Running News Daily

Josh Kerr breaks Mo Farah's indoor two-mile record at Millrose Games Feb 11

Great Britain's Josh Kerr broke Mo Farah's world two-mile indoor record as he won at the Millrose Games in New York.

World 1500m gold medallist Kerr ran eight minutes 0.67 seconds to beat Farah's mark of 8:03.40 from 2015.

"It was always going to be really tough, small margins," Kerr, 26, said.

Kerr's fellow Scot Laura Muir set a new British indoor record as she won the women's two-mile race after Ethiopia's Medina Eisa was disqualified.

Eisa was first home in New York but cut in too early on the opening lap.

Muir, 30, was promoted from second to first after finishing in nine minutes and 4.84 seconds.

The Olympic 1500m silver medallist, who won the Wanamaker Mile at last year's Millrose Games, will look to win the world indoor title in Glasgow next month.

In the men's two-mile race, Kerr charged at the finish to defeat Grant Fisher, who set an American national record of 8:03.62.

Farah set the previous world indoor best at Birmingham nine years ago.

"I had to roll with the punches at the start of my career - pretty good but not world class," said Kerr. 

"And then to be world class and now world champion... I'm having fun with it, creating big goals to get myself out the door and prove I'm not all talk."

Marathon world record holder Kelvin Kiptum dies as tragedy rocks athletics world

Marathon world record-holder Kelvin Kiptum and his coach died in a car crash in Kenya late Sunday, a fellow athlete who went to the hospital and saw Kiptum's body said.

Kiptum was 24 and on course to be a superstar of long-distance running.

Kiptum and his Rwandan coach Gervais Hakizimana were killed in the crash at around 11 p.m., said Kenyan runner Milcah Chemos, who was at the hospital where the bodies were taken.

The crash happened on a road between the towns of Eldoret and Kaptagat in western Kenya, she said, in the heart of the high-altitude region that's renowned as a training base for long distance runners.

Chemos said she was among a group of athletes who had gone to the hospital in Eldoret after hearing the news of the crash. Family members of Kiptum were also with them to identify his body, Chemos said.

Kenyan media reported that a third person, a woman, was in the car and was taken to the same hospital with serious injuries.

Kiptum was the first man to run the marathon in under 2 hours, 1 minute. He set the new world record of 2:00.35 at the Chicago Marathon in October, beating the mark of fellow Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge.

Kiptum's record was ratified by international track federation World Athletics last week.

Kenyan athletics federation president Jackson Tuwei said he had sent a team of officials to the area after being informed of the late-night accident.

Kiptum had immediate success by running the fastest time ever by a marathon debutant at the 2022 Valencia Marathon. He won the London and Chicago races last year, two of the most prestigious marathons in the world.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe was one of the first to offer his condolences in a statement on X, formerly Twitter.

"We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn of the devastating loss of Kelvin Kiptum and his coach, Gervais Hakizimana," Coe wrote. "On behalf of all World Athletics we send our deepest condolences to their families, friends, teammates and the Kenyan nation."

"It was only earlier this week in Chicago, the place where Kelvin set his extraordinary marathon World Record, that I was able to officially ratify his historic time. An incredible athlete leaving an incredible legacy, we will miss him dearly," Coe wrote.

Parkrun under fire for removing course records for inclusivity

Parkrun, the world’s largest weekly timed 5K event, has come under fire over a decision to remove men’s and women’s course records from its database. The move, aimed at fostering inclusivity and fairness, has sparked controversy within the running community.

Originating in the U.K., parkrun attracts hundreds of participants of all abilities to take part in timed 5K runs held in parks, trails and open spaces every Saturday morning, at locations across the globe. Each parkrun course featured men’s and women’s records and showed the fastest 500 finishers (of all time) on that course, plus age-graded results. However, in response to accusations of unfairness, particularly regarding its entry rules related to self-identification of gender, parkrun has chosen to eliminate the records altogether.

A spokesperson for parkrun explained that this decision was made to increase registration and participation while removing potential barriers. “There was a disconnect between the performance data displayed so prominently on the site, and our mission to create opportunities for as many people as possible to take part in parkrun events,” a spokesperson told The Telegraph.

The decision has stirred controversy, leaving several runners frustrated and arguing that rather than addressing concerns about fairness, parkrun’s move made the issue worse. “Rather than give females their fair sports results from parkrun–where it would be very easy to add course records for non-binary categories, they have removed all records,” a woman tweeted. “I hope parkrun will listen to the fact that the vast majority want a fair sport for all based on the biological reality of the bodies we run/race/compete with.”

Last year, World Athletics banned transgender athletes from competing in the female category, citing concerns of fairness and competitive advantage. However, parkrun differs from elite competitions, being a community-driven, volunteer-led event focused on fun and participation rather than prizes or accolades.

When registering for parkrun, participants are asked to specify their gender, with options including ‘prefer not to say’ and ‘another gender identity’ in addition to male and female. Parkrun has clarified that the intention behind the decision is to reduce the competitive nature of its events and eliminate the perception that the weekly runs are races. This approach aims to create a more welcoming environment for participants of all abilities.

Is running a rich person's sport?

Running has the makings to be a low-cost sport: it requires relatively little equipment, you don’t need access to a special facility, rink or field and you don’t need to sign up for a league or join a team to participate. Despite all this, it appears that running has become more popular among the wealthier segments of society than any other group. 

This raises an important question: is running a sport reserved for the rich? A recent study conducted on behalf of the Australian Sports Commission reveals a correlation between higher household income and participation in running. 

Costs add up

One possible explanation for the correlation between higher household income and running participation is the cost associated with the sport. While running can be cheaper than sports like hockey, football or golf, running shoes, athletic clothing and race registration fees add up, making it seem like a sport tailored to the affluent. Access to well-maintained tracks, gyms and clubs is often easier for those who can afford memberships or live in areas with better infrastructure, and these financial barriers can inadvertently exclude individuals from lower-income backgrounds.

Media and marketing efforts by running brands also often portray running as a trendy fitness activity, which can attract those in higher socioeconomic groups who have the financial means to invest in their health and appearance.

Performance-driven personalities

One reason running appeals to high-income earners is their innate drive for achievement and competition. The disciplined nature of running allows them to carry a certain level of focus and effectiveness into other aspects of their lives. Running and other athletic pursuits provide an opportunity for setting personal goals and benchmarks, aligning with the goal-oriented nature of their professional lives.

Mental relief and health benefits

High income often comes with high stress. The demanding nature of high-stress jobs makes mental relief crucial for high earners. Running provides a healthy outlet for managing stress and preserving mental well-being, often replacing less beneficial coping mechanisms. Additionally, high earners are usually well informed about healthy lifestyles and recognize the physical health benefits of running. While the physical aspect is important, many runners often emphasize the mental benefits, finding solace, relaxation, and a meditative escape during their runs.

Making running more accessible

While it may be an oversimplification to suggest running is exclusively a rich person’s sport, there is evidence to suggest that high-income earners do gravitate toward running. Many runners who are not part of the top one per cent will likely agree that there are barriers to running participation for low-income earners. Making running more accessible for people of all income levels involves addressing both financial barriers and creating safe and pleasant spaces for running in all neighbourhoods. 

By providing low-cost options for clubs and races and investing in well-maintained tracks, parks, and public spaces, we can provide equal opportunities for everyone to enjoy the benefits of running, regardless of their economic circumstances.

6 Running Benefits for Seniors That’ll Convince You to Lace Up Today

Research and experts explain all the advantages you gain from going for a run, including the physical and mental.

Despite what you may have been told, running has no cut-off age. You don’t have to slow down once you hit a particular milestone or switch to low-impact exercise. Running isn’t too hard on an older body, and, no, it won’t wreck your knees. 

In fact, the list of running benefits for seniors spans the physical, mental, and social. To highlight some of the most compelling reasons for running well into your golden years, we asked coaches, trainers, and healthcare professionals who work with an older population for their takes. Read on to learn why some of your best miles may be ahead of you.

1. Supports Heart Health

As you age, your risk for cardiovascular disease increases as performance and health-related factors like cardiac output (or the volume of blood your heart pumps per minute), maximal oxygen uptake (a.k.a. VO2 max), and maximum heart rate wane. But research shows that exercise can help decrease your risk of heart disease—and the more active you are, the lower your risk.

“Running won’t stop the decline, and it isn’t for everyone. But done correctly and safely by engaging in a program designed specifically for seniors, it provides a way to slow and mitigate these inevitable declines,” Hiroyuki “Mike” McKnight, coach and founder of Running Workx, a program that specializes in training older adults, tells Runner’s World. “Running consistently over time with higher endurance levels makes the heart stronger and more efficient, especially for those who have been living more sedentary lifestyles during their older adult years.”

Because it’s an aerobic activity, running can improve the heart’s stroke volume (or the amount of blood pumped out of the heart with each contraction), encourage the formation of new blood vessels, and increase the number and size of mitochondria or the “powerhouse” of the cells that help you produce energy.

2. Improves Breathing Function

Lung function, which basically means how well a person breathes, peaks in your 20s and starts to decline around age 35. Combined with age-related sarcopenia (muscle loss and atrophy) of the breathing muscles, namely the diaphragm, can make breathing more difficult and render you more susceptible to respiratory infections, like the flu and pneumonia. 

Research shows that moderate to high-intensity exercise, like running, may improve pulmonary function in seniors. A randomized clinical trial involving 45 people, published in Perceptual and Motor Skills, found that participants over 75 who engaged in moderate aerobic activity showed improved forced vital capacity (FVC, a marker of pulmonary health) after a 10-week exercise program. Seniors who performed high-intensity exercise for the same period of time showed improved FVC and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1.0, an additional pulmonary health marker). Meanwhile, the sedentary control group showed no improvements. 

3. Increases Bone Density

When it comes to bone density, running is a bit of a double-edged sword. Robert Linkul, C.S.C.S., owner of Training the Older Adult, is quick to point out that the high-impact nature of running may not be advisable for deconditioned seniors with bone density issues. Doing too much too soon could lead to shin splints and other micro-fractures, he warns.

That said, an appropriately progressive training plan that slowly ramps up to running can help improve conditions like osteopenia and osteoporosis. “Ground impact is beneficial, big time,” he says. “You’re getting anywhere between three to six times your bodyweight with ground impact when you’re leaving the ground when you’re striding on a run.”

Todd Buckingham, Ph.D., professor of movement science at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, also lists “bone strengthening” among the biggest benefits to senior runners, as it has real implications for quality of life and long-term health outcomes. 

Buckingham notes that falls are among the leading causes of injury and injury death for seniors, and hip fractures are associated with elevated mortality. “Increasing the bone density of the hip can help prevent those fractures from occurring,” he says. “Running also strengthens the muscles of the lower body and helps improve balance, so you’ll be less likely to fall in the first place.” 

4. Boosts Mood

A run is the ultimate mood booster, especially for older individuals who may be at greater risk for depression. “It’s hard to quantify, but in my experience on the ground, I see running providing seniors with a positive mechanism to cope with the everyday stresses of life,” McKnight says. “Whether it’s before the day starts or at the end of a tough day, there’s nothing like a good run outside to take one’s mind off things and create an environment to enjoy the moment.” 

Running also creates opportunities for social interaction through running groups, clubs, coaching, and running-related events. Seniors who run may find that they have more chances to connect with others and therefore are better able to avoid isolation, which, according to a longitudinal study published by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, can significantly increase an individual’s risk of dementia. 

5. Promotes Self-Efficacy

In her work, Colleen Brough, D.P.T., assistant professor of rehabilitation and regenerative medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City and director of Columbia RunLab, witnesses firsthand the physiological benefits that running can afford seniors. “We observe improved lipid profiles for those with cardiovascular disease, optimized metabolism—especially helpful for those struggling with obesity—and improved glycemic control in those new runners who have diabetes,” she says. 

But what’s perhaps equally impactful is how running can improve older adults’ self-esteem and self-efficacy, or believing in one’s own capabilities. “In a world of unrealistic standards set by choreographed social media images that often disregard those of us post-40, self-efficacy is more important than ever,” Brough explains. 

Running allows seniors to challenge themselves, achieve goals, and try again when they miss the mark. “Frankly, even a bad run that’s been completed provides an immediate sense of accomplishment and satisfaction along with a big dose of stress relief,” Mcknight says. 

6. Extends Lifespan

Considering running’s myriad physical and mental health benefits for seniors, it’s no surprise that hitting the road (or the tread) may help you live longer and with fewer disabilities. 

Case in point: According to a 2023 International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health study, adults who spend a minimum of 75 minutes a week jogging or running have longer telomeres—which are a part of chromosomes and known to shorten with age—than those who don’t exercise. Telomeres are better predictors of biological age than chronological years, according to the research.

Also, according to the American College of Cardiology, even running one or two times a week, for a total of less than 51 minutes, fewer than six miles, and slower than 6 miles per hour was associated with a lower your risk of dying compared to those who do not run. 

That also shows that if you are a lifelong athlete, you don’t have to maintain your pace or distance to benefit from running. 

Safety Considerations for Senior Runners

As with runners of any age, seniors new to the sport should (once they get a doctor’s approval) start slow. “I suggest newbie runners initiate their training with a walking protocol, which more easily transitions them to a new running program,” Brough says. “Depending on initial walking tolerance, this might look like five to 10 minutes of sustained, brisk walking three to four times per week for two weeks.” She suggests gradually working up to 20 minutes before incorporating brief running intervals. 

If you have the time and resources, it’s worthwhile to work with a run coach. “As little as one or two sessions can be a game-changer for people,” Linkul says. A running professional will not only help you optimize your form for performance and safety, but they can also customize a training plan that aligns with your goals, experience, and fitness level. 

Finally, stay on top of your medical appointments and listen to your doctor, as there are some contraindications to running—and not just for seniors. “Definitely don’t run if you recently experienced a myocardial infarction or change in heart medication, have congestive heart failure, unstable angina, uncontrolled hypertension, or uncontrolled glycemic levels,” Brough says. 

Individuals with controlled high blood pressure, a history of heart disease, or circulatory problems may benefit from running, she says, but they must be closely monitored by a healthcare professional.

Buddy the Elf Shatters Guinness Record with Help from Pro Ultramarathoner

Jason Homorody was gunning for the fastest half marathon as a movie character when he ran into Harvey Lewis.A modern-day staple of road running is unexpectedly coming across people running in costume either for a charity or in the hopes of setting a Guinness World Record, but sometimes, these costumed individuals discover the unexpected themselves.

