IAAF Council meeting in Doha at the conclusion of the recent World Championships, brings guidelines for female transgender athletes into line with those imposed on female athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD) such as Olympic gold medalist and former world champion in the 800m, Caster Semenya, who was ruled ineligible to compete while appealing the decision brought down by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on May 1.

(Semenya is not transgender, but her DSD means she has naturally elevated levels of testosterone, exceeding the average range for women of between 0.12 and 1.79 nmol/l. In her absence, the women’s 800m in Doha was won by Halimah Nakaayi in 1:58.04, a new national record for Uganda.)

Trans women do not need to show evidence of being recognized by law as female, as long as their testosterone levels are maintained within the acceptable limit, but “should provide a signed declaration that her gender identity is female,” according to a report on the Inside the Games site. 

The Council also created a five-member Expert Panel for the Eligibility Regulations of Transgender Athletes, comprised of endocrinologists and other medical experts from around the world. The panel will sit for a four-year term.

The International Olympic Committee announced that, is planning to move the Olympic marathon and race walking events to Sapporo

The International Olympic Committee has announced that the men’s and women’s marathons and race walking events will be moved from Tokyo to Sapporo, a distance of some 800 kilometers, due to the extreme heat and humidity conditions expected in the Japanese capital next summer.

Sapporo, the capital city of the northern Hokkaiden Prefecture, hosted the Winter Games in 1972. The weather in July and August, when the 2020 Olympics will be held, is likely to be warm (averaging 26 C), but five or six degrees cooler than Tokyo and significantly less humid.

Athletes and others have been sounding the alarm about Tokyo’s heat and the possible danger to athletes for some time, and in turn, the IOC Medical and Scientific Commission Adverse Weather Impact Expert Working Group has a number of measures in place to mitigate the effects of extreme heat, which include scheduling track events of 5,000m and longer in the evening rather than the morning, and scheduling the marathon and race walk events at 6:00 a.m.

Heat countermeasures will be high on the agenda of the IOC Co-ordination Commission for Tokyo 2020’s upcoming meeting in Tokyo from October 30 to November 1. They will also consider the results of a heat countermeasure questionnaire distributed to each international federation.

With Sapporo being so remote from Tokyo, the decision has an impact on the logistics of transporting and housing athletes, officials and spectators.

The decision comes on the heels of the IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, where numerous athletes dropped out of the women’s marathon due to extreme heat and humidity.

Team Canada is particularly adept at embracing measures to counteract the effects of heat, with athletes doing heat acclimation, pre-cooling, taking full advantage of measures designed to keep them cool on the course, and being conservative about pace. As a result, Evan Dunfee won a bronze medal in the 50K race walk in Doha, and Lyndsay Tessier finished in the top 10 of the women’s marathon.

Tokyo is currently digging out after what experts are calling the worst typhoon in 60 years.

Canadian Kinsey Middleton is set to defend her title this Sunday at Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon

Sunday is the 2019 Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and Canadian Olympic Marathon Trials, and the Canadian elite lineup is killer. Kinsey Middleton is the defending champion, following her impressive 2018 run where she took the win in her marathon debut.

The Boise, Idaho native says that her build has been great, with more miles than ever before, and a broader variety of workouts. She jokes that she’s becoming accustomed to the marathon, or at least as accustomed as you can be for only having run one.

The runner lives at 800m altitude, surrounded by mountains (she has dual citizenship, since her mother is Canadian), so she has relatively easy access to higher altitudes for training purposes. She’s looking to run Olympic standard on Sunday (2:29:30) and sounds confident in her ability to do so.

Middleton’s race day plan is to wake up roughly three hours before the race, and have a coffee and peanut butter and jam on toast. After breakfast she’ll take 10 minutes to visualize her race day plan and put her feet up, then she’ll take the bus to the course.

The runner jokes that the funny thing about marathon warmups is how short they are. “They’re the shortest warmup ever, because you don’t want to take any energy away from your race. The bigger the race, the smaller the warmup.”

Middleton’s race plan is all about standard. “I am hoping that there’s a solid group of women to run with. I’ve talked to Malindi [Elmore] and Emily [Setlack] about the pace they’re trying to run. It’s better if we all run together.” The runner says that they’ll sort out pacing at the technical meeting, but her plan is to go out on 1:14 pace for the half. “You really want to negative-split a marathon, otherwise it doesn’t feel good,” she says, referring to the practice of running the second half of the race faster than the first half.

“I’m really confident about the time, because I think if your goal is to make an Olympic team, the time shouldn’t scare you, it should feel possible. It’s all about executing on the day.”

Middleton races for the Idaho Distance Project and is hoping to get its logo added to a plain black crop top. Her plan is to race in that black top, or if it’s cold, a black tank top and Asics shorts. For shoes, she’ll be wearing the green Nike Next%.  “I like the upper a lot better on the Next%. I didn’t like the knit upper on the Vaporfly as much. I have narrow feet, so my foot would move around in them.”

Kenya's Gideon Kipketer will lead the hunt for gold at this Sunday's Amsterdam Marathon in the Netherlands

Kipketer, who was fourth in Amsterdam last year, is yet to win a marathon this season.

He failed to finish the Tokyo and London Marathons, but hopes his return to the Dutch capital will be another chance to redeem himself.

Kenya´s Gideon Kipketer, Laban Korir and Jonathan Korir, the trio will, however, face stiff competition from Kenyan-born Kaan Ozbilen of Turkey - formerly known as Mike Kipruto Kigen - and Ethiopia's Mule Wasihun.

"The forecast is promising, with temperatures between 10 and 15 degrees, not much wind and comfortable humidity levels. A tight regime in terms of mid-course times won't work. We will have to tailor the strategy during the race," said race director Cees Pronk.

Last year, Kenya's Lawrence Cherono set a new course record, winning his first Amsterdam Marathon in 2:05:09, also establishing a new personal best time. He has since gone on to win in Boston and last weekend won in Chicago.

"I was thrilled with last year's win. It was a good race on a flat course and the crowd was great," said Cherono.

Jordan Hasay suffered an injury during the Chicago Marathon forcing her to drop out

Jordan Hasay suffered an injury while running the Chicago Marathon and couldn’t finish the race.  She had placed third at the Boston Marathon.  

Jordan said in an Instagram post that she was about two miles into the race when she “felt a sharp pain in (her) hamstring and had to stop.”

“I stretched and tried to go again but was unable to run,” Hasay, 28, wrote in the post. “The emotions are raw and new but already I know despite the sadness, it’s time to reset, refocus and gear up for the Olympic Trials in February and a big year in 2020.”

Before the race, Hasay had talked about trying to break the American marathon record of 2 hours, 19 minutes and 36 seconds, which was set by Deena Kastor in 2006.

Hasay’s appearance in April’s Boston Marathon came after a year in which she suffered two significant foot injuries, which forced her to withdraw from both the 2018 Boston and Chicago marathons.

Molly Huddle clams victory at Reebok 10K for Women clocking 31:50 on Monday

Molly Huddle, 35, of Providence, took home first place in the Reebok 10K for Women race held at Boston Common on Monday afternoon, finishing with a time of 31 minutes, 50 seconds.

Rounding out the top three were Iveen Chepkemoi, 22, and Emily Infeld, 29, each finishing within 30 seconds of Huddle.

Huddle was one of two top-10 finishers out of the age 30-39 division, along with Lauren Perkins who finished ninth.

In the wheelchair race, Alicia Dana, 50, took home first place in 18:47. She finished more than 25 minutes ahead of her competitor, 10-year-old Madelyn Wilson. 

A glacier on the Italian side of Mont Blanc is at risk of collapsing from melt linked to climate change and threatens UTMB Trails

One month after 2,300 runners toed the line at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, part of the course has been closed due to rapid glacial melt.