On Sunday, Jason Homorody, 50, was beginning his quest to break the record for the fastest half marathon time while dressed as a movie character—Buddy the Elf from Elf in his case—at the Warm Up Columbus Half Marathon when he received some surprising support from a fellow runner. While attempting to break the previous 1:30:42 record, Homorody, who—obviously—loves Elf and regularly wears the costume around to “cheer people up,” was joined by Harvey Lewis, the current backyard ultramarathon record holder and well-decorated ultrarunner, who has won the likes of the Badwater 135 and USATF 24-Hour National Championships.

“[He] came up on my shoulder and asked me what pace I was going for,” Homorody told Runner’s World. “Once I answered some questions, he asked if he could run with me. Honestly, at first, I had no idea who he was. But he ran with me the entire race.”Homorody also said Lewis helped him with hydration during the race. “When we would pass the water stop on the course, he was asking if he could get me anything. He kept encouraging me to get water because I think he was concerned about me overheating in my costume,” Homorody said, adding that the two talked about Lewis’ upcoming races during the event.“I was picking his brain about ultramarathoning,” Homorody said. “I knew he recently had a crazy backyard ultra world record, and I was asking if he was almost falling asleep at any point while running, and he said yes.”

So, did the support of an ultramarathoner ultimately push Homorody to his goal? It seems like it, as Buddy the Elf crossed the finish line in 1:25:44, besting the previous record by more than 5 minutes. 

“[Lewis] was just a very down-to-earth guy, and he seemed genuinely excited to help pace me to my world record attempt,” Homorody said.

132 runners break 15 minutes for 5K in Northern Ireland

Breaking the 15-minute mark for a 5K is a coveted achievement for a small number of elite and sub-elite men. Yet, at a local race in Armagh, Northern Ireland, an astounding 132 runners shattered the barrier, with 17 of them breaking 14 minutes.

Dubbed one of the fastest 5K road races in the world, the Armagh 5K has garnered a reputation for its competitive field. This year’s event was no exception, despite weather conditions posing a formidable challenge, with biting cold and intermittent snowfall blanketing the course.

Winning the race was Finnish Olympian Topi Raitanen, whose blistering pace of two minutes and 45 seconds per kilometre over 5K put him on top of the podium in 13 minutes and 49 seconds. Raitanen, an Olympic finalist in the 3,000m steeplechase, was one of 17 runners to run under 14 minutes. This year set a new record for the race, with two more individuals breaking the 15-minute mark, compared to last year’s record of 130 men.

What sets the Armagh 5K apart from other road races is its unique course, characterized by flat terrain and minimal elevation gain. Each runner has to navigate five laps around a communal park (The Mall) in the middle of the town. A massive crowd lines the park to cheer on runners in the men’s 5K and women’s 3K races.

Runners from all over the world flock to Armagh, drawn by the allure of a chance to test their limits on one of the world’s fastest courses. This year, the race hosted runners from Sweden, Finland, the U.S.A., Germany and the Netherlands. For men to qualify for the race, they must run a time of 16 minutes or under for 5K. The last-place finisher (209th place) in this year’s men’s field finished in 17:09, which is still a fantastic time for most people.

World record holder Christian Coleman going for third victory at Millrose Games

World record holder Christian Coleman will be aiming for his third straight victory at the Millrose Games after bagging wins in 2022 and 2023.

World record-holder Christian Coleman will be seeking his third straight 60m victory at the Millrose Games, a World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York on Sunday, February 11.

Coleman will be opening his season at the event after a mixed 2023 season where he lost some races and emerged victorious in others.

He completed his season at the Prefontaine Classic, the Diamond League final meeting where he stunned triple World Champion Noah Lyles.

At the Millrose Games, he will be up against Canada’s Olympic 200m champion Andre De Grasse, who has not run the 60m at Millrose since 2016.

Jamaica’s Ackeem Blake, who set a PB of 6.45 in his first-ever indoor 60m race last weekend in Boston, should also prove to be a nightmare for the American.

Meanwhile, Tia Jones turned heads in Boston last week when she sped to victory in the 60m hurdles, clocking 7.72 – just 0.04 shy of the world indoor record.

At the Millrose Games, Jones will take on the likes of two-time world champion Danielle Williams, two-time world indoor champion Nia Ali, defending Millrose champion Devynne Charlton of The Bahamas, and NCAA champion Ackera Nugent of Jamaica.

Sprint sensation Julien Alfred is opening her season after an incredible 2023 campaign. The Saint Lucian star, who was undefeated last year in the 60m and 100m until placing fifth in the 100m at the World Championships in Budapest, will line up against Jamaicans Shashalee Forbes and Briana Williams and US contenders Tamara Clark and English Gardner.

In the men’s 60m hurdles, 2022 world silver medallist Trey Cunningham of the US, who is second on the world list, will take on a strong slate that includes 2023 world bronze medallist Daniel Roberts.

On her part, Alicia Monson broke the North American record in the 3000m last year at Millrose and is on a mission to win her third straight title on this track – with a record perhaps in a different event.

The two-mile distance is one more lap than 3000m and her ultimate goal is the continental record of 9:10.28. Monson will be in fast company with Olympic 1500m silver medalist Laura Muir of Great Britain, US mile record-holder Nikki Hiltz, and world U20 5000m champion Medina Eisa of Ethiopia.

World indoor silver medalist Elle St Pierre will vie for her third title in the women’s Wanamaker Mile with the race being a rematch between herself, and Jessica Hull of Australia, who won their showdown in the 3000m last week with an Oceanian indoor record.

Olympic 800m bronze medalist Raevyn Rogers, who contested the 400m last week in Boston, returns to her specialty at Millrose and will face Jamaica’s Natoya Goule-Toppin.

Noah Kibet and Bryce Hoppel, the world indoor silver and bronze medalists respectively, will clash in the men’s 800m.

Toronto woman creates online database to find local run clubs

Lauren Mantha, a dedicated runner, communications student and nurse at a Toronto-based fertility clinic, has developed a groundbreaking idea to unite running communities across Canada through a website called A Running List. This platform serves as a means to connect with and join local run clubs in one’s vicinity. Within just one month of its launch, Mantha has expanded its reach to cities across Ontario and into Quebec, aiming to build a nationwide database for individuals looking to join a run club.

Mantha took to running last May through the Million Reasons Run virtual fundraiser for children’s hospitals. After pledging to run 31 kilometres in May 2023, she signed up for the Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon in October. During her race preparation, she trained independently, assuming that joining a run club entailed a financial commitment. However, when a friend invited her to join one, Mantha began her journey to explore various run groups in Toronto, documenting her experiences on her social media.

“Discovering the abundance of free run clubs in Toronto opened my eyes to the inclusivity and accessibility of the running community,” says Mantha. “I realized that many people, like myself, were unaware of the many options available, and I wanted to change that.”

Mantha’s idea, A Running List, (pun intended), began as a compilation of run clubs and their meeting times, along with their Instagram tags on social media. As interest grew, she recognized the need for a more comprehensive platform. “The response was overwhelming,” she recalls. With the assistance of her friend Jenna, Mantha launched her website on Jan. 9. The website now serves as a run club database for runners, providing details and meeting times for run groups in Toronto, Hamilton, Waterloo, Ottawa, and soon, Montreal.

“I never anticipated this list gaining such momentum,” Mantha says, reflecting on the two months since the platform’s launch. “The support from the running community has been incredible.”

Mantha knows the barriers of attending a run club for the first time: “It can be intimidating, particularly for newcomers,” she admits. “My objective is simply to make these run clubs more accessible.” Looking ahead, Mantha wants to expand A Running List nationwide while maintaining its community-driven atmosphere. “I want this project to serve as a resource for all runners, whether they’re seasoned veterans or just starting out.”

As A Running List continues to flourish, Mantha is committed to her vision of fostering a stronger, more interconnected running community across Canada. “The support we’ve received thus far has been remarkable,” she enthuses. “I’m excited to see where this journey leads us.”

She encourages all run clubs, regardless of their location or size, to reach out to @arunninglist on Instagram to be featured on the website.

Las Vegas to welcome the world's largest indoor track

Las Vegas is about to get one of the most impressive indoor sports venues in the world. The Z Athlete Village, which is planned to span more than 390,000 square feet (3.6 hectares), will be the largest indoor track and field arena ever built, and will have track athletes and fans alike clamouring for a chance to visit the facility.

According to the website, the new arena will offer a wealth of amenities that rival any other sports facility in the world, including a 400-metre indoor competition-ready track, a 200m Mondo hydraulic banked track, an outdoor turf training area, a recovery centre featuring cryotherapy and massage, four separate high jump pits, four pole vault pits, up to four shot put and weight throw areas and a cutting-edge indoor simulator featuring AI technology to measure athlete biomechanics.

In addition to being the largest indoor track and field arena ever constructed, the facility will also be home to the Indoor Running Track and Field Events League, with more than 48 weekends of track and field running and other sports events each year. The venue will welcome more than 192,000 participants and visitors annually, and league participation will provide athletes with the opportunity to compete in five meets throughout each 10-week season, including middle school, youth, adult, high school, collegiate and professional competitions.

The indoor running programs offered at the facility will provide runners of all ages with opportunities to train and compete in distances ranging from one mile to 5,000m. Training and competitions will be open to athletes competing in Ironman and special distance relay-running events. Participants in the RunRite Challenge will have the chance to win a share of more than $1,000,000 annually in cash, college scholarships and other prizes. The facility will also offer other services such as camps and clinics.

Finally, it’s not just sport that this new facility will provide. It will be part of the Z Athlete Village, a sports wellness resort also featuring other facilities such as the Villas, where visitors can stay for multiple days, the Indoor Courts for volleyball, basketball, gymnastics and other sports, and the Natatorium for swimming competitions. 

The facility isn’t set to open for another two and a half years, but runners everywhere are already dreaming of their first visit. In true Las Vegas style, when the Z Athlete Village is finally completed, it will likely eclipse every other world-class track and field venue out there.

Burnout Is Complicated

Kieran Abbotts is a PhD student at the University of Oregon, studying human physiology. He earned his master's degree in Metabolism and Exercise Physiology at Colorado State University. The lab that he works at now studies exercise and environment and stressors on physiology. In other words, he's an expert on how the chemicals in the body work during exercise, and what happens when things get out of whack. 

"Essentially, there are two kinds of training. There's functional overreaching, which means you stress the body with hard workouts and long runs. Then you provide adequate time to recover, and you induce adaptations," Abbotts said. This kind of training is ideal-your body is getting stronger. "You want to be functionally overreaching as an elite athlete-so that you're making progress and becoming a better runner, but also giving yourself adequate recovery." 

And then there's non-functional overreaching, which can feel the same to many athletes, but it's very different. 

"With non-functional overreaching you're essentially doing the same thing-big workouts, stressing the body-but not giving yourself enough time to recover. And so you start doing damage." That damage might take a long time to show itself, Abbots said, but it eventually will. 

This might be the most important thing to know about being an athlete at any level. Non-functional overreaching is exactly the same as very healthy training, except without enough rest. And rest is different for everyone, which makes it exceptionally easy to slip from functional overreaching into damaging non-functional overreaching without realizing it. Without adequate rest, the body begins to break down instead of build stronger. 

Stress Is Stress

Professional ultrarunner Cat Bradley, 31, living in Hawaii, has experienced fatigue and burnout in various forms, including just after she won Western States in 2017. 

Winning a big race is great, but it also means all eyes are on you-the pressure is high to stay on top. "After winning Western States, I took a month off, but I was still running at a high level. And for lack of a better term, I felt like I had a gun to my back," Bradley said. "I wanted Western States so badly, and after I won, so many things happened and I never shook that gun-to-the-back feeling. After a while, it led to burnout. I had to take a mental break." 

For many athletes, finding success can be the stress that makes non-functional overreaching feel necessary. How can you take an extended break when you're winning and signing new sponsor contracts? 

A second version of burnout for Bradley came when she went through an especially stressful situation outside of running. She was dealing with such extreme daily emotional stress in her personal life that everything else was affected, including running and training. When the body is enduring stress, it doesn't know (or care) what the cause is. We can't put our life into silos. If there's stress in one's life, everything else needs to be adjusted. It doesn't matter if that stress is "just work" or illness, or relationships. 

When you're overtraining, or chronically overstressed, your body is creating higher levels of "catecholamines" hormones released by your adrenal glands during times of stress like epinephrine, norepinephrine, or adrenaline. "Having those chronically high levels of overstimulation and not enough recovery, you wind up with a desensitization," Abbotts said. "Overstimulation also causes decreased levels of plasma cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone, and it plays a very important role in your physiology." 

When you're exercising or stressing the body, cortisol will go up, to help the body deal with the stress. But if you're constantly requiring lots of cortisol, your body will eventually down-regulate. It will adapt and then you'll have low levels of cortisol. This means trouble dealing with physical and mental stress. 

In February, Bradley experienced her most recent version of burnout, and it happened mid-race. Bradley was running the Tarawera 100-miler in New Zealand. Besides training for such a big race, she was also working full-time and planning and preparing for her wedding, which was just days after the race. On top of everything, travel to the event was incredibly stressful. 

"I was in fourth place, I could see third, and at mile 85, I passed out and hit my head on a rock," Bradley said. "We can talk about the reasons that I fainted, but I really think my brain just shut down-it was too much." 

For Bradley, reaching burnout has a lot more to do with outside stressors than the actual running. But now she's aware of that-she continues to work on not reaching the gun-to-the-back feeling. The need to please others. The fear of losing fitness in order to take care of her body. It's an ongoing process, but an important one. 

Overdoing Is the American Way

Professional ultrarunner Sally McRae said, based on her observations, Americans are really bad at taking time off. "I've traveled the world and Americans are really bad at resting," she said. "It's part of our work system. You go anywhere in Europe and everyone takes a month-long holiday. You have a kid and you take a year off. We're not conditioned like that in America. It's like you get one week and then after you work a decade, you get two weeks of vacation." 

For McRae, avoiding burnout and overtraining has a lot to do with creating a life that's sustainable. She started working when she was 15-years-old, so she realized earlier than most that life couldn't just be working as hard as possible to count down to retirement. 