A glacier on the Italian side of Mont Blanc glacier is at risk of collapsing from melt linked to climate change. The Planprincieux Glacier sits on the Grandes Jorasses peak on the Mont Blanc massif above Courmayeur, Italy.  The small resort town is the halfway point for the UTMB and the starting point for the TDS and CCC races. 

Scientists have been using radar technology to monitor the glacier since 2013, and detected the accelerated melting via radar this summer. A summer heatwave is causing a lower chunk of the glacier to melt at a rate of two feet per day, according to glaciologist and alpinist Ulyana Horodyskyj, who has climbed Mont Blanc.

“The high air temperatures this summer have led to more melting and faster movement of the glacier down the mountain,” says Horodyskyj. “The glacier is always moving and always has a large crevasse, but this summer it’s melting faster and the crevasse is bigger.” The part of the glacier below the crevasse could break, and separate entirely. 

If it collapses, 250,000 cubic meters of ice could tear away from the mountain and crash into trails, roads and alpine refuges below. That impending danger has prompted road closures and evacuations. 

“For this region, in particular, the biggest impacts will be on tourism,” says Horodyskyj. 

Glacial melt could endanger trails like those on the UTMB course, and also affect local water supplies. Though it’s impossible to predict when exactly the glacier could collapse, the glacier’s speed has local officials and scientists concerned. 

“These phenomena once again shows that the mountain is going through a phase of strong change due to climatic factors. Therefore it is particularly vulnerable,” said the mayor of Courmayeur, Stefano Miserocchi, in a statement. 

Scientists have been monitoring thousands of glaciers across the Aosta Valley Region. Temperate glaciers, like the ones on Mont Blanc,  are essentially at melting point. Liquid water coexists with glacial ice, which makes them especially vulnerable to temperature variation caused by climate change. If greenhouse gas emissions continue at their current rate, alpine glaciers would shed half of their ice by 2050. They could lose over 80 percent of their ice by 2100, according to Horodyskyj. 

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte warned the United Nations General Assembly last week that this news just the beginning, and that Mont Blanc’s future “must shake us all and force us to mobilize”. 

Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi will run the Standard Chartered Marathon

Kiambu Senator Kimani Wamatangi has praised world marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge for setting record after running 42 km in under 2 hours. 

In an interview with NTV on Tuesday, Wamatangi said that that he will complete the Standard Chartered Marathon in less than four hours. 

“I will run the Standard Chartered Marathon in under 4 hours,” he said. 

He noted that Kipchoge has inspired him greatly, adding that he is proud to be associated with him. 

He added that he fully supports local talent, adding that he will root for more projects for the youths who are talented in different areas of sports.

Rarieda MP Otiende Amollo also said that he will join the race in support of Wamatangi observing that Kipchoge has set an amazing record and he will forever be celebrated. 

“Kimani Wamatangi I like the way you called Eliud Kipchoge your colleague, I like the way people associate with success. To also associate with success; I will also run the Standard Chartered Marathon,” he said.

Kipchoge has since been nominated for the IAAF Male Athlete of the Year. Leaders from all over the world including former US President Barack Obama have congratulated him because of the good results he posted in Vienna, Austria.

Germany's Jan Frodeno won his third Ironman World Championship triathlon in a course record time in Hawaii on Saturday

Jan Frodeno won his third Ironman World Championship triathlon in a course record time in Hawaii on Saturday and continued German dominance of the men's event.

Frodeno, the 2008 Olympic champion, produced a good swim and then scorched the bike course to open a lead of more than two minutes starting the marathon run under a fierce sun on the Big Island.

The 38-year-old set a cracking pace from his very first step and inexorably extended his advantage, enjoying the luxury of being able to savor his achievement by walking across the finish line to add to his previous victories in 2015 and 2016.

Frodeno's unofficial time of seven hours, 51 minutes and 13 seconds was more than three minutes better than the previous record time set by compatriot Patrick Lange last year.

Frodeno said the time had been insignificant compared to the victory. "My legs are shattered," he said.

"I don't care about the record. It's a championship, the Wimbledon of our sport." 

American Tim O'Donnell also broke eight hours for a distant second place, while German Sebastian Kienle claimed third.

German men have won the past six years, with Lange (2017 and 2018) and Kienle (2014) also notching victories.

Lange pulled out during the bike leg on Saturday, reportedly suffering from a fever.

The Ironman comprises a 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike ride and 42.2 km run.

The race was first held in 1978 to settle a friendly argument among Hawaiian endurance athletes as to who was the fittest.

Lois “Marge” Stroebel, age 101, crosses finish line at Ohio State 4 Miler

Amid the crowd of 15,000 walking and running across the campus Saturday, Lois “Marge” Stroebel, 101, of the Dayton area, completed the charity 4 Miler for the second year in a row, with help from her granddaughter and friends. She was the oldest participant in the race ending in Ohio Stadium, but nearly 200 of them were over 70.

When she reached the north end zone inside Ohio Stadium on Saturday, Lois “Marge” Stroebel rose from her wheelchair, shed the sleeping bag she’d been bundled into like the stuffings of a burrito, and, powered by her own determination, headed straight for the 50-yard line.

Now, she wasn’t exactly bee-lining toward the big “O” at the center of the field, and her gray Nike sneakers weren’t leaving any smoke trails, but give her a break. She is 101 years old, after all.

After walking those last 50 yards and crossing the finish line at the seventh annual Ohio State 4 Miler to cheers, high-fives and a special acknowledgement from M3S Sports Race Director David Babner (who mistakenly announced Saturday was her birthday, thought it was in September), Stroebel said she wasn’t even tired.

“I didn’t do anything but sit here,” she said with a laugh as she pointed to her posse. “They did all the work.”

This is the second year that Stroebel has completed the race, the largest of its kind in the country with 15,000 walkers and runners wending their way through the Ohio State University campus and ending up on the Buckeye football field. Stroebel and her granddaughter, Beth Kreger, travel from Vandalia, near Dayton, and Kreger’s friends and co-workers, Scott and Wendy Tharp, come from Lancaster to join in.

Scott Tharp ran the whole 4 miles pushing Stroebel in her transport wheelchair (that means it has small wheels) while his wife and Kreger ran interference.

“Look out! We’ve got Grandma!” they yelled as they zigged and zagged through the sea of people. “Beep beep. Grandma’s coming through!”

The small wheels on the transport chair meant it wasn’t the steadiest thing on the route. Scott Tharp said his hands were numb at the end of the race from gripping it so tightly to keep control.

“It was sure bouncy and bumpy,” agreed Stroebel, who seemed to not understand what all the fuss over her was about. She still lives alone, after all, and she cooks her own meals, dresses herself and never misses her regular bridge game. Until three years ago, she still golfed regularly.

She has been a rabid Ohio State football fan as long as she can remember. But last year when Kreger, a triathlete, suggested her Gram compete in her first-ever race at Ohio Stadium, it surprised her.

“Why, I thought she was crazy!,” Stroebel said of the idea. Now, she has two race medals in her collection. “We have a lot of fun.”

Everything you need to know about running the 2020 Berlin marathon

The fast, flat marathon is known for its record-breaking history

As the home of Kipchoge’s amazing world-record of 2:01:39, Berlin Marathon is known to be one of the fastest marathons in the world, with Kenenisa Bekele missing the world record by 2 seconds at this year's race. Here's what you need to know about entering the 2020 ballot.

When does the 2020 Berlin Marathon ballot open?

The 2020 Berlin marathon ballot opened on October 1 2019 and will remain open until 31 October 31 2019. With a limit of 44,000 runners, Berlin marathon spots are in high demand.  You will receive an email confirming your entry into the ballot straight away.

When will the 2020 Berlin Marathon take place?

The 2020 Berlin Marathon will take place on Sunday September 27 2020.

How much does it cost to run the 2020 Berlin Marathon?

If you are successful in the ballot, the registration fee for the Berlin Marathon is €125 which at the time of writing coverts to £110.13 or $150US.  

When will the ballot results be announced?

The results of the ballot will be released from November 27 2019 onwards.

How does the ballot work?

The Berlin Marathon uses the same entry drawing procedure as other marathon events at the Abbott World Marathon Majors Series.

In the single runners entry, you will be required to submit all your relevant data during the registration phase, including your payment details. If you are successful in the ballot, your card will be charged and it will not be possible to transfer or cancel your race entry, so make sure you’re 100% certain before submitting your entry. If you are not successful in the ballot, your payment information will be deleted.

How can you get a guaranteed place for the 2020 Berlin Marathon?

If you’re 100% sure you want to run next year’s Berlin Marathon, you can enter under a guaranteed starting spot. 

There are two options when it comes to getting a guaranteed place – entering with a tour operator, or getting a charity place. Tour operators offer race spots as part of a holiday package, which you can often pay for in instalments up to the race.

Similar to other major marathons, charity places are also available, giving you a guaranteed marathon place in exchange for fundraising for a good cause.

What are the Good for Age options at the 2020 Berlin Marathon?

Known as the ‘fast runners’ route, fast runners can secure a guaranteed place for the 2020 Berlin Marathon if they can prove they have finished an AIMS-certified marathon in the last two years (2017/2018) in a certain time. These times are as follows:

Male runners:

18-44 (DOB 2001-1975): under 2:45 hours

45-59 (DOB 1794-1960): under 2:55 hours

60 and above (DOB 1959 and older): under 3:25 hours

Female runners:

18-44 (DOB 2001-1975): under 3:00 hours

45-59 (DOB 1794-1960): under 3:20 hours

60 and above (DOB 1959 and older): under 4:10 hours

The ballot for fast runner places also opened on October 1 2019 and close on October 31 2019.

When will I get my number for the Berlin Marathon?

Similar to other marathons, you will be required to pick up your bib number at the Berlin Marathon expo, which will be open from Thursday September 24 2020 to Saturday September 26 2020. 

The course is not confirmed but most likely it will be similar to the course run in 2019 (photo).  

Enos Kales and Naomi Jebet from Kenya win the Paris 20km

The pace of the men’s race was aggressive from the outset. “It was really fast. I decided to let it go with some others French runners,” said Florian Carvalho afterwards. The Frenchman, third two years ago, then bridged the gap at about two kilometres into the race.

A group of 10 runners hit the 5km mark in 14:25, but the pace was irregular. Carvalho decided to take the lead after 10km, reached in 29:05, with eight other runners still in contention.

After the 15km mark, hit in 43:58, Enos Kales, who entered the race at last minute, made a big move. His compatriots Shewalem Yergalem and Joseph Mbatha as well as Ethiopia’s Getinet Mele Gedamu were able to stick to his stride as the French trio Carvalho, Michael Gras, and Nicolas Navarro struggled to sustain the pace.

In the closing stages, Yergalem and Mbatah couldn’t handle the pace and Kales broke off. At about the same time, Carvalho and Gras drew level with the chasers.

Kales held on for the win and crossed the line in 58:28, following a 14:30 last 5km section, as Carvalho finished second in 58:56, 16 seconds outside his time from 2017. “It bodes well for the Valencia Marathon, which is my main goal,” said Carvalho.

Gras managed to hold off Yergalem and Mbatha to round the podium in a personal best of 59:02.

In contrast to the men’s race, the women’s race set out at a relatively slow pace. Nine runners hit the 5km mark in 17:52, suggesting a possible finish time of 1:11:30, far from the results of past editions. The group, spearheaded by Kenya’s Naomi Jebet, ramped up the tempo during the next 5km section to reach the 10km checkpoint in 35:06.

With five kilometres to go (52:30 at 15km), there were still eight contenders for the win, including Jebet, Adawork Aberta, Chaltu Dida as well as the French pair Liv Westphal and Samira Mezeghrane.

Jebet made a big surge after 15km and only Dida and Aberta were able to follow her. Aberta then struggled to sustain the pace with two kilometres remaining, and Jebet sealed the win in 1:08:51, following a 16:21 5km section, the fastest of the race, six seconds ahead of Dida. Aberta finished third, 33 seconds adrift of the winner.

“I am very happy,” said Jebet, who clocked a half marathon PB of 1:08:08 last month. “I didn’t expect to win that race.”

It was a good day for American men at the Chicago Marathon as the top four ran under 2:11

The Chicago Marathon may not have gone well for 2017 champion and Olympic bronze medalist Galen Rupp, who dropped out just before the 23-mile mark. (He had been nursing a calf strain since mile  six and just could not handle the pain any longer.) But for many of the other American pro men, the cool temperatures, boisterous crowds, and fast course brought breakthroughs.

Four U.S. men ran under 2:11, six placed in the top 15, and many others set significant personal bests.

Working together in a pack, a group of more than a dozen stuck together through about the 35K mark, trading off leading duties because of the wind. 

They didn’t coordinate beforehand, exactly, but they shared a goal: “We were all interested in having a good American day,” said top U.S. finisher Jacob Riley, 31, who finished ninth in 2:10:36.

Riley is no newcomer to Chicago—he debuted at the distance here in 2014, when he ran 2:13:16 to place second American and 11th overall. At the Olympic Marathon Trials in 2016, he placed 15th, with a 2:18:31.

But he hasn’t toed a marathon starting line since. In fact, he’s undergone a near complete life upheaval. He left Michigan and the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project to move to Boulder, Colorado, where he now trains under coach Lee Troop. In 2018, he underwent Achilles surgery due to a condition called Haglund’s deformity—the same one that affected Rupp. 

Amidst all the challenge, he said, he definitely contemplated quitting. “At the same time, running has been kind of the constant in my life since I was in high school,” he said. “The idea of having all this other change and then not doing that as well was scary and just not worth it. 

After a slow, steady, return to running—he recalls Troop assigning him segments of one-minute jogs with nine-minute walk breaks—Riley raced again at the Boulder Boulder 10K in May, where he ran 31:20 and placed 25th. On Sept. 2, he ran 1:10:59 for 15th place at the USATF 20K Championships, which “felt terrible.”

“This is the first race where I've actually felt like the old me beforehand—or actually a better me, because I have two good Achilles now,” he said.

In his debut at the distance, 24-year-old Jerrell Mock ran 2:10:37 to place ninth, and second American. An All-American at Colorado State, Mock finished just out of contention to make the 10K final at the 2018 NCAA Outdoor Championships. Though he graduated last year, he still lives and trains in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is coached by CSU’s Art Siemers.

This year, he ran 1:02:15 to place 13th—and third American—in his first half marathon, in Houston. His 59:43, ninth-place finish at the USATF 20K Championships last month gave him confidence lining up in Chicago.

Still, he didn’t know quite what to expect in the marathon, given the “horror stories” he’d heard about the later miles. “I was just waiting to get to that moment of darkness,” he said. But it never came. “The mile splits just stayed right on. And so when we got to 20, I was like—‘Man, I think, I think I might've gotten away with it.”

Both Riley and Mock are unsponsored and wore ZoomX Vaporfly Next% shoes during the race. “I bought into the hype,” Riley said, though he noted he’s open to experimentation if any sponsors should come calling. Mock expressed similar sentiments: “There’s a lot of companies that are coming out with the same kind of idea now,” he said. “I’d be interested to try some of those too.”

Parker Stinson, meanwhile, runs in Saucony—making him one of the few elites in the field not to sport bright pink on their feet. He denied that puts him at a disadvantage, noting that he broke the American record in the 25K—the 1:13:48 he ran in May’s River Bank Run—in the brand. 

Lawrence Cherono again made a last minute sprint to win the Chicago Marathon like he did in Boston earlier in the year

2019 Boston winner Lawrence Cherono made another last 400m sprint today in Bank of Chicago Marathon in a group of 4 athletes clocking 2:05:45.He was followed closely by Dejene Debela 2:05:46 and Asefa Mengstu 2:05:48.Mo Farah finished 8th in 2:09:58.