"Perspective is massive when it comes to burnout. My goal every year is to find the wonder and the beauty and the joy in what I do. Because it's my job, but it's also my life," McRae said. "And I really believe we're supposed to rest-it should be a normal part of our life. Whether that's taking a vacation or taking an off-season. I take a two-month offseason and I have for a long time." 

One of the most important parts about rest and not overstressing the body is that everyone is different. An overstressed body can lead to hormonal imbalances, which in turn affects everything. 

"When you're overtraining, you tend to get mood changes and have trouble sleeping," Abbotts said. "Two of the big things that stand out are you're exhausted but you can't sleep. And the other is irritability-mood swings, and depression." When you get to the point that you've overstressed your body for so long that the chemicals are changing, pretty much everything starts falling apart.

And even though everyone is different, you'd never know that from looking at social media. "I know social media makes it seem like ultrarunners are running 40 miles a day, doing a 100-mile race every other weekend," McRae said. "And that's insane. You've got to be in touch with yourself. It's very different to wake up and feel sore or tired, but if you wake up and feel like you have no joy in the thing you're doing, you need a real break from it."

How Can the Running Community Do Better?

Elite ultrarunner and running coach Sandi Nypaver wants runners to get more in touch with how they're feeling and less concerned about numbers or what anyone else is doing. 

"I have to have honest talks with people I'm coaching. I need them to feel like they can tell me how they feel, because sometimes they think they have to stick to the training plan for the week no matter what," she said. "But the plan is never set in stone. It's meant to be adjusted based on how you're feeling. Some weeks we might feel great and not need to change anything, while other weeks we might have to totally crash the plan and do something else." 

It's easy to judge ourselves against everyone else, especially when results and reactions are so public and available. 

"It's easy to say, 'if that person only took three days off after a big race, and now they're already back to training, that must be what you're supposed to do,'" she said. "But even at the highest level, training is different for everyone. Resting is different for everyone." 

"Something that's really, really hard for many runners to understand is that once you're not sore anymore, that you're still not recovered," Nypaver said. "A lot of research says that things are still going on in your body for up to four weeks after, for certain races, depending on the distance." 

Sometimes it's difficult to be aware of subtle signs when the soreness is gone. "Convincing people that they need to chill out for a while, even past the soreness, can be really difficult." But after a huge effort, and before the next, people rarely end up saying things like, "I really wish I hadn't rested so thoroughly." Part of it is actually having a recovery plan. Putting rest days on the calendar, focusing on foam rolling and mobility on days that you're not "doing." 

"And, actually just relaxing. Taking it easy. It's not just a running model, we live in a culture where we're always being asked to do more," Nypaver said. "I wish instead of always thinking about doing more, we'd focus on how we want to be more. A lot of us want to be more relaxed and less stressed and happier and enjoy our lives. We need to put our attention on that instead of trying to do so much. It's something I struggle with all the time."

We don't get validation for resting, relaxing, and being present because there's no tangible thing to show for it. There's no "be really calm often" challenge on Strava. But the bigger rewards are great. You just have to trade in immediate dopamine hits for a much more balanced, happier life. 

Simple, right?

"One thing I'm doing, and asking my athletes to do, is to write down your intentions," Nypaver said. "One of my intentions is to chill out more this summer and enjoy it. I grew up thinking it's all about running, and I have to go all-in on running. But having other outlets, other things that I like to do, is so important."  

When you've reached burnout-an extended period of non-functional overreaching, prolonged rest is the only way to let the body fix itself. 

"Once you are overtrained, you need to stop training," Abbotts said. "It's just kind of the bottom line. Maybe some people can get away with greatly reducing their training load, but most of the time you need to stop. You need an extended amount of time off." 

There's nothing glamorous about rest. There's no prize money in relaxing. But it's the absolute key ingredient in extended performance, and in a much healthier, happier life. 

Why the Color of Your Water Bottle Matters

For 15 years, Hydro Flask has taken colors very seriously. Turns out, science agrees.Every color tells a story. Green is never just green, nor is blue ever just blue. It’s the flash of sunlight on an alpine lake or the underside of a cloud on a spring morning. It’s a snapshot of a place, a memory, a feeling.

At least, that’s how Hydro Flask sees things. The Bend, Oregon–based hydration brand, which pioneered the vacuum-insulated water bottle back in 2009, has always taken a unique approach to color, with palettes drawn from nature and designed to evoke feelings of our favorite outdoor memories. Like a smell or sound, color can snap you back into a memorable moment or place.But that’s not all color can do. Just think about choosing the paint for your bedroom or house, or the shade of your favorite shirt. Color is a powerful force, and researchers who study color psychology say colors can change your mood and even shape your thinking. That means blue tones, for example, could make you more relaxed, more tranquil, and more creative.

Maybe that’s why we intuitively pay close attention to the products we use, the clothes we wear, and the style we cultivate. The combinations are a way to express our personal style, and Hydro Flask water bottles and tumblers, with their carefully crafted hues, offer the perfect accessory to add a bit of everyday color.And color could even have an effect on your health. Consider this: the importance of hydration to overall well-being is well documented, and the latest research suggests proper hydration is linked to healthier aging as well. Could a colorful water bottle help you with your hydration goals?

“Absolutely,” says Dena Blevins, creative director at Hydro Flask. “You’re more likely to use something that you like and makes you feel good about using it. It’s a reflection of your style, of who you are, and an extension of your personality.” It may also be easier to stay hydrated if your bottle reminds you of nature and staying healthy.

So it appears Hydro Flask was on to something when it made color development an essential design tenet when the brand was founded 15 years ago. Since then, Hydro Flask has plucked hues from landscapes across the United States—from the lush coasts of Hawaii to the sunlit sandstone of the desert Southwest. Now, the company is turning its gaze to its own backyard in Oregon.“We are very fortunate to be surrounded by incredible views and landscape that inspire creativity in our everyday,” says Blevins. Hydro Flask’s home state hosts a stunning variety of landscapes, from temperate rainforest to alpine tundra to high desert. Along the western coast, clouds cast deep purple shadows across the sea. Silvery rainfall waters verdant stands of old-growth trees. Farther inland, brilliant sunlight filters through evergreen needles, calling attention to pastel-pink flowers along the forest floor. Oregon’s landscapes provide a constant source of awe and inspiration.The most vibrant color in the new lineup, Cascade was inspired by the crisp, soothing blue of the alpine lakes that dot the North Cascade Range. They’re a sight to behold and an experience to be felt. Take a dip in the icy water, and you’ll remember the exhilarating chill long after you warm up (especially during a group swim with friends). Fed by glacial snowmelt, these lakes get their otherworldly color from the fine rock dust, sometimes called glacial flour, suspended in the water. The tiny particles scatter incoming sunlight, casting the lakes in a vibrant turquoise. In the Cascades, lakes serve as a welcome finish line for many grueling hikes. They symbolize life, vitality, and triumph.

This calming, powdered rose hue is inspired by the distinctive trillium blooms that speckle Oregon forests with a soft glow. The flower is one of the season’s first and signals the end of the long winter. It’s a sign of hope and joy as well as grace—the blooms perch at the end of long, slender stalks that sway gently in the spring breeze. Wherever you live, get out for a hike in the spring and look for wildflowers and other signs of renewal. It’s a great way to mark the transition from winter to spring and get energized for a new season outdoors.

Oregon’s plentiful rainfall feeds lush woodlands. This color mimics the deep green of Oregon’s old-growth forests, home to 1,000-year-old trees. Just plant yourself at the base of one of these towering giants and look up—there’s nothing like feeling small in a really big way. Throughout the centuries, these ancient groves have protected and nurtured both people and wildlife alike, and you’ll feel the forest’s comfort and strength just by walking through it.Hydro Flask® is the leader in high-performance insulated products that help people enjoy the things they love to do in the places they love to be. From the number one–selling water bottle to soft goods innovations like the Day Escape™ Soft Coolers to the Outdoor Kitchen dining collection, Hydro Flask’s delightfully simple designs and go-anywhere durability deliver the perfect temperature when you need it. Founded in 2009 in Bend, Oregon, Hydro Flask inspires active outdoor lives with two simple words: Let’s go! Its giving program, Parks for All, supports nonprofit organizations focused on building, maintaining, restoring, and investing in public green spaces so people everywhere can live healthier, happier, and more fulfilled lives. To learn more about Hydro Flask and Parks for All, and to see the full lineup of award-winning products, visit hydroflask.com.e-hard football fans have something to teach trail runners, skimo racers, and other competitive athletes

Jamaican sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to retire after Paris Olympics

Fraser-Pryce has won eight Olympic medals and 10 world championship titles throughout her 19-year career.

One of the greatest female sprinters in the history of the sport will be hanging up her spikes after the 2024 Paris Olympics. Two-time Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica has amassed accolades throughout her renowned career. She has won eight Olympic medals and 17 world championship medals throughout her 19-year pro career.

In an interview with Essence.com, Fraser-Pryce said it was time for her to prioritize family in her decision to retire. “My son needs me. My husband and I have been together since before I won [gold] in 2008. He has sacrificed for me. We’re a partnership, a team. And it’s because of that support that I’m able to do the things that I have been doing for all these years.”

Fraser-Pryce soared onto the scene at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where she was crowned the fastest woman in the world, winning the women’s 100m. Four years later, she defended her Olympic 100m title in London and added a silver medal in the 200m. Fraser-Pryce was nicknamed the Pocket Rocket for her explosive starts and speed, and her small stature. Her personal best of 10.60 seconds makes her the third-fastest woman in history.

Fraser-Pryce’s career medal haul

Olympics

Three gold: 100m (2008, 2012), 4x100m relay (2020)

Four silver: 100m (2020), 200m (2012), 4x100m relay (2012, 2016)

One bronze: 100m (2016)

World Championships

10 gold: 100m (2009, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2022), 200m (2013), 4x100m relay (2009, 2013, 2015, 2019)

Five silver: 200m (2022), 4x100m relay (2007, 2011, 2022, 2023)

One bronze: 100m (2023)

In 2019, she became the oldest woman to win the 100m world championship title in Doha. She extended that record by winning again at 35 in Eugene in 2022–14 years after her first Olympic gold. 

Fraser-Pryce added that this year’s Olympics in Paris is about showing people that you stop when you decide. “I want to finish on my own terms,” said the 37-year-old sprinter.

Despite preparing to leave the sport in the rear-view mirror, Fraser-Pryce will still be one of the favourites to win a medal in the women’s 100m in Paris. “There’s not a day I’m getting up to go practise and I’m like, ‘I’m over this,'” she said.

Former world record holder Dennis Kimetto will race for 1st time since 2019 this weekend at Lagos Marathon

2013 Tokyo and Chicago Marathon champion Dennis Kimetto has confirmed where he will be competing after a five-year hiatus due to injuries.

The excitement is building for the 9th Access Bank Lagos City Marathon, scheduled for Saturday 10 February with the confirmation of over 81 world-class, Gold Label elite runners ready to descend on the course.

One notable name is Dennis Kimetto, a former world record holder over the marathon distance. The 2013 Tokyo and Chicago Marathon champion returns to competitive running since 2019 and he will hope to impress one more time.

Kimetto has suffered a series of injuries which started back in 2015. At the time he was not at his best as he only completed the London Marathon, finishing third, and failing to complete the IAAF World Championships marathon in Beijing.

Kimetto also failed to finish the Fukuoka Marathon in December of the same year where he stopped at the 5-kilometer mark after dropping off the pace at 2 kilometers due to an injury.

After finishing ninth at the 2016 London Marathon, Kimetto opted to run in the Chicago Marathon where he unfortunately pulled out ahead of the race, citing a stress fracture in his left leg.

His injury problems continued in 2017, with a knee injury forcing him to withdraw from the Boston Marathon field. The 2014 Berlin Marathon champion failed to finish both the Chicago Marathon in October and the Honolulu Marathon in December.

At the Vienna City Marathon in April 2018, Kimetto dropped out before the 25-kilometer mark. He then went to compete at the Shanghai Marathon where he finished 10th in 2:14:54.

In 2019, he tried making a comeback at the Daegu Marathon where he did not finish the race. He now returns with the hope of making waves like he did during his prime days.

Meanwhile, the field also includes 29 female runners and promises a highly competitive and potentially record-breaking event.

“The confirmation of over 81 Gold Label runners is a positive development for the 9th edition. As we prepare for the 10th edition, our goal is to elevate the race from Gold Label to Platinum Label status,” Yusuf Ali, the Race General Manager and former African record holder in the Long Jump said in an official statement issued.

World's sexiest athlete Alica Schmidt turns down six-figure sponsorship deal from a well-known brand

The world's sexiest athlete Alica Schmidt has opened up on declining to sign a six-figure deal with a well-known brand despite earning about Ksh 120,000 monthly.

Widely regarded as the sexiest athlete alive, Great Britain’s Alica Schmidt has found herself trending again after claims emerged that she has turned down a six-figure sponsorship.

This comes as a shocking occurrence the athletics beauty earns approximately Ksh 120,640 every month from her single sponsorship deal German sports foundation Sporthilfe. As per the Daily Star, she admitted to having received an offer from a certain brand but she turned the offer down.

She added that she was not fully comfortable working with the brand despite the mouth-watering amounts she would make from the company.

“Two months ago, I received an offer from a well-known brand. But I wasn’t 100% behind it. I didn’t feel comfortable with that. That would have been in the mid-to-high six figures for a campaign.

“In principle, I have to say that it is not easy for most German track and field athletes to make a living from sport. Of course, there is money to be made from competitions. In most competitions, you don’t make any money.

“I couldn’t live on these amounts alone, because for many competitions you still have travel and hotel costs, which aren’t always covered. Most of us study part-time in order to build up a second source of income, or even have mini jobs that we do on the side,” she said.

The German runner is one of the most recognisable faces in her sport and away from the track, she has a successful sideline in modelling.

Her stunning shoots and massive social media following have seen her dubbed the ‘world’s sexiest athlete’.

Meanwhile, she was named on Forbes' coveted 30 under 30 list in 2022 and was previously branded the ‘world's sexiest athlete’ by Australian magazine Busted Coverage.

Marathon debut behind him, Cheptegei turns focus back to 10,000m for Paris

Just a few miles away from the site of his world 10,000m record three years prior, Joshua Cheptegei stumbled towards the finish line of the Valencia Marathon.

On the track, the Olympic 5000m gold medallist and three-time world 10,000m champion is renowned for his unbeatable finishing strength. But in what was his debut over the marathon distance, with each foot somehow supporting a tired body on the brink, the Ugandan had to be content with 37th place in the Spanish city, clocking 2:08:59.

Cheptegei wasn’t too disappointed or surprised, though. Supported by race organiser Marc Roig, Cheptegei hobbled to the elite finishers’ tent immediately after the race, beaming from ear to ear.

A few days before, Cheptegei had prophetically warned: "The marathon has no respect for people.”

Not even Olympic champions, it would seem.

Fans have grown used to Cheptegei finding his rhythm in a leading pack, so it was no surprise to see him there at halfway. Going through 13.1 miles in 1:00:36 wasn’t part of the plan – not that there necessarily was one.

When asked in the build-up to the race what he wanted from his debut, Cheptegei simply said: “I want to learn.”

Collapsing over the line with a rueful smile, Cheptegei made it clear that his objective had been achieved.

He knew that his preparation for the event had been far from perfect. It started with pulling out of the Wanda Diamond League final due to a reaction to wearing spikes in defending his world 10,000m crown in Budapest. Once he did return, the weeks that followed saw his usual runs around the rolling hills of Kapchorwa deemed too dangerous due to constant deluges.

Cheptegei never ran more than 160km a week – which, by the standards of most current marathon specialists, was a light schedule.

Yet in Valencia, he still chose to go with the pace. Many would expect little else from a world 5000m and 10,000m record holder consistently pushing the margins of the possible.

For many fans, their first clear memory of Cheptegei at a senior level was his performance at the 2017 World Cross Country Championships on home soil in Kampala.

That day, the 2016 Olympic 10,000m sixth-place finisher ripped the senior race apart, striding away through the middle section and building a huge lead into the final kilometer.

The Ugandan fans chasing him in bursts around the course almost went as far as to hand over the red, yellow and black flag.

As the commentators proclaimed his title, Cheptegei had pushed himself to the limit, a smooth stride rolling to a wayward struggle.

Defending champion Geoffrey Kamworor – a former mentor to Cheptegei during his time in Kenya in 2015 – silenced the crowds, passing the struggling Ugandan in a fleeting second and going on to win. Cheptegei eventually finished 30th.

“Joshua had a great belief and a great determination in running,” Kamworor commented on his Ugandan rival. “Whenever you talk with him, you could see in his mind that he had great aspirations in life.

“He's even becoming one of my mentors.”

Cheptegei won the senior title at his next attempt in Aarhus in 2019, the year of the first of three consecutive world 10,000m titles. An Olympic silver in Tokyo in that event accompanied 5000m gold.

Risks taken, lessons learnt all in a bid to break new ground. It's core to Cheptegei’s philosophy as a runner and ultimately role model to those that follow him around the world but perhaps most importantly back home in Uganda.

It’s also followed him since his first days as a professional.

While training with Kamworor, Eliud Kipchoge and the rest in Kaptagat, barely aged 20, the 2014 world U20 10,000m champion made a difficult but bold decision.

“I told my management that I wanted to go back home and build a running culture, and to inspire the young generation here in Uganda.”

As a young athlete – and although it happened 24 years before Cheptegei was born – Cheptegei was made aware of the fact that John Akii-Bua earned Uganda's first Olympic athletics medal when taking 400m hurdles gold in Munich in 1972.

It’s clear that Cheptegei now feels a sense of responsibility when it comes to developing the sport in his country, in much the same way Akii-Bua did more than 50 years ago.

“It’s a privilege to have had great guys like him open the way for us, especially in a difficult time where the country was unstable,” says Cheptegei.

Akii-Bua was forced to live out a large part of his life outside Uganda, moving to Kenya towards the final days of the Idi Amin dictatorship.

Likewise, Uganda’s next Olympic gold medalist, Stephen Kiprotich, trained for much of his career in their eastern neighbor.

The then 15-year-old Cheptegei admits taking a break from kicking a football around the schoolyard to watch Kiprotich win Olympic marathon gold in 2012, that being the moment he made his own plans for global success.

“I was like, ‘right it’s in my heart. I want to become a champion, a national hero like him’.”

Cheptegei has developed those ambitions. For better or worse, he aims to deliberately show the next generation they need not leave home. No altitude camps elsewhere, high tech facilities or trips to some winter sun.

“I have always trained in Uganda, always and always," he reiterates.

Despite the world records, Olympic gold and world championship titles, Cheptegei still feels that to prove that emphatically, one achievement remains left to tick off.

It's all about the number 10.

“2024, it’ll be 10 years running internationally,” he says. “10 years at a high level.

“I'm still in love with the 10,000m, the special distance. I still want to go to Paris and win.”

Only Kenenisa Bekele and Haile Gebrselassie have won more world 10,000m titles than Cheptegei. Both won two Olympic golds in the event.

Cheptegei will head to the French capital hungry to find his first, motivated in the knowledge that in doing so he'll send a message to that young Ugandan watching, hoping to follow in his path.

Try the Spine Race champion’s bonkers treadmill workout

In January, Great Britain’s Jack Scott, 29, clinched a record-breaking victory on the grueling 432-km Pennine Way, winning the Montane Winter Spine Race in 72 hours, 55 minutes and five seconds. After facing setbacks and physical challenges in the lead-up to the race, Scott was forced to go beyond conventional training methods to keep his body healthy and strong, and he shared his training secrets in a blog post with his sponsor, Inov8—revealing a bonkers treadmill workout that played a pivotal role in his success.

Scott’s extraordinary achievement not only eclipsed fellow Brit Damian Hall’s previous men’s record of 84 hours, 36 minutes, and 24 seconds; it also surpassed the overall best set by Jasmin Paris in 2019 (by more than 10 hours), a record considered by many to be unbeatable. Here’s how the ultra runner achieved the impossible.

Training challenges

Scott encountered unexpected obstacles during his final preparations for the 2024 Spine Race. Battling fatigue, IT band issues and a series of daily discomforts, he found himself unable to execute his training plan as desired. Scott strategically adapted his approach, incorporating longer days out on the course with a structured gym program and a distinctive treadmill workout.

Scott’s treadmill routine, aptly named “The Uphill Treadmill Power Hour,” proved to be a game-changer. With a short warm-up preceding an hour-long ascent on the treadmill set at a staggering 25 per cent incline, Scott gained between 1,375 and 1,525m of elevation. During this intense session, he varied his pace, ranging from 5.4 kph to 7.2 kph, and covering a distance of no more than 6 km total. The average pace across all of Scott’s sessions remained around 10 minutes per kilometer.

Maximum effect with minimal mileage

The uniqueness of this workout lies in its efficiency. “What I was doing here was working at Spine Race pace but also exploring a very high-intensity session for my heart and lungs (my heart rate would easily be above 175 [bpm] for 50 minutes during a session like this),” said Scott. This approach allowed him to maintain fitness and train race-specifically, all while keeping the mileage low and manageable.

Scott emphasized the session’s effectiveness in maximizing elevation gains without placing undue stress on his body. The treadmill power hours became a crucial component of his preparation, enabling him to adapt to the challenges of the Spine Race course and the unpredictable conditions he would face.

Try it at home

While most of us aren’t training for a challenge quite as tough as the Spine Race, we can still adapt Scott’s approach to help us crush our race goals. Try tweaking the workout to fit the length of time you have available, and your ability.

Warm up with a 10-minute brisk walk or easy jog.

Crank up the incline on your treadmill, adjusting it until you find a sweet spot—you should feel as though you are putting out a hard, leg-burning effort, but you should still feel comfortable and safe on the treadmill, and as though you can sustain your output for at least fifteen minutes.

Cool down with 10 minutes of very easy running or walking.

For regular runners seeking to inject innovation into their training routines, Scott’s power hour offers a fresh perspective, combining elevation-focused workouts with interval training to enhance race-specific fitness without overloading with excessive mileage.

Paris 2024 Olympic medals to feature pieces of the Eiffel Tower

On Thursday, organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games unveiled a unique addition to this year’s Olympic medals: pieces of the iconic Eiffel Tower. Each medal for the Games will incorporate a hexagonal piece of iron taken from the heart of the Eiffel Tower, Paris’s most recognizable monument.

Built for the Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) in 1889 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution, the tower was designed to showcase France’s industrial prowess and serve as a symbol for the city. Each piece will be a focal point in the center of the medals.

Crafted by the French jeweller, Chaumet, the six-sided piece will be in the medal of all 5,084 gold, silver and bronze medals. “We wanted to offer a piece of the 1889 Eiffel Tower to all the medalists of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games,” said Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet.

You may be asking where did the metal come from? No, it was not cut directly off the Eiffel Tower. According to Inside The Games, the metal was sourced from a metal warehouse in Paris by the company responsible for maintaining the 330-meter landmark. The use of recycled metal is also in line with the trend seen at the Tokyo Olympics, where the metals were made partly from consumer electronics.

The reverse side of the medals will feature the Greek goddess Nike flying toward the historic Panathinaikos Stadium in Athens, a tradition since 2004. With the approval of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Paris organizers modified the design to incorporate the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Beyond the medals, the Eiffel Tower will play a central role in the festivities at the Games. From the opening ceremony, where sports teams will sail down the River Seine, to the potential placement of the Olympic flame atop the tower, the iconic landmark will be a focal point throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which run from July 26 to Aug. 11, and the Paralympics, from Aug. 28 to Sept. 8.

Joyciline Jepkosgei eyes Barcelona Half Marathon title

Joyciline Jepkosgei will seek to go one step further and win the Barcelona Half Marathon on Sunday after finishing second last year.

Barcelona returns to the Spanish city where she clocked 01:04:46 behind winner Irine Kimais (01:04:37) while Catherine Reline (01:05:39) and Gladys Chepkurui (01:05:46) finished third and fourth.

Jepkosgei warmed up for the event with a second-place finish during Saturday's Sirikwa Classic Cross Country Tour, timing 33:10 in the senior women's 10km race at Lobo Village, Eldoret.  Immaculate Anyango won the race in 32:55.

Jepkosgei was using the Lobo event for speed training. “I will be competing at the Barcelona Half Marathon on Sunday and I wanted to use the cross country as part of my training ahead of the Spanish race,” said Jepkosgei.

In November 2019, Jepkosgei won the New York City Marathon in her official debut, clocking 2:22:38, the second fastest time on the course for women.

The 30-year-old further won the 2021 London Marathon in 2:17:43 making her the seventh fastest female marathoner in history.

She placed seventh at the 2022 Boston Marathon before finishing second at the London Marathon (2:18:07) behind Ethiopia's Yalemzerf Yehualaw (2:17:26).  She finished second at the 2018 World Half Marathon Championships.

At the 2017 Prague Half Marathon, she broke four world records — 30:05 over 10k, 45:37 over 15k, 61:25 in 20k and won the race in a record 1:04:52.

Joining her in the elite women's race will be two-time Chicago Marathon champion Ruth Chepngetich.

The 29-year-old first won the Chicago Marathon in 2021 before defending it the following year in 2:14:18, a personal best by almost three minutes and just 14 seconds outside of compatriot Brigid Kosgei's then world record of 2:14.04.

Also in the mix is 2023 Bangsaen21 Half Marathon champion Gladys Chepkurui.

Leading the men's elite race is Valencia Half Marathon champion Kibiwott Kandie.

Kandie set a new half marathon world record with a time of 57:32 in the 2020 Valencia Half marathon, obliterating the previous record set by Geoffrey Kamworor by almost half a minute.

He won the race two more times — 2022 and 2023.

Kandie set a course record of 59:32 at the Istanbul Half Marathon in 2021.

He will be joined by Bahrain Half Marathon champion Philemon Kiplimo, Mathew Kimeli nd Hillary Kipkoech.

Five tips from top Canadian ultrarunner Jazmine Lowther

Canadian ultrarunning star Jazmine Lowther has worked through some epic highs and challenging lows since she turned pro in 2022. Lowther took the top spot at the 2022 Canyons Endurance Runs by UTMB, followed by a fourth-place finish in the 2022 CCC race at Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB).

While she managed to speed to second at Transgrancanaria 128K in Spain in 2023, she has also struggled with injuries and biomechanics issues. Lowther recently shared five things she wishes she had embraced when she first dove into ultrarunning; newbies and seasoned athletes alike can learn from her wisdom and suggestions.

1.- Befriend your heart rate

Lowther says she mostly runs by RPE (rate of perceived exertion), but adopting an approach that leans more toward heart-rate-based training has allowed her to “understand my own physiology much deeper, recover properly, and respect pacing.”

Becoming familiar with your heart rate zones can be a valuable skill, and paying attention to your performance metrics, such as pace and endurance, in relation to your zones will help you become a more responsive, tuned-in, healthy athlete. You’ll also be better able to notice if your body needs more rest and recovery time.

2.- Start a training log

While many runners count on apps like Strava to capture their running data, spending time logging more in-depth information about your training is worthwhile, as it provides unique insights over time. “Strava  is great (it has most of my training),” says Lowther, “but it doesn’t include how I felt, what workouts I completed, what I ate before/after, caffeinated, fatigue, etc.”

3.- Wear sunscreen

This one is as simple as it sounds. “Protect thy skin,” says Lowther. “Ultrarunning takes you out there for mega-long hours! Slather up!” While most of us know that prolonged sun exposure during outdoor running can increase the risk of skin damage, including sunburn, premature aging and an elevated risk of skin cancer, it can be easy to forget to reapply after hours on the trails. Wearing sunscreen helps to create a protective barrier, reducing the absorption of UV rays and minimizing the potential harm to the skin, and, as Lowther notes, is an essential precautionary measure (in all kinds of weather) for maintaining skin health.

4.- Find your baseline

Lowther suggests integrating benchmark training runs into your routine to establish an initial baseline. The process involves finishing a predetermined course or distance to use as a reference tool and provides a basis for assessing your performance and comparing it to others in terms of time, pace, or other relevant metrics. “I suppose I’ve done this in an unstructured way (Strava segments anyone?) but seriously, repeating workouts in the same location/distance is great for checking in on things,” she says.

5.- Have patience in the process

Focus on consistency and long-term goals and gains. Consider each run and workout as an investment in your fitness and training bank, even if it didn’t go exactly as planned. “One day at a time, year over year,” says Lowther. “Consistency, is that you?”

Josh Kerr puts Jakob Ingebrigtsen's beef aside as he focuses on next assignment

Scottish middle-distance runner Josh Kerr is not focusing on Jakob Ingebrigtsen's comments about him as he is eyeing another major assignment where he will attempt to attack the two-mile world record.