Lawrence has had a great form of consistent record of seven victories over 14 marathons.He crossed the finish line victoriously with arms in the air in celebration .He then knelt down on the ground and prayed.

The race started with Dickson Chumba leading the group cross the first mile at 4:42.The high speed forced runners to form two elite groups.The first pack consisted Chumba,Cherono,Debela,Bedan Karoki,Tura and Asefa Mengstu.The second pack was Mo Farah and Galen Rupp who came back after Achilles surgery. 

The Ieading group hit 5km  in 14:45 while Mo and Rupp did 14:47.At 10km ,the split was 29:27 and Mo and Rupp were already in the first group.Rupp started again dropping in the group followed by Mo Farah at 8 miles while the Dickson Chumba led team crossed it at 37:48.

At 15km, Karoki, Chumba, Cherono, Debela,Mengstu and Tura crossed it at 44:10.  At 21km, Chumba led it through with 1:02:14.

 Karoki up the pace to 25km in a group of six making it at 1:13:54.Chumba was back again in front but slightly struggling and led 30km at 1:28:58.This is the point where Chumba slowed and first group remain with 5 men.Debela charged and pushed hard making 35km split at 1:45:53 while Chumba struggled at 1:44:23.

 Debela who looked strong crossed 40km 1:59:08. At this point, the race was between four athletes.  The only thing to decide was final kick coz they were all running a tactical race.

At about 400m remaining, Lawrence Cherono made a surprise kick outshining the two Ethiopians and Bedan Karoki of Kenya. He finished with Debela in just a second behind.  Cherono is remembered for making a kick in Boston too to beat Ethiopian Lelisa Desisa.

The whole country of Kenya is buzzing with excitement as Brigid Kosgei smashed the world record in Chicago just 33 hours after Eliud Kipchoge clocked the first ever sub two hour marathon in Vienna

25-year-old Brigid Kosgei smashed the world record at the Bank of Chicago Marathon Sunday October 13.  She clocked 2:14:04 and she thinks 2:10 is possible.  

Brigid broke the 16 year old record set by Paula Radcliffe (in photo with Brigid) at the 2003 London Marathon where she clocked 2:15:25.  Many thought it was an untouchable record to beat.  

Bridid ran away from the field.  Second to cross the line was Yeshaneh clocking 2:20:51 and then Burka 2:20:55 both from Ethiopia.  Fourth was America’s Emma Bates clocking 2:25:27 a personal best.  

Through the help of pacemakers, Brigid crossed the first 5km in 15:28 at a projected time of 2:10.  Between 5km-10km, the pace dropped slightly but Kosgei was within the record time hence making 10km at 31:28 which was a projected 2:12:26 marathon time.

At 15 km the clock was 47:26 disabling Yeshaneh who was chasing from behind almost a minute behind.

From 15km to a half way ,the tempo went up again.  She passed  21km at 1:06:59 which was 66 seconds faster than Radcliffe's.

At this point, the projected time was 2:14:00.  The gap between her and Yeshaneh kept widening  to 2 minutes.  She then hit 25km in 1:19:33 with help of two pacers who did an incredible job. She hit 35km at 1:51:14 looking calmed, relaxed and comfortable.  At 40km Brigid looked easy Clicking 2:07:11.

The pacers finished their job and let Brigid Kosgei cross the finish line smiling in 2:14:04.  What a weekend for marathoning.  

The whole country of Kenya is buzzing with excitement.  Eliud Kipchoge clocked 1:59:40 in Vienna on Saturday and now Brigid Kosgei clocked 2:14:04 on Sunday.  

Russia is at risk of not being able to participate in the Tokyo Olympics due to possible doping violations

Vladimir Putin says Russia wants to leave its doping "shortcomings" in the past, even as it faces questions regarding data tampering.

The Russian president tells a televised sports conference that his country is complying with the World Anti-Doping Agency "to the fullest extent."

Russia met the October 9 deadline for responding to questions regarding “inconsistencies” in the data WADA investigators retrieved from a Moscow laboratory in January as part of a massive doping investigation.

The agency said its Intelligence and Investigations Team and independent forensic experts will analyze Russia’s response, adding that “no fixed timeline can be set for this” but that WADA is pursuing the matter “robustly and as quickly as practicable.”

Russia faces the prospect of being banned from next year’s Olympics in Tokyo after the World Anti-Doping Agency gave it three weeks to explain apparent inconsistencies in data from its Moscow laboratory or to suffer the consequences.

Sources close to the situation believe there is now a strong possibility Russia will be banned from the Olympic Games and it is not inconceivable such a punishment could also extend to competitions in any sport signed up to Wada’s code, including the football World Cup.

Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the president of Russia’s Olympic Committee, admitted the situation was “very serious” and could jeopardise Russia’s Olympic participation.

WADA lifted its ban on the Russian Anti-Doping Agency in September 2018, much to the anger of the wider global anti-doping community and athlete groups. Critics said the Russians had refused to accept the findings of the McLaren report that concluded its government was involved in a massive doping conspiracy.

Wada said it had to compromise in order to get the data from the Moscow lab, which it had wanted since 2015, in order to build cases against athletes suspected of being involved in a state-sponsored doping programme.

However, Wada’s board was told that investigators had also found inconsistencies between a data set passed to it by a whistleblower in 2017 and the evidence extracted in January.

Jonathan Taylor, chairman of Wada’s committee tasked with overseeing Russia’s compliance, told the New York Times the Russians needed to “pull a rabbit out of a hat” to avoid new penalties. “There were positive findings that were deleted; 

The Russian sports minister, Pavel Kolobkov, said the ministry would cooperate with Wada, adding that experts in the field of digital technology would be involved.

The chief executive of the US Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart, who has repeatedly warned that Wada was being played by Russia, said he was unsurprised by the latest news.

“Let’s hope there are no secret backroom deals but that justice is finally served in an open, transparent and public manner,” he said. “The world, and especially clean athletes, have already been yanked around enough already.”

Brigid Kosgei Breaks the World Record at the 2019 Bank of America Chicago Marathon

Kenyan Brigid Kosgei shattered a 16-year-old world record in the women’s marathon by 81 seconds, winning the Chicago Marathon in 2:14:04 on Sunday.

Paula Radcliffe had held the record of 2:15:25 set at the 2003 London Marathon. Kenyan Mary Keitany holds the female-only record of 2:17:01 from the 2017 London Marathon. Both Kosgei and Radcliffe, the only women to break 2:17, ran with men in their record races.

Radcliffe’s record was the longest-standing for the men’s or women’s marathon of the last 50 years.

Kosgei did it one day after Eliud Kipchoge became the first person to run a sub-two-hour marathon in a non-record-eligible event in Vienna. She won by a gaping 6 minutes, 47 seconds over Ethiopian Ababel Yeshaneh.

Kosgei, who won Chicago in 2018 and the London Marathon in April, came in highly favored. The 25-year-old tuned up with the fastest half-marathon ever by a woman (by 23 seconds) on Sept. 8 on a non-record-eligible course.

“2:10 is possible,” Kosgei reportedly said after Sunday’s record.

Jordan Hasay, the top U.S. woman in the field, crossed 5km at a slow 22:20 and registered no further timings. Hasay, who was coached by Alberto Salazar before his ban in a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency case, is one of several women in contention for the three Olympic spots at the Feb. 29 trials in Atlanta.

Kenyan Lawrence Cherono won the men’s race by one second over Ethiopian Dejene Debela in 2:05:45.

Galen Rupp, reportedly dropped out in the final miles. He began fading from the lead pack before the 10-mile mark in his first race since last year’s Chicago Marathon. Rupp, who was also coached by Salazar, is coming back from Achilles surgery.

Mo Farah, the defending champion and four-time Olympic track gold medalist, finished eighth in 2:09:58. He also dropped from the leaders before the halfway point.

Kosgei raced her way to an early lead, breaking far away from her pack and continuing on pace to break not just a course but the woman’s world record. 

Kosgei has literally been unbeatable in 2019.

Kosgei wowed fans in 2017 with a second-place finish, but she made an even bigger splash last fall when she won the race with third-fastest time in Chicago's history.

Keniaan Mutai wins 36th edition of the Eindhoven Marathon

The Kenyan Laban Mutai won the Eindhoven marathon on Sunday. He arrived solo at the Vestdijk in 2.06.40. Reuben Kerio came second, John Langat third.

Halfway the lead group came through in 1.02.37 much faster than the course director Marc Corstjens requested, 1.03.18.  At 30 kilometers they hit 1:29:15 and the 2.05 schedule was still firmly embraced. 

On the Oirschotsedijk behind the Herdgang it became clear that the Kenyans Laban Mutai, Reuben Kerio, Julius Tarus and John Langat would decide who would win the 36th edition of Marathon Eindhoven and that the course record was not yet feasible. Mutai released his countrymen one by one and improved his personal record from 2.07.38 to 2.06.40 in a windy Eindhoven.

Khalid Choukoud and Kim Dillen from Eindhoven were unable to run the Olympic limit at the marathon in Eindhoven. Dillen let the limit run early in the race, Choukoud finished in a time of 2.12.56. The limit for him was 2.11.30.

Kenya's Gilbert Yegon and Betty Chepleting will seek the victory at Eindhoven marathon

 Kenya's Gilbert Yegon and Betty Chepleting hope to break through and win a big city marathon when they line up at the Eindhoven marathon on Sunday in the Netherlands.

Yegon leads a quartet of Kenyan stars keen to crash the course record and boost their selection prospects to the national team ahead of next year's Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.

Yegon, a bronze medalist from the Stockholm marathon, is seeking his first win in 2019. Last year, Yegon won the Dusseldorf marathon and was fifth at the Singapore marathon.

"I hope to run a fast race and boost my personal best time. But the important thing is to win against a strong challenge from Ethiopian and Turk runners. However, my training has gone on well and will be looking forward to a good performance," Yegon said in Nairobi on Friday.

Leading the women's charge will be Chepleting, who hopes to bounce back from a poor showing in China's Dongfeng Wuhan marathon, where she was seventh in two hours, 34 minutes and 26 seconds.

"This will be my third race in 2019. I was seventh in Wuhan and failed to finish in Nagoya. I also won in Tunis in 2018 and hopefully, I will be able to overcome my challenges and fears to stage a good show in Eindhoven and win," said Chepleting.

Race Director Marc Corstjens believes they have top elite runners who can break the two hours and six minutes mark.

"Since 2014, winners of the Eindhoven marathon managed to complete the course within an average time of 2:06:26. But only if all conditions like the weather, are excellent. However, their finishing times ensure Eindhoven's marathon is among the ten fastest marathons in the world," Corstjens said.

On paper, the four Kenyans have the fastest time. Yegon has a fast time of 2:06:18 with Laban Mutai (2:07:38) and Reuben Keiro (2:08:12) in the men's race and Chepleting (2:31:18) in the women's race.

I think the 1:59 Challenge should have been a real race with 12 runners and with no pacemakers. I think Eliud, Kenenisa or someone else would have run better than 1:59:40 today

First of all, well done Eliud and your pacemaker team. You are an amazing runner. However, on reflection I wished this would have been a real race with a dozen runners racing on this same course. No pacemakers and the runners would pick up their own drinks at tables. If this had been done, I think we would now have a new real world record. And I think it would be faster than 1:59:40.

Pacemakers need to go. Eliud and Kenenisa plus ten others could have clocked some amazing times this morning. And all going for the win. Pay the winner two million if they break two and there you go. I am sure more than two million was spent on the pacemakers alone.

No prize money for second. It would be all about racing to win and to run under two hours.  No prize money for second and maybe only $100,000 if you win and don’t go under two hours. 

I watch every minute of this 1:59 Challenge. But I must admit I did get tired of watching the pacemakers lead Eliud through the course. Don’t get me wrong, these were amazing runners leading Eliud and I admire them all. But this needed to be a real race with the winner not known before the gun went off.

Irvette van Zyl is slowly regaining her form in time for the defence of her Soweto Marathon title

She proved this at the weekend when she ran a credible 34:40 to finish third in the Johannesburg leg of the Spar Women’s 10km Grand Prix Series.

That run ensured she finished as the best-placed South African and third overall in the six race Series. Only the invincible Helalia Johannes of Namibia and Ethiopia’s Tadu Naru got the better of her.

A tearful Van Zyl spoke of the joy at finally sorting out an injury that has troubled her for close on a decade thanks to an operation she had recently.

“It has been troubling me for seven years. I did not know what was happening with my left leg until someone found what was wrong and I did the operation.”

But she had to wait a while before going under the knife: “I waited for so long for the operation to happen. I had to wait during pregnancy as the doctors thought it would be too risky to do it at that time.”

While she has not fully recovered, Van Zyl is delighted to be back on the road.

“It is good to be running again although I am still not feeling well a 100 percent. The medication I have been taking is giving tough times.”

There were no signs of her being unwell on Sunday though as she raced into an early lead and set the pace for the initial two kilometres before the amazing Johannes took over.

“Helalia has been unstoppable this year setting new records wherever she runs. It has not been easy for us to compete with us, especially for me as I was recovering from the operation. But I think we ran great times, we are improving.

“Remember my operation was only three months back. But I am happy with my performance in the Johannesburg leg. I am also excited with podium finish.”

The Spar Series success has lifted her confidence for next month’s Soweto Marathon where she is not only the defending champion but also the record holder.

“Of course I would like to defend my title again this year,” she said.

Galen Rupp says he is focused on running the Chicago marathon and not on the Suspension of his coach Alberto Salazar

Below is a statement provided by Rupp’s agent Ricky Simms to the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on behalf of Galen Rupp.

“First, as I’ve stated before, I am dedicated to clean sport and am completely against doping,” said Rupp.  “I have trained for over a decade to get where I am today and have worked extremely hard for every accomplishment in my running career.

“The panels’ decisions made it clear that neither I nor any Oregon Project athlete ever received any banned substance or were involved in any anti-doping rule violation.

“Since I first met and began working with Alberto 19 years ago, he has always put my health and well being first and has done the same for his other athletes.  I have personally seen him take great care to comply with the WADA Code and prevent any violations of any anti-doping rules.

“I understand he is appealing the decision and wish him success.  From my experience, he has always done his best for his athletes and the sport.

“Now, I am focused on the Chicago Marathon where I will be competing for the first time without my coach and friend.

“I will not comment further on this matter at this time.“

Mo Farah defended his reputation as he was bombarded with questions about his former coach Alberto Salazar

British Olympic champion Mo Farah defended his reputation ahead of the Chicago Marathon Friday, and suggested there was an "agenda" against him.

Farah was bombarded with questions about his former coach Alberto Salazar who has been banned for doping violations.

The Brit, who has not been accused of any wrongdoing, worked from 2011 to 2017 with Salazar, who was given a four-year ban by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Sept. 30.

Speaking for the first time since Salazar was suspended, he responded angrily to questions about his former mentor, with whom he achieved some of his best performances.

"It's very disappointing to see you guys going at it again and again, and headlines, 'Farah, Farah, Farah'," he told a news conference.

"There is a clear agenda to this. I know where you are going with it. I have seen it with Raheem Sterling and Lewis Hamilton.

"I am probably one of the most tested athletes in the world. I get tested all the time and I'm happy to be tested anytime, anywhere and for my sample to be used to keep and freeze it.

"I'll just say there's no allegation against me. I've not done anything wrong.

"If I tell you guys and talk to you guys and be nice to you, you'll still be negative. If I don't talk to you, you'll still be negative.

"I'm aware I can't win. You're already made up your mind what you're going to write -- that is a fact."