Reigning World 1500m champion Josh Kerr is not focusing on track rival Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s sentiments as he gears up for the Millrose Games on Sunday, February 11.

Kerr and Ingebrigtsen started their beef last year after the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary where the Scottish man bet the Norwegian to second place in the 1500m.

Kerr then rekindled the beef saying that Ingebrigtsen has a lot to work on when it comes to his manners on and off the track.

The Scot emphasised that the Norwegian has a “high ego” and is used to being surrounded by “yes men”, making it difficult for him to understand that there is a difference between respect and antipathy.

The reigning World 5000m champion, Ingebrigtsen has been out of competition due to an injury and he just made a comeback to the limelight announcing that he is expecting a child with his wife.

As per Letsrun.com, Ingebrigtsen also addressed Kerr, noting that he thinks the latter is just looking for attention ahead of the Olympic Games in Paris, France.

He said: “I realized that there was “something,” but I can’t quite say what it was. Let’s call it a desperate attempt. And I don’t think that was so smart. It might look silly at some point.”

However, Kerr seems unshaken by his sentiments and he is firmly eyeing his next assignment where he intends to make history.

He will tackle the two miles with Mo Farah’s world record of 8:03.40 in his sights. Kerr will be up against US 5000m and 10,000m record-holder Grant Fisher and Olympic 1500m sixth-placer Cole Hocker, New Zealander Geordie Beamish, and former US 1500m champion Cooper Teare.

“In February, I’m still coming off really high base training and I still want to be toward 5000m at that time of year. A two-mile just fits in perfectly where it is a bit speedier, but it’s not the mile,” he said as per Athletics Weekly.

Spanish Olympic medal suspended on whereabouts violations

On Wednesday, two-time world championship medalist and one of the top distance runners in the world, Mohamed Katir, was provisionally suspended for a year by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) on whereabouts violations.

Katir was suspended for missing three doping tests in a 12-month window, which is a minimum one-year suspension per World Athletics anti-doping rules. This suspension will most likely leave the Spanish runner, who could otherwise contend for a medal in the 1,500m and 5,000m, out of the 2024 Paris Olympics. According to a statement from his agent in Spain’s Soy Corredor, Katir will appeal the suspension.

Katir is a two-time world championship medalist, winning silver in the men’s 5,000m in Budapest 2023, and bronze in the men’s 1,500m at Eugene in 2022. On both occasions, Katir was beaten by Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Katir is also the European record holder over 5,000m, running 12:45.01 at the Monaco Diamond League–the 11th fastest time in history.

Katir last raced on Jan. 28, running 3:51.91 for the mile at the Meeting de l’Eure in France–the second fastest time in the world this year. 

Katir had this to say in a statement (translated from Spanish):

“Today, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) has informed me of a provisional suspension due to what it considers to be a violation of the rules derived from three whereabouts failures in the last twelve months.”

“During the duration of the disciplinary proceedings, AIU has agreed to my provisional suspension. Since I do not agree with the above-mentioned decision taken by AIU, I am prepared to appeal against it to the appropriate authorities to be able to compete during the course of the proceedings.”

I do not consider that there is an infringement resulting from three whereabouts failures. In some of the whereabouts failures reported by AIU, I was available at the place, date and time provided by me. Over the last few months and years, I have been subjected to a large number of out-of-competition doping controls on both urine and blood samples, without the slightest problem on my part. I am going to proceed to defend myself in the appropriate instances, as it cannot be otherwise. For this reason, I request that the right to the presumption of my innocence be respected until the corresponding procedure is processed and concluded.”

His case will now be sent to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), the highest independent authority in international sport. During the appeal process, he is still eligible to compete, but he could end up facing a longer ban if he loses the appeal.

American 100m sprinter Christian Coleman was suspended under similar circumstances in 2019. Coleman appealed the whereabouts suspension, which was upheld by the CAS, leaving him out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Patrick Makau believes current generation of athletes can run under 2 hours

Former world marathon record holder Patrick Makau believes the current generation of athletes in the country will soon run under two hours in the marathon.

The 38-year-old is also notable for his half marathon performances, having won several prominent competitions in Europe in sub-1-hour performances.

Some of the races include the Berlin Half Marathon in 2007, where he clocked 58:56 hours.

Marathons had changed a lot due to technology and were far better than the marathons they ran during his time.

“As I see it, the marathons have changed a lot because it is not like the olden times. We used to view sub-two hours as something unattainable but now with the current crop of athletes like the current world record holder Kevin Kiptum and two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge, this looks like a possibility,” he noted.

The signs of an athlete running a marathon in under two hours are already evident if Kipchoge and Kiptum's recent performances are anything to go by.

In an unofficial race in Vienna, Austria in 2019, Kipchoge became the first person ever to run a marathon in under two hours, clocking 1:59.40 during the INEOS 1:59 Challenge.

Regarded as one of the greatest marathoners of all time, Kipchoge was the world record holder in the marathon then with a time of 2:01:09 set at the 2022 Berlin. His mark was later broken by Kiptum at the Chicago Marathon on October 8, 2023, when he clocked 2:00:35.

The 24-year-old Kiptum is currently the only person in history to run the marathon in under two hours and one minute in a record-eligible race.

Kiptum has won all three of the major marathons he has entered between December 2022 and October 2023 with three of his times among the six fastest in history. Makau revealed that hard work and endurance were the key for him to break the world record in 2011.

“I used to go to train in Iten and Machakos and to the polishing in Ngong. This is because speed work and build-up are two different programs,” Makau noted.

Makau encouraged athletes to find a training routine that would enable them to run a sub-two-hour marathon shortly.

“What Kiptum, Kipchoge and the other athletes can do now is to find the pace that will be able to help them run a sub-two-hour marathon shortly,” he added.

The duo currently occupy the top two positions in the world marathon ranking. Ethiopians Kenenisa Bekele (2:01.41), Sisay Lemma (2:01.48 hrs), Birhanu Legese (2:02.48 hrs) and Mosinet Geremew  (2:02.55 hrs) follow in that order.

The former world record holder, who currently trains the Kenya Police team and other athletes, also cited technology, especially in running shoes as a reason behind the fastest times being witnessed.

“During our time, there was not as much technology as we were accustomed to normal shoes. In today’s era,  running shoe technology plays a key role in determining the pace in a  particular race,” he said.

Innovations in Running Shoe Technology mean shoes are now lighter, more dynamic, and more resilient, thanks to advancements in foams, rubbers, construction, textiles, and other essential components.

Kipchoge's performances during the INEOS 1:59 challenge opened the world's eyes to the condensed foam, carbon-plated super shoes which Nike claimed could increase running efficiency and in particular the amount of oxygen consumed per minute by by 4 percent. 

Makau is optimistic the young athletes under his wings will also go further and make not only him but also the country proud. He said he is looking forward to the national trials in April to see if they get selected.

“We have intensified training in both Machakos and Kitui camps and I am hopeful. I am waiting for the trials in April to see if they will be able to represent Kenya at the Paris 2020 Olympic Games,” he said.

He also tipped Kenya to once again dominate the marathon at the Olympic Games slated for July 26 to August 11.

“I am sure Kipchoge, Kiptum, Peres Jepchirchir and Ruth Chepng'etich will represent the country well in the marathon at the Olympics,” he asserted. 

Faith Kipyegon donates history-making spikes to the Museum of World Athletics

Double world record holder Faith Kipyegon has donated her history-making bright pink running spikes to the Museum of World Athletics.

Three-time World 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon has donated the spikes that she competed in at the World Championships in Budapest, Hungary to the Museum of World Athletics.

The reigning World 5000m champion wore those bright pink running spikes while making history during last year’s global bonanza.

Kipyegon has now graciously chosen to donate to MOWA in recognition of the historic double accomplished by the Kenyan phenomenon with her formidable finish in the gripping 12-and-a-half lap final.

Kipyegon was in a class of her own during last year’s event, bagging both the 1500m and 5000m titles. In the 1500m final in Budapest, she controlled the race all the way, gradually winding up the pace before kicking hard at the bell and opening up a wide gap with 200m remaining.

She crossed the line in 3:54.87, comfortably clear of the young Ethiopian Diribe Welteji, who took second in 3:55.69. The fast-finishing Sifan Hassan claimed bronze in 3:56.00.

As would be the case in the 5000m, Kipyegon with the smooth, perfectly balanced high temp running style secured a historic achievement with her 1500m success.

No woman had ever completed a hat-trick of World Championships titles at the distance. Algeria’s Hassiba Boulmerka, Tatyana Tomashova of Russia, and Bahraini Maryam Jamal all won twice at the distance.

Kipyegon's first 1500m title came in London back in 2017 and her second in Oregon in 2022. In between, in Doha in 2019, on the comeback trail after the birth of her daughter, Alyn, she took the silver medal behind Hassan.

She now has focus on the Olympic Games where she intends to make history one more time by bagging her third Olympic title.

“That’s the big fish. If I win three times, back-to-back Olympic titles at 1500m, it will be a motivation to the next generation. And it will be a big motivation for me to try to achieve it. It would be a big legacy to leave behind. It would be something else,” she said as per World Athletics.

Kenyan runner gets four-year ban for sending doppelgänger to take drug test

The former indoor 600m world record holder, Michael Saruni of Kenya, was handed a four-year ban on Feb. 1, by the Anti-Doping Association of Kenya (ADAK) for sending a friend to impersonate him during a drug test at the 2022 Kenyan Trials for the 2022 World Championships.

According to the ADAK report, Saruni was found guilty of “evading sample collection, or without compelling justification, refusing, and running away.” In June 2022, the ADAK Doping Control Officer (DCO) notified Saruni that he was to undergo doping control after competing in the 800m final at the Kenyan trials, and was required to provide blood and urine samples. “It was further alleged that the athlete adamantly evaded, refused, and failed to give a sample or submit to sample collection and by collusion or trickery escaped or left the venue.”

The ADAK panel added that Saruni asked a lookalike to impersonate him and provide a sample on his behalf. According to the report, Saruni had locked himself in a toilet stall. Then the DCO allegedly watched someone moving to Saruni’s stall. When approached to identify, he ran for it and allegedly jumped over a perimeter wall at the venue. Saruni claimed he had never been summoned by testers at the Kenyan trials. He is banned until Aug. 30, 2027.

Saruni was the former world record holder for 600m indoors, with a personal best of 1:14.79. He is also the Kenyan national record holder for 800m indoors, running 1:43.98 at the 2019 Millrose Games.

Although we are only two months into 2024, Saruni’s suspension could be an early candidate for the craziest doping ban of the year. I wonder if he and his doppelgänger are still friends, or if he got a refund for his services, since the lookalike didn’t pull it off.

There are currently 75 Kenyan athletes on the AIU’s Global List of Ineligible Persons. The Kenyan government is in the second year of its $25 million, five-year campaign to test more athletes and eliminate doping in athletics. The AIU is working with the Kenyan government, Athletics Kenya and ADAK to combat the issue.

Ethiopian Tamirat Tola heads stellar field for RAK Half Marathon

Former world marathon champion Tamirat Tola of Ethiopia has confirmed his participation in the Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon on February 24. The area is where he emerged as a world-class road runner when winning the neighbouring Dubai Marathon in 2017.

Chicago Marathon winner Seifu Tura and former women’s half marathon world record holder, Ababel Yeshaneh, will also be joining their compatriot in RAK. The entry for the 17th edition of the event is expected to read like a who’s who of international distance running as a wealth of elite athletes seek to take advantage of the benign Gulf conditions in the countdown for the spring marathons and the Paris Olympics.

Having won Olympic bronze on the track at Rio 2016, Tola established himself as one of the leading road runners of his generation when he won Dubai 2017, and followed that up with silver at the World Championships in London later that year. Tola won world marathon gold in Eugene in 2022, but in the interim, he won the Amsterdam Marathon in 2021 and then topped that with victory in the New York City Marathon three months ago. He also finished third in the Tokyo and London Marathons in 2022. The 33-year-old’s fastest half marathon was a winning performance in 59:37 in Prague in 2017. His close family also keeps him on his toes; his wife Dera Dida won the Dubai Marathon 2023, and his younger brother Abdisa took the corresponding men’s title.

It’s a measure of the fast course in RAK that his compatriot Tura has run over a minute faster than Tola, but his 58:36 in 2022 was only good for fourth. But a victory and second place in the Chicago Marathon has bolstered his credentials.

Their colleague Ababel Yeshaneh returns to the scene of one of her greatest victories, having set a world record of 64:31 in winning on the spectacular course around Al Marjan Island in the 2020 race. That time remains her personal best at the distance, although at the marathon distance, she also has two runner-up finishes to her name in Chicago 2019 and Boston 2022, as well as a third-place finish at the New York Marathon 2021.

The three Ethiopians will join elite fields that already include men’s defending champion Benard Kibet of Kenya (58:45) and his colleague, reigning Olympic Marathon Champion and three-time World Half Marathon Champion Peres Jepchirchir, who set her best half marathon in winning RAK 2017 in a then world record of 65:06.

Koyama and Inoue among invited runners for Osaka Marathon

A total of 19 invited runners were announced Monday for the upcoming Osaka Marathon, including Paris Olympics-bound Naoki Koyama and 2018 Asian Games gold medalist Hiroto Inoue.

The Feb. 25 marathon is the first of the two remaining "final challenge" races for Japan's third and last spot in the men's marathon at this summer's Olympics.

Shogo Nakamura, who competed at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, will also run, but 2018 Boston Marathon winner Yuki Kawauchi will not take part due to an injury, according to organizers of the Osaka race.

Koyama and Akira Akasaki have already clinched their Olympic berths by finishing first and second, respectively, at last October's Marathon Grand Championship in Tokyo.

The Tokyo Marathon, scheduled for March 3, wraps up the competition schedule for Olympic selection.

Emmanuel Wanyonyi says his main focus is on the Olympic Games

Youngster Emmanuel Wanyonyi has insisted that his main focus is on the Olympic Games and hinted at possibly missing the All-African Games in Accra, Ghana.

Reigning World 800m silver medalist Emmanuel Wanyonyi is not resting on his laurels as he seeks to qualify for the Olympic Games scheduled for Paris, France later this year.

After a great start to his season at the Sirikwa Classic Cross-country, Wanyonyi could not stop emphasizing how the Olympic Games mean a lot to him and why he wants to make his maiden appearance at the event.

“I want to compete at this year’s Olympics because that is such a huge event and it only comes after every four years,” Wanyonyi said.

As he prepares for the global bonanza, Wanyonyi is slowly sharpening his claws through training extensively as he plans on where to open his track season.

He also expressed uncertainty ahead of the All-African Games in Accra, Ghana, noting that his body is yet to pick up well.

“I want to compete at this year’s Olympics because that is such a huge event and it only comes after every four years,” Wanyonyi said.

As he prepares for the global bonanza, Wanyonyi is slowly sharpening his claws through training extensively as he plans on where to open his track season.

He also expressed uncertainty ahead of the All-African Games in Accra, Ghana, noting that his body is yet to pick up well.

“I want to compete at this year’s Olympics because that is such a huge event and it only comes after every four years,” Wanyonyi said.

As he prepares for the global bonanza, Wanyonyi is slowly sharpening his claws through training extensively as he plans on where to open his track season.

He also expressed uncertainty ahead of the All-African Games in Accra, Ghana, noting that his body is yet to pick up well.

Defending champion Bernard Koech returns to Hamburg

Defending champion and course record holder Bernard Koech will return for the 38th edition of the Haspa Marathon Hamburg on 28th April. The 36 year-old Kenyan, who improved the course best to 2:04:09 last year, will face very strong opponents in Germany’s major spring marathon.

Samwel Mailu of Kenya and Ethiopia’s Abdisa Tola, who both produced breakthrough performances in 2023, will challenge the defending champion. In Martin Musau there will be another former winner of the Haspa Marathon Hamburg returning to the race: The Ugandan was the winner in 2021.

“After two course records in a row we can look forward to another high quality men’s race. Bernard Koech, Samwel Mailu and Abdisa Tola are all capable of running world-class times on the fast course. We are happy that these three have chosen Hamburg for their spring marathon,“ said  chief organiser Frank Thaleiser, who expects a total of around 12,000 marathon runners on 28th April. Online registration for the race is still possible at: www.haspa-marathon-hamburg.de

“I am looking forward to returning to Hamburg. Last year’s victory was a perfect comeback performance for me, because I had problems for some time and there were the Corona lockdowns as well,“ said Bernard Koech, who tied his two year-old personal best of 2:04:09 last year in Hamburg. However, after achieving his biggest career victory in that race the Kenyan was unlucky when he ran the Amsterdam Marathon in autumn. An injury forced him to drop out of the race. Looking ahead to his Hamburg return Bernard Koech said: “Although I broke the course record last year I believe that I can still run faster in Hamburg.“

A fast pace should suit Samwel Mailu, who wants to improve his personal best. The Kenyan newcomer, who is already 31 years old, stormed to a sensational course record of 2:05:08 despite warm weather conditions at the Vienna Marathon last spring. Later that year he produced another exceptional performance. Added to the Kenyan team at very short notice Samwel Mailu took the bronze medal at the World Half Marathon Championships in Riga, Latvia. “I chose Hamburg for my spring marathon because of the fast course. Hopefully I can improve my current 2:05personal best to 2:04,“ said Samwel Mailu.

23 year-old Ethiopian Abdisa Tola will be another top contender on 28th April. The younger brother of Tamirat Tola, the World Marathon Champion from 2021 and current New York Marathon winner, ran a stunning marathon debut a year ago: Abdisa Tola won the competitive Dubai Marathon in 2:05:42.

Besides Bernard Koech there will be another runner in the elite field who has already won the Haspa Marathon Hamburg: Martin Musau of Uganda took the race with 2:10:15 in 2021, when the fields were much reduced due to the pandemic. It was last year in Hamburg, when Musau improved to a fine 2:08:45 and finished in seventh position.

Sara Hall after finishing 5th at the American marathon Olympic Trials

My heart is broken, but my love for this sport is unchanged. Man I missed doing that and loved being out there flying along again, flanked by an incredible group of women I love and respect so much. 

Even when you come up short, there’s no better feeling than going all-in and all-out on something you love. 

This one hurts more than any of the other 7, and yet I feel proud and have no regrets. Was in 3rd/could see 3rd the whole last lap as I battled through cramps. Never stopped believing, fought every step. 

What a privilege to chase your dreams and have others believe in them with you. What incredible relationships I’ve made through this sport. I wouldn’t trade them for anything I’ve accomplished or could have accomplished.

Thanks for believing with me. The story continues.

Congratulations to our amazing team who are going to represent so amazingly in Paris! 

6 Benefits You Gain from Slowing Down Your Runs

Pumping the brakes on your runs can boost your performance in a number of ways. 

For many runners, embracing the concept of slow and easy runs is a game of mental gymnastics. Can you really become a better, faster runner if you’re consistently going at a pace that feels easy and relatively slow to you?

“It can be very hard, especially for new runners, to really understand that anything positive is happening when a run feels really easy,” South Carolina-based exercise physiologist Heather Hart, C.S.C.S., certified run coach and founder of Hart Strength and Endurance Coaching explains to Runner’s World. 

That’s to a runner’s detriment, because there are tons of awesome benefits of slow running any athlete can reap from regularly training at an easy pace. 

To convince you to pump the brakes, we tapped two experts to learn all there is to gain—both physically and mentally—from slowing down.

What “Slow Running” Really Means

Before we dig into its perks, let’s get clear on what constitutes “slow running.” Basically, it’s any run in which your heart rate is at or below about 70 percent of your maximum heart rate, Hart explains. This is typically considered zone 1 or zone 2 training.

You don’t have to track your heart rate to know if your run meets the criteria for “easy,” though. A simpler method is to tune into your own sense of what feels “easy” and what feels “hard” using the rate of perceived exertion scale (RPE). Imagine a scale of 0 to 10 where zero is no exertion at all and 10 is all-out work—an easy run should fall between a 4 and a 6, says Hart. 

Another way to monitor whether you’re striding easy enough: Try holding a conversation. If you’re able to chat without gasping, then you’re likely nailing slow running, Hart says. 

“My rule of thumb is that if an athlete [questions] am I running too fast?, then they probably are,” Hart explains. In fact, slow running is probably slower than you think. 

6 Slow Running Benefits

Here are all the amazing things—in no particular order—that can happen when you embrace a slow pace. 

1. Higher Lactate Threshold

It’s logical to think the only way to get better at running fast is to, well, run fast. But dedicating time to slow running can actually provide a physiological benefit that improves your ability to pick up the pace. 

Here’s why: Slow running increases the density of your mitochondria, the little organelles in cells that help metabolize lactate, a byproduct of glycolysis or the process of turning food into fuel for exercise. 

There’s an association between the onset of fatigue while exercising and elevated levels of circulating lactate, Janet Hamilton, C.S.C.S., exercise physiologist and coach with Running Strong in Atlanta tells Runner’s World. “That’s known as the lactate threshold,” she says. “You get more lactate production than you have consumption.” 

Boosting your mitochondrial density with slow running means you can increase your lactate threshold even during hard efforts, Hart explains. Instead of hitting your lactate threshold (and thus fatiguing out) at, say, a 9-minute mile pace, you may be able to push, say, an 8-minute mile pace. In other words, “you can run faster,” without running out of gas as quickly, Hamilton explains. 

2. Reduce Your Chances of Hitting a Wall

While runners rely on fast-twitch muscle fibers for speed work, there’s a subtype of fast-twitch fibers that are somewhat convertible—they can utilize fuel aerobically as well as anaerobically. That means you can strengthen them through high-intensity efforts or by doing long, slow aerobic runs, Hamilton explains. 

During a long, slow run, when the slow-twitch fibers start to tire, your body recruits some of the convertible fast-twitch fibers to help out. Do this enough and you are training these fibers to pitch in more reliably. This can help you run longer without getting as fatigued. 

Mitochondria also plays a role here, because aside from gobbling up lactate, it metabolizes fat. When running, your body primarily relies on glycogen (the stored form of glucose or sugar) in your muscles for fuel. Because you only have a limited supply of glycogen, that plan works well until it doesn’t. Any runner who has bonked during a distance race knows how awful this crash can feel. 

As a backup, though, your body has an almost unlimited supply of intramuscular triglyceride, also known as fat. Training your muscles to more efficiently burn fat for fuel, as you do with long, easy runs, will decrease the likelihood of hitting the wall, Hamilton explains. 

3. Happier Running

Though there are some folks who genuinely love running all out, for a lot of athletes, “speed work is hard,” says Hamilton. Not only can fast running be uncomfortable and demand a lot of focus, it can physically stress your body, she explains. And surprise, surprise: Physical stress can impact your mental health, too, says Hart. 

Easy running, by contrast, “is a nice way to let running be a stress reliever instead of a stress producer,” Hamilton says. Indeed, Hart finds that low-intensity workouts provide a chill space where you can simply enjoy running for what it is without worrying about hitting certain paces. “You can stop and smell the roses,” she says. 

And if you’re a beginner still trying to build a consistent run routine, finding this type of joy in the activity can make you more likely to stick with it. Case-in-point: A 2015 study involving 41 people concluded that experiencing more positive feelings during a training session improved participants’ adherence to their exercise program. 

4. Improved Recovery

Running hard all the time can result in cumulative fatigue, which ultimately affects performance in all your workouts, Hart explains. So regularly slotting slow runs into your schedule can help facilitate recovery and conserve energy so that when it is time for a speed workout, you’re able to run at a high level and hit your target paces. As Hart puts it: “It’s super important to keep those easy days easy so that the hard days can be hard.”

Along those lines, a lot of people don’t realize the adaptations we make from intense training occur during the recovery period following a workout—and not during workouts themselves, Hart explains. By taking it easy after hard and fast runs, you will reap the full gains of those workouts.

5. Decreased Risk of Injury

Fast running places more strain on your feet and lower legs than easy running, and research suggests a link between logging speedy paces—especially when you’re not ready for speed—and potentially higher risk of certain injuries, like plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendinitis, and calf strains. Embracing slow running allows you to increase the percentage of your total weekly mileage while minimizing the amount of stress you’re placing on your body and reducing your overall injury risk, Hart explains. 

Ultimately, this can translate to better performance. As Hamilton puts it: “The only way to get faster in your races is to train well, and the only way to train well is to stay healthy.” 

6. Stronger Mind-Body Connection

Routinely alternating between hard and easy runs will encourage you to tune into your body and its relationship with different exertion levels. And this mindfulness can benefit you in a race scenario, Hart says. 

It will give you an understanding of how hard you’re working at a given pace and whether or not you should pick up, slow down, or maintain the pace, she explains. Instead of blindly following a pacing plan that may or may not be right for you on a given day, you’ll be able to adapt in real-time to how your body is actually feeling, thus becoming a more strategic competitor.

Kara Goucher Inks New Sponsorship Deal with Brooks

Her first brand appearance will be at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando this weekend, where she’ll be part of the official NBC broadcast.

Brooks announced on Monday that the shoe company has signed a new deal with Kara Goucher, which entails not only footwear sponsorship, but speaking engagement and athlete collaboration opportunities. Everything officially goes into effect starting this weekend in Orlando at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, where Goucher will be helping to tell the stories of the runners vying for Olympic spots on the NBC broadcast.

Footwearnews.com reports that the two-time U.S. Olympian and World Championship medalist will be the primary face of Brooks’ events throughout 2024, both at competitions and at Brooks’ community impact programs like Future Run, the company’s $10 million commitment to running programs across the country. She will also make appearances at the Track and Field Olympic Trials in Eugene and the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

“I’m excited to work with Brooks on this new partnership and share my excitement and belief of the impact that running can have,” Goucher said in a statement. “Telling the amazing stories of runners is something I’ve always been passionate about, and Brooks makes for an incredible teammate as we continue to advocate for the power of the run to improve the sport for future generations.”

Goucher began her professional running career with Nike—an experience she detailed in her tell-all memoir last year, The Longest Race: Inside the Secret World of Abuse, Doping, and Deception on Nike’s Elite Running Team. She moved on to the Skechers Performance Elite Team and signed with Oiselle in 2014 and then switched to Altra in 2018, but lost her ability to compete at a high level in 2021, when she was diagnosed with dystonia, a neurological movement disorder.

Even so, at 45, Goucher remains an important and respected voice in the running community, through her work as a mental health advocate, sports broadcaster and co-host of the podcast Nobody Asked Us with fellow Brooks athlete Des Linden. 

“Kara’s lived experiences and her passion for bringing attention to the humans behind incredible performances,” a release from Brooks read. “The goal is for Goucher to help inspire runners and show how the sport can help change lives.”

Bob Beamon’s Historic 1968 Olympic Gold Medal Up for Auction

The medal is estimated to fetch between $400,000-$600,000 according to Christie’s.

If you’ve always wanted an Olympic gold medal but didn’t want to bother with that whole "being an Olympian” part of the process, your time has arrived.

This week, Christie’s auction house is set to auction off Bob Beamon’s 1968 Summer Olympics gold medal for men’s long jump.

Beamon’s win was one of the highlights of the Mexico games, with the athlete jumping 29 feet 2 inches—nearly two feet longer than the previous longest—setting a world record in the process. That record would fall 23 years later to American Mike Powell in 1991, but it remains as the Olympic record.

“I could hear my heartbeat. And it was beating and so as I took off down the runway all I could hear was my heartbeat. I couldn't even hear my feet pounding up against the rubberized track,” Beamon told Sky Sports in a 2001 interview. After he landed, Beamon could see the judges talking to one another and had assumed his jump wasn’t good. “And so I said: ‘Oh well, what I will do is I’ll settle for this one but when I come back, I’m really going to take a real big one.’” 

In reality, the judges couldn’t correctly gauge Beamon’s jump—their electronic measuring device could only measure up to 28 feet, so an actual tape measure was required.

The medal features imagery by Italian artist Giuseppe Cassioli, whose artwork depicting the goddess of Victory was first used for the medals during the 1928 Amsterdam games and was used through the 2000 games in Sydney. The front side of Beamon’s medal includes the inscription “XIX OLIMIADA MEXICO 1968” with artwork by artists Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, Eduardo Terrazas, and Lance Wyman, who drew from 1960’s op-art and traditional patterns of the Huichol peoples of Mexico. The opposite side of the medal is inscribed “Salto de longitud varonil,” translating to "men’s long jump.”

The auction is a surefire way to get your hands on a gold medal—without resorting to more nefarious methods. Just make sure you have a cool $500,000 lying around in line with Christie’s estimate for the award.