Asked if he regretted staying with Salazar, particularly after a 2015 BBC documentary made a series of allegations against the American, Farah said he had confronted his coach.

"I was out in Birmingham [England] racing, I pulled out [of] the race in 2015," he added. "I wanted some answers and I flew to Portland to get some answers from Alberto.

"Talked to him face-to-face and he assured me at the time, 'These are just allegations. This is not true. There are no allegations against you, Mo.' He promised me. And that hasn't been true.

"This is not about Mo Farah, this is about Alberto Salazar. I am not Alberto. I was never given anything. I am not on testosterone or whatever it is.

"At the time I never saw any wrongdoing when I was there. This allegation is about Salazar, not Mo Farah."

Eliud Kipchoge is now the first man to run 26.2 miles in less than two hours as he clocked 1:59:40 today

Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya and the current world record holder for the marathon made history today by running 26.2 miles in 1:59:40.  His splits were amazing.  His fastest kilometer was 2:48 and his slowest was 2:52.  At least 19 of his splits were 2:50 on the dot. 

He hit the first 5k in 14:13 with his pacemakers right out front.  He looked relaxed and smooth.  Just watching him gave me goosebumps because he makes it look so easy.

The course in Vienna, Austria was 90% flat and straight. The temperature was just under 50F and the humidity 90 percent at the start which was a little higher than expected.  But it did not have any visual effects on Eliud.  

Eliud said before the start, “I don’t know where the limits are, but I would like to go there.”

I did a poll on Facebook before the start and all but one person thought he could run sub two hours.  One thought he could run 1:55 but most thought 1:59 something.

No, this was not a race.  It is not a world record because he was the only one racing, he had drinks handed to him from a bike and he had pacers coming in and out. It was a challenge to see if it was possible for a man to run a sub two hour marathon.  And he did it.  

In watching the event it was distracting to always see the pacemakers out front until the end but they certainly did their job. It was almost like watching a new sport as the pacemakers came in and got in their formation.  

I would have rather have watched Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele battle it out in Berlin where I think one of them would have run sub 2:01 but I did enjoy watching this challenge.  Eliud made it look so easy to run 14:10 5k’s.  

Eliud was under an hour at the half way point and finished  very strong in 1:59:40.  The pacemakers helped Eliud run 2:50 kilometers on the dot from 33k to 40k.  

Then with about 500 meters to go the pacemakers let Kipchoge go and he sprinted to the finish line.    Shalane Flanagan who was one of the hosts of the You Tube broadcast said, “No way in my life time did I ever think I would see a man run a sub two hour marathon.”

We have now seen a man run a marathon in under two hours.  His wife Grace and their three children watched him race for the first time.  They were all smiles as was Eliud. 

Eliud Kipchoge is an Olympic Champion, world record holder clocking 2:01:39 at the Berlin Marathon last September and now the first man to cover 26.2 miles in under two hours.  

It has been one year since I had open heart triple bypass surgery says Boston Marathon Race Director Dave McGillivray

It’s been one year since my open heart, triple bypass surgery (Oct 12, 2018).  Some said it would take at least a year to recover and heal.  I didn’t believe them. 

I thought that was way too long and I’d be fully recovered within nine months.  Wrong! Now I believe them!  And, I am still not fully recovered or healed yet. 

However, I have done a few marathon distances and a bunch of road races this past year so I am very grateful for that and just happy to wake up every morning. 

I did have a stress test on Tuesday of this week.  The results were actually pretty good.  They said my aerobic capacity was back to normal but I still had work to do in terms of my anerobic threshold – ha, I probably didn’t need a stress test to tell me that! 

My continued labored breathing when running tipped me off to that.  But, the good news is that they say I can increase my intensity and my distance and begin to work much harder in that anaerobic zone (for me, above 137 heart rate). 

So, I now have three goals:  1.) Stay alive (which is sort of important to accomplish the next two goals).  2.) Improve my performances progressively with the hope that I can become even more fit and faster than I was a year ago.  3.) Continue to create awareness that “just because you’re fit doesn’t mean you are healthy” and to help saves lives.

My main message here to all my friends is “IF YOU FEEL SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING!”   TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF!

Lastly, good luck to all those doing the Chicago Marathon, the Ironman in Hawaii on Saturday or the BAA ½  this weekend!   I so wish I could join you, but that is what NEXT YEAR is all about!

(Photos:  After surgery, October 12, 2018 at Mass General Hospital.  Crossing the Boston Marathon this year.  Running in the Middlemiss Big Heart Celebrity Mile a year later - two weeks ago).

Eliud Kipchoge has an even better chance to break 2 hours in the marathon, according to scientists

A team of respected running scientists from Vienna, Boulder, Sacramento and Houston has just released a paper analyzing the marathon course Eliud Kipchoge will run Saturday morning in Vienna in the Ineos 1:59 Marathon Challenge. The paper concludes that the layout is only 4.5 seconds slower than what would be expected from a perfectly straight, perfectly flat course.

“Our simulation indicates that the Vienna course was well chosen for optimizing performance,” said the researchers in a paper entitled: The effects of course design (elevation undulations and curves) on marathon running performance: an a priori study of the INEOS 1:59 Challenge in Vienna.

Kipchoge’s manager, Jos Hermens, recently told us that Kipchoge is in better shape than two years ago, and that he learned from the Nike event and will benefit from better handling of the pace car and his sports drinks.

Kipchoge hopes to run 1:59:xx early on Saturday, October 12 in Vienna in an unofficial, non-record-eligible time-trial similar to the Nike Breaking2 event he raced in May, 2017, on an auto track in Monza, Italy. There he hit halfway in 59:59, and snapped the tape in 2:00:25—the fastest running time ever for the 26 mile, 385 yard marathon distance.

Kipchoge’s performance in Monza did not count as an official world record, because he had a pace car, a large, rotating group of pacers, and received help with his drinks, among other violations of official IAAF competition rules. The Vienna race will follow suit in many ways, and likewise not be eligible for world-record status. That doesn’t lessen the excitement and intrigue among running fans.

Kipchoge and his INEOS sponsors are hoping that better weather and that loud spectator support will help him in Vienna. In Italy, he ran with temps in the upper 50s, slightly humid. According to weather forecasts, Vienna could be 5 to 10 degrees F cooler, with somewhat lower humidity. Wind was not an issue in Monza, and isn’t expected in Vienna.

The Vienna course begins on the Reichbruecke Bridge (over the Danube River; also the start of the annual Vienna Marathon) and drops 40 feet in the first 1.4K. It then enters Prater Park for four out-and-back 9.625K loops, mostly on the straight-as-an-arrow, pedestrian-only Hauptallee Road, in the shadow of the iconic Prater ferris wheel. This road has small up-and-down undulations of about 8 feet.

Importantly, the straightaways do not reverse direction with abrupt, momentum-killing U-turns. At both ends, Kipchoge and pacers will take longish, gentle “roundabouts.” One is called the Praeterstern and has a circumference of 870 meters. The other, the Lusthaus, has a circumference of 210 meters.

After the four loops of the Hauptallee and roundabouts, the course begins a fifth loop. This ends 2.3K later at the finish, which is a net 43 feet below the start.

The roundabouts are so easy to navigate that the science team estimates Kipchoge will lose only 0.5 seconds (at 4:34/mile pace) due to cornering. At Monza, they estimate he lost 1.5 seconds on the winding course.

They didn’t have enough data from Monza to estimate time lost to the slight ups-and-downs. In Vienna, this should amount to about 4 seconds.

Two weeks ago, a Danish group named Albatros Adventure Marathons tried to scoop the 1:59 effort with its “World’s Fastest Marathon” near Granada Spain. The open race started at 8,546 feet in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, and dropped 6358 feet to the city finish. A little-known Kenyan named Antony Karinga Maina passed the halfway point in 59:30, but then slower to a winning 2:09:38. Four months earlier, Maina had run 2:22:38 in the Salzburg Marathon.

In recent years, a number of downhill marathons have appeared to help runners qualify for the Boston Marathon. The Revel marathon series includes a handful of marathons with elevation drops of 2000 to 4000 feet. Physiologists believe that long, steep downhills lead to debilitating quadriceps muscle damage, and that half as much drop might be better.

Nike has shut down the Oregon Project after Alberto Salazar was banned for four years for doping violations

Nike has shut down its elite Oregon Project (OP) long-distance running operation less than two weeks after head coach Alberto Salazar was banned for four years, a company spokesperson told CNN.

Salazar was banned for "multiple anti-doping rule violations" following a four-year investigation by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Nike says it took the decision to wind down the OP as the situation has become an "unfair burden" on its athletes.

"Nike has always tried to put the athlete and their needs at the front of all of our decisions," a spokesperson told CNN.

"While the panel found there was no orchestrated doping, no finding that performance-enhancing drugs have ever been used on Oregon Project athletes and went out of its way to note Alberto's desire to follow all rules, ultimately Alberto can no longer coach while the appeal is pending.

"This situation including uninformed innuendo and unsubstantiated assertions has become an unfair burden for current OP athletes. That is exactly counter to the purpose of the team.

"We have therefore made the decision to wind down the Oregon Project to allow the athletes to focus on their training and competition needs. We will help all of our athletes in this transition as they choose the coaching set up that is right for them."

The Nike Oregon Project is a prolific training group that has produced some of the world's best athletes, including Mo Farah, who Salazar coached to four Olympic gold medals between 2011 and 2017.

Salazar, 61, and Jeffrey Brown, a consultant doctor for the NOP, were ruled to have trafficked testosterone, tampered with the doping control process and administered a banned intravenous infusion.

Nike told CNN it "will continue to support Alberto in his appeal," which has been taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

”Maybe this confirms that NIKE really did know what was going on and in fact might have been the moving force pushing Salazar to do some things he otherwise would not have done,” wonders Bob Anderson.  “However NIKE is too big of a powerhouse for us to ever know the real story.  Why would they close this program and leave many elite runners out in the cold?”  

Berlin resident Sigrid Eichner, 79, has run 2,200 marathons and she didn’t start running until age 40

Kathrine Switzer meets a lot of runners. The 261 Fearless founder (who was the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with an official bib, back in 1967) travels the world, promoting women’s empowerment through running. But even she was shocked, during her visit to the Berlin Marathon last month, to meet a woman who has run 2,200 marathons which quite possibly is more than any other woman alive.

Born in 1940, Sigrid Eichner’s running began metaphorically–as an infant, she “ran” from Allied bombs, and from the Russians, with her family. Her passion for physical activity was born after the war, when, as a talented gymnast, she was sent to a boarding school for athletes. It wasn’t until she was a working mother of 40 that she started running, to take time for herself and escape domestic life (and possibly an unhappy marriage), according to one report.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, running became a way for her to explore the world.

When we tried to verify the number, we found her entry on the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (ARRS) site, which shows 681 marathon results between November 29, 1981 and October 31, 2017, and includes the 2003 Niagara Falls Marathon and New York City Marathon during her only visit to North America.

(The ARRS site has been in limbo since the death of its driving force, Ken Young, in 2017.) The German ultramarathon site D-U-V.com lists between one and 23 ultra results for Eichner every year between 1981 and the present. It’s fair to say that Eichner has done more running than anything else, with the possible exception of breathing, during the last 40 years of her life.

Her children now grown, she admits she runs to escape loneliness. She has a literal curtain of race medals in her home, a room full of trophies from her younger days, and a closet full of race shirts.

It is sometimes suggested that people who race a lot must have money in order to afford the constant travel and race entries, but this does not appear to be the case for Eichner, most of whose races nowadays are in her native Germany.

She favors hostels over hotels, and has occasionally slept on the floor of the race expo to save money. Last year she spent just over 3,000 euros ($3310US) on 88 races, including travel and accommodation. She spoke of contacting the Guinness World Records organization in the hope of attracting a sponsor, but so far there is no official Guinness record.

She is rarely injured, though one report says she was once badly hurt in a car accident, and now has four screws in her back.

Occasionally running multiple marathons in a single weekend, Eichner says, “The first 30 minutes are the hardest.”

Organizers of the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships Gdynia 2020 have presented the official medals that will be handed out to finishers of the mass race

Half Marathon Championships Gdynia 2020 registration for the mass race opened in May and 10,000 runners have already signed up.

The finisher medal is thick, precisely designed and crafted in a compass shape. The front of the medal shows the recently revealed event logo with a drop of amber – treasure of the Baltic Sea region – sunk in the face of each finisher medal. On the reverse, there is a contour of Poland with some space in which to engrave a name and race result.

But the best feature of the medal is on the inside. Once opened, a working compass mechanism is revealed – a nod to Gdynia as ‘the city of dreams and sea’ and Poland’s window to the world.

“More than 10,000 runners from nearly 50 countries have already registered and our goal is to make them leave Gdynia with the best possible experience and memories,” said Wojciech Szczurek, Mayor of Gdynia. “I do hope our finisher medal will be proudly hung in many running trophy collections all over the world.”

Together with the finisher medal presentation, the local organising committee also launched the official event website: worldathleticshalfmarathon.com/gdynia2020/

Registration for the event has been open since 1 May on SlotMarket.pl. The current entry fee is 170 PLN and includes a bib, a timing chip, insurance, medical care, official t-shirt and a finisher medal. The starting kit can be supplemented with add-ons, including accommodation, finisher photos, cancellation insurance and medal engraving that can be ordered directly while signing up for the race.

Frenchmen Florian Carvalho and Hassan Chahdi and Felicien Muhitira of Rwanda look to be the favorites at the Paris 20 km race

Frenchmen Florian Carvalho and Hassan Chahdi and Felicien Muhitira of Rwanda look to be the favorites at the Paris 20 km, an IAAF Silver Label road race, whose 41st edition will be held on Sunday.

With no previous winner on the start line, the 2019 edition will crown new champions in both races.

Carvalho and Chahdi, both in the build-up for their upcoming appearances at the Valencia Marathon on 1 December, should be at the front. Their goal will be to succeed Morhad Amdouni, the last French winner of the race who took the title in 2016.

Chadhi finished third in 59:51 last year, 1:38 behind winner Samuel Tsegay of Eritrea. Chahdi’s best 2019 performance was a marathon personal best of 2:09:55 set in Seville in February.

Carvalho also set a new marathon best this year, clocking 2:12:53 in Paris. He also clocked 29:00 over 10km in June, finishing 1:42 ahead of Chadhi, who is expected to be in better shape on Sunday.

Muhitira should have a role to play. The Rwandan was runner-up at last year’s edition, finishing 12 seconds adrift of Tsegay. He should have been the favorite but he finished a distant 22nd in the marathon at the World Championships one week ago (2:16:21). The speed of his recovery will be a key factor in Sunday’s race.

Nicolas Navarro, who improved his marathon PB this year to 2:11:53 will also be in the running for the podium, as well as Haile Ibrahimov of Azerbaijan.

Other French runners expected to contend include marathoner Benjamin Malaty and Michael Gras. Evans Kiprop Cheruiyot set the men’s course record of 57:19 back to 2005.

On the women’s side, the defending champion Ophélie Claude-Boxberger, who competed in the 3000m steeplechase in Doha, won’t defend her title. 

In her absence Susan Kipsang Jeptoo appears to be one the main favorite. She has a 32:14 10km season’s best in 2019. Liv Westphal, third last year, should be her main rival.  

Chaltu Negasa, who knows the race well, Kenyan Joyline Koima as well as French runners Samira Mezeghrane Saad and Alice Finot, who finished fourth and fifth respectively, last year, should be in the running for the podium. Not to be discounted is Mekdes Woldu from Eritrea. 