These were the Fastest Shoes of the 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials

Asics, Puma, and Nike had a big day.

The city of Orlando witnessed some amazing performances under a blistering sun, with tickets to Paris at stake. When the dust settled after three loops, six brands placed among the top 10 men’s and women’s finishers. There was a time Nike ruled the roads, but Asics topped them in this year’s Olympic Trials Marathon, with two men and four women making my list below.

Here’s a look at what the top 10 finishers in both races wore in their quests for a spot on the Olympic team.

MEN’S TOP 10

1st — Conner Mantz, 2:09:05

Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% (v1)

Despite two updates to the Alphafly, Mantz (right in the image above) continues to wear the very first version. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

2nd — Clayton Young, 2:09:06

Asics Metaspeed Sky 3 prototype

Young (left, above) looks to be wearing the newest, unreleased Metaspeed Sky. Asics has three “development” shoes (prototype) approved by World Athletics for use in competition, currently. This colorway looks a lot like the existing Metaspeed Sky+ and Edge+, but when we zoom in closer we don’t see any labels, and the sidewall of the midsole looks different than the shoe you can buy now.

3rd — Leonard Korir, 2:09:57

Nike Air Zoom Alphafly 3

Korir laced up the latest Alphafly and might just have run himself onto the squad headed for Paris. We reviewed the Alphafly 3 recently.

4th — Elkanah Kibet, 2:10:02

Asics Metaspeed Edge 3 prototype

Kibet is wearing a prototype, like Young. His, however, appears to be the Metaspeed Edge. You can see the ridge on the sidewall of the forefoot swoops down low toward the sole of the shoe. The Edge’s plate curves lower, allowing for more foam between your foot and the plate than in the Sky.

5th — CJ Albertson, 2:10:07

Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 prototype

It looks like CJ is wearing Brooks’s top racing shoe, which was just announced. But, the company also has a “Hyperion Elite 4 RD.010” prototype shoe that was approved by World Athletics for use in competition just two weeks ago. It’s likely he wore that version (we don’t have details yet) but the outsole of CJ’s race shoe has gray rubber, whereas the newly announced version has a web of black and orange rubber.

6th — Zach Panning, 2:10:50

Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 prototype

Panning seems to be wearing the same prototype of the Hyperion Elite 4 that CJ wore.

7th — Nathan Martin, 2:11:00

Nike Air Zoom Alphafly 3

8th — Josh Izewski, 2:11:09

Nike Air Zoom Alphafly 3

9th — Reed Fischer, 2:11:34

Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

Fischer rolled to a top-10 finish with an all-white version of the Adios Pro 3. Adidas does not have any prototypes on the list of approved shoes as of race day.

10th — Colin Bennie, 2:12:17

Brooks Hyperion Elite 4 prototype

Bennie seems to be wearing the same prototype as Albertson and Panning.

WOMEN’S TOP 10

1st — Fiona O’Keeffe, 2:22:10

Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 3

Not a bad first effort for O’Keeffe and Puma. Fiona won her first marathon in record fashion. And Puma claimed victory with the Deviate Elite 3 on the first day it was approved for use in competition. The World Athletics approved shoe list shows the 3 green lighted for use as a “development” as of Feb. 3, 2024.

2nd — Emily Sisson, 2:22:42

New Balance FuelCell SuperComp Pacer

New Balance has a new super shoe, the FuelCell SuperComp Elite v4, out. But Sisson laced up the thinner, lighter Pacer. It’s a shoe most of us recreational runners might only grab for a 5K or 10K (maybe). Seems like it’s working just fine for the American record holder.

3rd — Dakotah Lindwurm, 2:25:31

Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 3

Lindwurm also wore the new Puma racer. Hey, Puma, need me to re-send my address? 

4th — Jessica McClain, 2:25:46

Nike Vaporfly 3

This marks an insane shift in racing footwear. On the men’s side, four of the top 10 runners laced up Nike. Only McClain, the team’s first alternate, cracked the top 10 women’s runners wearing the swoosh. Folks, we’re living in the golden age of running shoes. Pick the pair that fits and feels best—and rip it.

5th — Sara Hall, 2:26:06

Asics Metaspeed Edge 3 prototype

Like Kibet, it appears Hall wore the Metaspeed Edge prototype.

6th — Caroline Rotich, 2:26:10

Asics Metaspeed Edge+

Unlike Hall, Kibet, and Young, Rotich’s shoe seems to be the current Metaspeed Edge+ that you can buy right now.

7th — Makenna Myler, 2:26:14

Asics Metaspeed Sky 3 prototype

Myler is likely wearing the Sky 3 prototype—again, check out that ridge in the forefoot; it’s closer to the foot. One heck of a day for Asics, if I do say so.

8th — Lindsay Flanagan, 2:26:25

Asics Metaspeed Edge 3 prototype

N + 1.

9th — Emily Durgin, 2:27:56

Adidas Adizero Adios Pro 3

Durgin held onto a top-10 finish wearing Adidas’s most popular marathon racer.

10th — Annie Frisbie, 2:27:56

Puma Deviate Nitro Elite 3

Asics packed four runners in the top 10, but Frisbie finished strong to give Puma a triumphant trio, all wearing the new Deviate Elite 3.

British runner training with a fridge on his back mistaken for thief

A British man training for the Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon while carrying a fridge on his back had his training interrupted by local police, who thought he was stealing the fridge.According to the BBC, Daniel Fairbrother of Stevenage, U.K., was out for a run in his hometown when a police officer pulled him over, mistaking him for a thief. Fairbrother told the BBC the police officer wound down his window and said: “You understand I’ve got to stop you, is that a fridge on your back?”

After Fairbrother explained his unique marathon challenge, he said the officer cracked a joke: “You do know if you order food, they will usually deliver it for you?”The idea to challenge the world record for the fastest marathon while carrying a fridge came to Fairbrother during a night of heavy drinking with his friend. Fairbrother, who has a half-marathon PB of an hour and 40 minutes, has to beat the previous (marathon) mark of 4:52:10, which was set by British runner Sam Hammond at the 2023 London Marathon.

Fairbrother has chosen to challenge the record at the same race. A fan of the movie Cool Runnings, he has named the portable fridge Tallulah, after the Jamaican bobsleigh in the movie. His goal is not only to break the record but to raise at least £10,000 (CAD $17,000) for Diabetes UK. At the time of writing, Fairbrother had hit 35 per cent of his goal.The cause hits close to home for Fairbrother, whose closest friend has type-1 diabetes. “I want to raise lots of money for a great cause and do my bit to ensure they can carry on with their great work,” he wrote.

According to the BBC, the police officer ended up shaking hands with Fairbrother and wished him the best for his marathon training.

Conner Mantz, Clayton Young Finish 1-2 At U.S. Olympic Trials Mens Marathon

Conner Mantz and Clayton Young, the two former BYU teammates and training partners, took the top two spots with Mantz winning in 2:09:05 and Young finishing in 2:09:06 at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Orlando.

Leonard Korir finished third in 2:09:57.

As of right now, only the Mantz and Young have guaranteed their spots on the team. Mantz, who ran a 2:07:48 at the 2023 Chicago Marathon, and Clayton Young, who tallied a time of 2:08:00 in Chicago, earned their qualifying times prior to the Trials.

Because Korir did not finish under the Olympic qualifying standard of 2:08:10, he can qualify achieving a high enough world ranking on the World Athletics list by May 5, or via that third spot becoming unlocked by a U.S. men's Top 5 finish in any of the remaining platinum-level marathons (Tokyo, Seoul, Boston) within the qualification window.

Zach Panning controlled the race from its early stages. The three-time NCAA Division 2 champion from Grand Valley State took a group of eight men through the half in 64:07. The pack remained tight through 17 miles when things started to string out. Defending champion Galen Rupp was among those who began falling back at this point as a five-second gap formed between the top five and sixth place.

Panning pushed the tempo a bit more at Mile 19 and with Mantz and Young in tow, the trio pulled away from the field and established themselves as the prime contenders for the team. The three ran together for the next three plus miles until Mantz and Young made their move to the front at the 23 mile mark and quickly opened a 20-meter gap on Panning that continued to swell. 

With a mile to go in the race, Panning faded badly. Now gapped by Mantz and Young by almost a minute, the chasers had a target to focus on again within striking distance of a shot at the Olympics. Elkanah Kibet and Korir were the first to pass Panning and dueled over the final mile for that third-place spot. With a half mile to go, Korir emerged as the stronger of the two and held position.

Kibet finished fourth in 2:10:02. CJ Albertson moved up in that final mile and finished fifth in 2:10:07 while Panning wound up sixth in 2:10:50.

Rupp, who was attempting to make a fifth Olympic team, placed 16th in 2:14:07.

Scott Fauble, the top American at the last two Boston Marathons, dropped from the lead pack in the eighth mile and pulled out before the half marathon mark.

Five-time Olympian Abdi Abdirahman, 47, dropped out of the race around the same time. 

2024 U.S. Olympic marathon trials: Conner Mantz and Fiona O'Keeffe race to victory

Mantz crossed the finish line just in front of training partner Clayton Young in the men's race. Fiona O'Keeffe dominated the women's race in a record-breaking debut marathon.

Conner Mantz and Fiona O'Keeffe raced to victory at the 2024 U.S. Olympic marathon trials on 3 February in Orlando to secure their spots on this year's Olympic team ahead of the Paris 2024 Games.

In the men's race, Mantz crossed the line in 2:09:05, directly in front of training partner and close friend Clayton Young, who crossed the line in second place just one second later. Young has also secured a quota for Paris having previously run the Olympic entry standard at the 2022 Chicago Marathon. Leonard Korir ran 2:09:57 to finish in third. 

In her first marathon ever, O'Keeffe took a hugely impressive win in the women's race, breaking the U.S. Trials record with a time of 2:22:10.

She was comfortably in front of second-place finisher and American record holder Emily SIsson who ran through the line in a time of 2:22:42.

Dakotah Lindwurm couldn't believe her 2:25:31 third-place finish and looked around in shock as she crossed the line.

The largely fat course near Lake Eola Park was made up of an approximately 2.2-mile (five-and-a-half kilometer) loop followed by three eight-mile (12-kilometer) loops to the finish line. It was a sunny but humid 55˚F (13˚C ) at the 10:10 am start.

Women's winner Fiona O'Keeffe: "I'm so excited about this team" 

“The goal has always been to make an Olympic team,” Mantz said in a post-race interview.

His mental strategy had been to run each mile for a different person - his mom, his dad, Clayton, with the final lap being for his wife.

“Let’s go to Paris, let’s make this happen,” second-place Young smiled after a close-to-ideal race that unfolded alongside his friend and fellow Utah native Mantz.

Zach Panning had led the way for the majority of the race before Mantz and Young took over the lead and pulled ahead with less than four miles to go. Panning fell back further as Korir took over in the final stretch to secure third.

In the women's race, O'Keeffe detailed the excitement she had felt with eight miles to go, having to remind herself not to "freak out."

"The past couple years I’ve been clawing my way through things," she said, before adding of her victory that she is now "so excited about this team."

Sisson, the women's American record holder in the marathon, has previous experience of the Olympics, having come 10th in the 10,000m at Tokyo 2020.

"I'm elated," she said, reflecting on making her second Olympic team in front of her friends and family.

Lindwurm was still in disbelief as she laughed with the press after the race, revealing ”I’m such an underdog… I was a walk on to my Division II team."

Rhasidat Adeleke and Talitha Diggs head to Millrose Games

The past two women’s NCAA 400m champions, Rhasidat Adeleke and Talitha Diggs, will line up for a 300m clash at the Millrose Games in New York on February 11.

Racing them at this season’s penultimate World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting will be Jamaica’s Leah Anderson and Candice McLeod.

Adeleke has already made a strong start to 2024 as she ran 7.15 for 60m and 22.49 for 200m to improve her own Irish indoor records in Albuquerque on 20 January.

The 21-year-old, who finished fourth in the world 400m final last year in Budapest, has raced 300m once before, in 2022 when she ran a national record of 36.87.

In New York she’ll go up against the athlete who preceded her as NCAA 400m champion, Diggs.

USA’s Diggs is set to make her season debut at this weekend’s World Indoor Tour Gold meeting in Boston, where she will also race the 300m.

New York offers a rematch as her PB of 36.37 was set when winning ahead of Adeleke in Clemson in 2022.

Anderson finished third in last year’s Millrose Games 300m in 36.68, while Olympic and world 4x400m medallist McLeod is set to race the distance for the first time.

Joining the already announced Alicia Monson in the two-mile race in New York will be North American mile record-holder Nikki Hiltz, who won the US 1500m title last year and started 2024 by running 2:34.09 for 1000m.

They will race against a field featuring USA’s Emily Infeld and Courtney Wayment, Japan’s Nozomi Tanaka, and Ethiopia’s Medina Eisa and Melknat Wudu.

In the high jump, the previously announced Yaroslava Mahuchikh will compete against 2016 world indoor champion Vashti Cunningham, NCAA champion Charity Griffith and Asian Games champion Safina Sadullayeva.

Kelvin Kiplagat ready to follow Eliud Kipchoge's footsteps

Kelvin Kiplagat, an athlete from Eldama Ravine has opened up on his admiration for marathon king Eliud Kipchoge and World Half Marathon silver medallist Daniel Simiu.

Kelvin Kiplagat is keenly following in the footsteps of former world marathon record holder Eliud Kipchoge and World Half Marathon silver medallist Daniel Simiu.

The Eldama Ravine-based athlete has been slowly making strides to match the achievements of his role models and he is surely on the track.

He was in action during the second Athletics Kenya weekend meet held at the Ulinzi Sports Complex where he dominated the men’s 10,000m. He was also in action in the first weekend meet and competed in the 3000m race where he finished fifth.

“I look up to my coaches for advice and they inspire me a lot. I also want to be like Eliud Kipchoge and Daniel Simiu who have cemented their places in the world of athletics,” Kiplagat told Pulse Sports.

He will be keen to make his debut in the national team this season, having set eyes on the Kip Keino Classic, the World Cross-country Championships, and the Olympic Games in Paris, France.

Making his first Team Kenya berth will be a dream come true since he has been burning the midnight oil to keep his hopes alive.

“I’m targeting the Kip Keino Classic, Olympics, and the Cross-country championships. I have never represented Kenya before and achieving that will mean that my hard work has finally paid off.