The women’s course record is held by Kenya’s Rose Chelimo, who ran 1:05:01 in 2014. 

About 30,000 runners are expected to enter the race on Sunday.

Despite Injury, Navy Veteran Michael Frank Still Plans To Cross the Finish Line at the Marine Corps Marathon

Michael Frank is raising funds to help support a veteran’s charity says he won’t let a recent stumble stop him from crossing the finish line.

Michael Frank is preparing for his 8th straight run in the Marine Corps Marathon, set for October 27th in Washington D.C. However, the Navy veteran says while on a lunchtime training run, he tripped, fell, and rolled, fracturing his left shoulder socket in the process.

He called it a “minor break” that only requires his arm to stay in a sling for six weeks. And while he can’t do any additional training until a follow-up x-ray on October 21st, he says the orthopedist said he should be able to jog/walk the Marine Corps Marathon.In light of that, he’s revised his goal for the event from a 4 hour 30 minute finish to just finishing the marathon.

As he has for the past seven years, Frank is running for the Semper Fi Fund, which benefits combat wounded, critically ill, and catastrophically injured members of all the armed services.

While many of the immediate needs of the veteran might be being met, the Semper Fi Fund specializes in helping with the ancillary needs. Frank says the fund is one of only two A+ rated veterans charities.

Despite the medical setback, he’s still doing what he can, including a fundraiser October 10th at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Howell. 

The 35th Anniversary edition of Army Ten-Miler is this Sunday

The 35th Anniversary edition of Army Ten-Miler (ATM) is this Sunday, Oct. 13 at 8:00 a.m. EDT in Washington, DC. The 10-mile road race starts and finishes at the Pentagon, traversing a scenic course that takes the 35,000 runners through downtown Washington, D.C.

Race Weekend officially kicks off this Friday, Oct. 11 with the ATM Expo presented by Navy Federal Credit Union (NFCU), at the DC Armory (2001 E. Capitol St., SE), offering deals on clothing, shoes, accessories and other health and fitness items. All runners must collect their bib and race packet at packet pick-up which takes place during the ATM Expo. There is no packet pick-up on Sunday/race day.

Free and open to the public, the ATM Expo highlights include Interactive Military Displays, presented by the U.S. Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion (SORB) booth and on the lawn outside of the DC Armory.

SORB displays will feature the debut of ARMYCON’s live eSport gaming tournament, helicopters, 18-foot simulator trailer, Special Operations equipment and more. Open from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Oct. 11-12, the Expo is accessible by Metrorail, taking the Blue, Orange or Silver Line and exiting at the Stadium/Armory Station, or, by car, park for free in Lot 3 at the Armory. U.S. Military or Civilians with CAC/USID may access the Expo at 8:30 a.m. both days.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) will open Metrorail one hour early, at 7:00 a.m., on race day. Runners and spectators are advised to utilize the Trip Planner function at www.wmata.com to plan their trip to the Pentagon City Metro Station. 

The forecasted ideal temperatures will aid fast times at Chicago Marathon however it could be windy

Chilly, blustery weather is in store in Chicago on Sunday as tens of thousands of runners take to the streets for the city's annual marathon.

Around 1.7 million spectators are expected to line the course, which weaves it way through 29 neighborhoods in downtown Chicago.

A repeat of the weather from last's year marathon is not expected, when around 0.50 of an inch of rain fell throughout the day.

"A brief shower can't be completely ruled out. However, it will be dry for much of the day," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Carl Babinski said of this year's event, adding that there would be a mix of clouds and sun throughout the day.

Any shower that may move over the area should be light and brief, lasting less than 15 minutes.

The bigger story is likely to be the cool, windy conditions on tap for Sunday.

"Temperatures at the start of Sunday's Chicago Marathon will be in a range that most long-distance runners consider 'ideal', or in the middle to upper 40s," Babinski said.

Temperatures will be near the day's high of around 54 degrees Fahrenheit by the time the last of the racers cross the finish line during the afternoon hours. Chicago's average high for Oct. 13 is 64.

A west-southwesterly wind of 15-25 mph will be a crosswind for the runners for a majority of the course, but also a headwind and tailwind at times during the second half of the race.

While the tall buildings in the city can act as a buffer against the winds, they can also create a wind tunnel effect, causing winds to increase in between the skyscrapers.

The wind will act to make it feel even chillier than the actual air temperature. AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures are forecast to be in the middle to upper 30s F throughout the morning hours, which will require coats, hats and perhaps even gloves and scarves for spectators.

Light layers will be appropriate attire for race participants. This includes a long-sleeve, moisture-wicking shirt, a windproof running jacket, running pants and/or tights.

Scotiabank Toronto marathon switches from Gatorade to Nuun Endurance for their marathon event

Nuun has been updating its various sports hydration products, and Nuun Endurance, designed specifically those expecting to be out on the course for more than 90 minutes, will replace Gatorade at the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon’s water stations on October 20.

Some commercial sports drinks contain a lot of sugar, artificial dyes and unnecessary chemicals–things that more health-aware athletes are trying to get away from, since they do nothing to improve either performance or health (and may do the opposite). Nuun unveiled its new Sport product earlier this year, and now endurance athletes in Canada can enjoy Nuun Endurance, formulated with their specific needs in mind.

According to Nuun, “as more research into hydration science demonstrated the ineffectiveness of traditional sports drink formulas, runners demanded healthier options with cleaner ingredients designed specifically to hydrate for high-intensity activities.”

Formulated as a powdered mix rather than a tab, Nuun Endurance is non-GMO and Informed Sport certified (Informed Sport is a third-party quality assurance program for sports nutrition products), kosher, vegan and gluten-free–which means you can rest assured there’s no funny stuff in your hydration product. It comes in four flavors: Mixed Berry, Citrus Mango, Lemon Lime and caffeinated Strawberry Lemonade, and is available in 16-serving tubs or single-serving packets. (The Strawberry Lemonade flavor contains 25 mg of caffeine derived from organic green coffee beans.)

Nuun Endurance’s delivers just enough electrolytes to optimize hydration, and its low sugar content is designed to minimize the potential for gastric distress.

Amanda Evans is ready for Hartford half marathon after using running as therapy

he is back in the house where she grew up. Her 4-year-old daughter Nell sleeps in her old bedroom.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out, Amanda Evans said last week, sighing.

Her grandmother was a single mom and so was her mother. Now Evans is one as well. She left her now-ex-husband on a cold January night at midnight almost five years ago. Nell was 11 days old.

The past four years haven’t been easy for Evans, 35, of East Haven. But Nell is thriving, curious and outgoing, Evans started running more seriously, has lost 85 pounds and is competing in her first race, the half marathon of the Eversource Hartford Marathon Oct. 12 in Hartford. She is part of the marathon’s Aiello Inspiration team.

“For a long time, I didn’t have health insurance so [running] was free therapy in a way,” Evans said. “It gets me outside. It gave me the chance to do something that was really only for me at a time when it seems like everything else I do is for other people — other peoples’ kids, my kid, my family.”

Evans works part-time at the Branford Family Resource Center, organizing playgroups and pre-school activities. She and Nell live with her grandmother, who also works part-time. She watches Nell when Evans goes out to run.

Evans had been running on and off since college. She tried a Couch to 5K program but couldn’t quite get past a certain level and would stop.

“I had this book called ‘Run Your Butt Off,’” she said. “I had tried the Couch to 5K over and over but there was one particular week, it was like run eight minutes, walk for five then it went to something like run for 12 minutes and for some reason, I couldn’t do it. This program was quite a bit slower. I managed to kind of successfully get through it and I ended up running a half hour straight.”

“I just kept increasing the distances I was doing,” she said. “I run outside. I don’t have access to a treadmill. I just kept bumping up the mileage. I lost a lot of weight. I didn’t start trying to lose weight until Nell was almost a year. I think if I had braved getting on the scale earlier my total would probably be closer to 100. I had to work up the courage to: This is where I’m going to start.