“I started running back in primary, in class seven and I competed up to county level. In class eight, I got to the regional levels and then when I joined secondary school, the Covid-19 pandemic came and disrupted everything,” he said.

But after the pandemic was over, Kiplagat put on his spikes once again and represented his school, Sinonin Secondary School, at the East Africa level where he finished second in the 5000m race.

What Blood Testing Data Reveals About Runners' Health 

I used to think running was a panacea. "If the furnace is hot enough, anything will burn, even Big Macs," as the fictional miler Quenton Cassidy once said. Then, about a decade ago, there was a big surge of doubt about the health effects of running. Most prominent was the suggestion that even modest amounts of running might damage your heart-"One Running Shoe in the Grave," as the Wall Street Journal put it-but running was also accused of broader sins like promoting inflammation, causing muscle loss, and wreaking havoc on blood sugar levels.

As a runner and a journalist, I spent a lot of time trying to understand these claims, and reevaluating my own understanding of running's health effects-a process that continues to this day. Part of that process involved going back to the original research that led us to believe that running is healthy. And to be honest, the evidence wasn't as clear as I'd assumed. Does running (or aerobic exercise more generally) really improve health markers, or is it just that healthy people are more likely to choose to run? Do the benefits max out after a few minutes per day, or do they keep growing? Can you outrun a bad diet?

I have opinions about all these questions, but I no longer assume that the answers are obvious. So I'm always interested in new data, like a recent study in PLoS ONE from the science team at InsideTracker, a company that sells personalized blood testing to track various health biomarkers. The paper offers a peek at the aggregated results of more than 23,000 customers who report various levels of running, divided into three groups: low volume (less than three hours of running per week), medium volume (three to ten hours per week), and high volume (more than ten hours per week). For comparison, they also include results from 4,400 sedentary non-runners, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, 82 professional distance runners.

There are two important caveats to point out before diving into the data. First, this is observational data, not a randomized trial. That makes it hard to determine whether running causes any of the patterns in the data (though, as we'll see below, there are some ways to test our assumptions about causation). Second, this is a self-selected cohort. Even the sedentary group is made up of people who are interested enough in their health that they've decided to spring for a service that starts at $699 for a single battery of blood tests. Since this control group is already fairly healthy, detecting any improvements will be more challenging.

The Raw Data

The journal article (which is free to read online) presents data on 27 different biomarkers that were significantly different between runners and non-runners. I'm just going to pick out a few categories that are particularly interesting.

First, here's HDL (i.e. "good") cholesterol levels, for females (f) and males (m) in each of the five groups: pro runners, high-, medium-, and low-volume amateurs (HVAM, MVAM, and LVAM, respectively), and sedentary people.

The biggest difference is between runners and non-runners: runners have clearly higher levels, which is good. And among the runners, the trend is that more running is associated with higher levels. Similar patterns are seen for LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglycerides: running is good, and more running is better.

The pattern here is much less pronounced. There's still a significant difference between runners and non-runners, but the dose-response effect of more mileage is smaller in men and non-existent for women. The same is true when looking at HgbA1c levels, which offer an estimate of long-term average blood sugar levels rather than a single snapshot. In that case, there's a more pronounced difference between runners and non-runners, but no dose-response response effect. For blood sugar, then, running is good but more running isn't necessarily better.

One key point: the sedentary control group has remarkably good blood sugar levels, with an average below the prediabetes cutoff. Given that 98 million Americans have prediabetes, this confirms that the control group is already pretty healthy. If you were to compare runners to the average population, you'd probably see a bigger effect.

Another group of biomarkers is associated with chronic low-grade inflammation. The pattern here is a little more complicated, but data on C-reactive protein, white blood cell count, and ferritin collectively suggest that greater volumes of running are associated with lower levels of inflammation. The fact that ferritin is considered a marker of inflammation was a surprise to me, since I think of it as an indicator of iron levels in endurance athletes. But it turns out ferritin levels can mean different things in different contexts.

For most of the biomarkers, there's a fairly smooth trend from sedentary to pro runners. But there are a few examples where the pro runners are noticeably different from everyone else, even the amateurs who claim they're running more than ten hours a week. Most notably, the pro runners tended to have low magnesium levels-an observation that mirrors earlier data from British Olympic track athletes. The British study also found that athletes with a history of tendon problems were most likely to have low magnesium levels, which suggests that it's something to watch for if you're training hard.

Is It All About BMI?

All the results I mentioned above were statistically adjusted for body-mass index, age, and sex. That's important, because there were significant differences in BMI among the groups. Here's that data:

Now, I look at this graph and think, "Yep, all else being equal, the more you run the less you weigh." This used to strike me as a painfully obvious statement. The current scientific consensus, on the other hand, is that exercise is ineffective for weight loss. And it's true that lots of studies have assigned people to exercise, sometimes quite vigorously, and have seen underwhelming results for weight loss. This is a complex topic whose nuances I'll leave for another day, but suffice to say that the new data agrees with my feeling that, if you're running more than an hour a day, you very likely weigh less than you would if you weren't running.

You can get another level of insight by adding in some of the genetic data that InsideTracker also collects from some of its customers. There are a large number of separate gene variants that are associated with higher BMI; by checking which of these variants a given individual has, the researchers calculated a "polygenic risk score" for obesity. In the sedentary group, those with higher risk scores tended to have higher BMI. Among the high-volume and pro runners, in contrast, that trend was flattened: those with higher risk scores had similar BMI to those with lower scores. Though the sample size was too small to draw definitive conclusions (since relatively few customers opted to get genetic testing), the results suggest that running counteracted the gene variants associated with obesity.

The BMI data raises another important question: are all the other apparent health benefits of running just secondary effects of lower BMI? Here they use a cool technique called Mendelian randomization (which I wrote about in another context earlier this year). It's a way of turning a large observational study into a randomized trial. The randomization occurs at birth: as noted above, some people have gene variants that predispose them to have a higher BMI. These variants are randomly distributed, so if people with the low-BMI versions tend to also have better cholesterol scores (for example) regardless of whether or not they run, it suggests that BMI is what's driving the cholesterol scores.

The results of the Mendelian randomization-again limited by low sample numbers-are somewhere in the middle. It does appear that BMI explains much of the group's difference in cholesterol and inflammation levels, for example-but not all of it. For example, gene variants didn't predict LDL levels, suggesting that it's an independent effect of running.

But the closer you look, the blurrier the line between genes and behavior gets. Some of the genes associated with exercise are also associated with motivation and self-control; people who exercise a lot are also more highly motivated to eat healthily; and so on. We're back to the challenge I mentioned at the top: teasing out the independent health effects of going for a run is really hard. The InsideTracker researchers conclude that "a holistic wellness lifestyle approach is in practice the most likely to be most effective toward preventing cardiometabolic disease." That borders on tautological, but their data adds another small brick to the pile of evidence suggesting that endurance exercise, even or perhaps especially in large quantities, is a useful part of that holistic wellness lifestyle.

How Little Strength Training Can You Get Away With?

To be a maximalist, you must first be a minimalist. That's an aphorism I first heard from Michael Joyner, the Mayo Clinic physiologist and human performance expert, and it resonates. To truly reach your potential in one or a few areas, you have to be disciplined about all the other ways in which you could fritter away your valuable time and energy. Excellence requires tough choices.

All this is to say that when it comes to strength training, I'm not ashamed to admit that my number one question is "How little can I get away with?" I'm fully convinced that strength training has important benefits for health and performance, and I recognize that lifting heavy things can be a source of meaning and self-mastery. But I've got miles to run before I sleep and, metaphorically, a bunch of errands to run before my kids get home, so a recent review in Sports Medicine caught my eye. An international group of researchers, led by David Behm of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Andreas Konrad of Graz University in Austria, sum up the existing research on minimalist resistance training: how low can you go and still get meaningful gains in strength and fitness?

For starters, let's acknowledge that making meaningful gains is not the same as optimizing or maximizing your gains. There's a general pattern in the dose-response functions of various types of exercise: doing a little bit gives you the biggest bang for your buck, but adding more training leads to steadily diminishing returns (and eventually, for reasons that aren't as obvious as you might think, a plateau). Those diminishing returns are worth chasing if you're trying to maximize your performance. But if your goal is health, more is not necessarily better, as we'll see below.

In a perfect world, you'd like to see a systematic meta-analysis of all the literature on minimalist strength training, meaning that you'd pool the results of all the different studies into one big dataset and extract the magic training formula. Unfortunately, the resistance training literature is all over the map: different types of strength training, study subjects with different characteristics and levels of experience, different ways of measuring the outcome. That makes it impossible to meaningfully combine them in one dataset. Instead, Behm and Kramer settled for a narrative review, which basically means reading everything you can find and trying to sum it up.

Their key conclusion is that "resistance training-hesitant individuals" can get significant gains from one workout a week consisting of just one set of 6 to 15 reps, with a weight somewhere between 30 and 80 percent of one-rep max, preferably with multi-joint movements like squats, deadlifts, and bench press. That's strikingly similar to a minimalist program I wrote about a couple of years ago: that one involved a single weekly set of 4 to 6 reps, but the lifting motions were ultra-slow, which heightens the stimulus. You don't even necessarily have to lift to failure, though you probably need to get within a couple of reps of it.

The data that Behm and Kramer looked at came from studies that typically lasted 8 to 12 weeks. One of the unanswered questions is whether such a minimalist program would keep producing gains on a longer timeframe. You'd clearly need to continue increasing the weight you lift to ensure that you're still pushing your body to adapt. But do you reach a point where further progress requires you to increase the number of sets, or the number of workouts per week? Maybe-but it's worth recalling that we're not trying to maximize gains here, we're just trying to achieve some hazily defined minimum stimulus. For those purposes, the evidence suggests running through a rigorous full-body workout once a week is enough to maintain a minimum level of muscular fitness.

There's another, less obvious angle to minimalist strength training that researchers continue to grapple with. Duck-Chul Lee of Iowa State and I-Min Lee of Harvard, both prominent epidemiologists, published a recent review in Current Cardiology Reports called "Optimum Dose of Resistance Exercise for Cardiovascular Health and Longevity: Is More Better?"

The question echoes a debate that flared up a decade or so ago about whether too much running is bad for you, in which Duck-Chul Lee played a key role. Back in 2018, he also published a study of 12,500 patients from the Cooper Clinic in Dallas which found that those who did resistance training were healthier-but that the benefits maxed out at two workouts a week, and were reversed beyond about four workouts a week. At the time, I assumed the result was a fluke. But the new article collects a larger body of evidence to bolster the case. The newer data suggests that about an hour of strength training a week maximizes the benefits, and beyond two hours a week reverses them. Lee and Lee hypothesize that too much strength training might lead to stiffer arteries, or perhaps to chronic inflammation.

Now, when Duck-Chul Lee and others produced data suggesting that running more than 20 miles a week is bad for your health, I was brimming with skepticism and went over the data with a fine-tooth comb. I'm similarly cautious about these new results, and have trouble believing that there's anything unhealthy about doing three weekly strength workouts. But they do put the idea of minimalist strength training in a different light. Maybe you're not maximizing strength or muscle gains, but it's possible that you're optimizing long-term health-especially if the reason you only hit the gym once or twice a week is that you're too busy hitting the trails.

Miami Marathon finisher medals spark airport security concerns

Finishers of the 2024 Miami Marathon on Jan. 28 were warned, but still, hundreds of participants went home without their medals when the TSA (Transportation Security Administration, for Canadians) confiscated the medals, likening them to deadly ninja throwing stars.

The 2024 medal is shaped like a golden sun with the event’s orange palm tree logo in the centre, designed to portray the sunrise of Miami, Miami Beach, Brickell and Coconut Grove areas (which the course runs through). The sun’s rays, however, have very sharp points–plus, it spins. In anticipation of potential issues, race organizers released a statement two days before the event, advising marathon participants to pack the medal in checked luggage or mail it home, rather than wearing it to the airport.Ricky Deane, a 52-year-old from Elmhurst, Ill., was one of the unfortunate runners who had his medal confiscated. Deane had placed the spikey medal in his carry-on bag, leading security to remove it as a potential weapon. Now, Deane is left with only a photo and memories.

The same thing happened with half-marathon finisher Alfred Scaletta, who wore his medal while going through security on his flight to Chicago. He was told it was because the medal had a spinning feature, and now, he is requesting that the race send him a replacement.Each year, more than 4,000 of the 18,000 participants travel to the race by plane from 49 states and 75 countries. Although the TSA website states that it allows carry-on items such as cowboy spurs, ice skates, antlers, knitting needles, cigar cutters, corkscrews, bowling balls and even fidget spinners, TSA agents have final discretion over what can be allowed on flights.

“This was proactive on our end. Once we received the initial batch of medals, we thought, Hey, you know what? Someone could misinterpret this,” Miami race director Frankie Ruiz said to the Miami Herald. “Runners love to wear them [the medals] after the race. We just wanted to give people a heads-up—it has not happened in the past—but in case there’s an agent who flags it. We’re thinking ahead for people.”

How to increase your weekly mileage with minimal effort

When trying to add to their weekly mileage totals, a lot of runners jump immediately to longer long runs and bigger workouts. But this may actually do more harm than good. For a number of reasons, lengthening your warmup and cooldown are likely the safest, and easiest, ways to add extra mileage. 

First, the warmup and cooldown are done at a slow, easy pace. If there’s anything we’ve learned from runners like Eliud Kipchoge or Molly Seidel, it’s that you have to run slow to run fast. These runners do up to 80 per cent of their mileage at a very slow pace, which helps them run more without increasing the stress on their bodies. By increasing the length of your warmup and cooldown, you’re increasing the time you spend on your feet without stressing your body with more hard running.

Second, it’ll help you better prepare your body for your workout. If you’re like a lot of runners, you probably cut your warmup and cooldown a little bit short in favour of just getting the workout done. We get it–sometimes you just want to get on with it, and when you’re tired from a hard workout, cooldowns can feel like cruel punishment. But they are both important aspects of training, since they help prepare your body for the work ahead (the warmup) and helping kick-start the recovery process (the cooldown) so you’ll be ready for your next speed session.

Finally, the warmup and cooldown are a great place to add mileage because, other than the extra time put in, you’ll hardly notice the change–it’s like free mileage! Simply start by adding five minutes more of easy jogging on either side of your workout (on workout days), and you can gradually continue to add to your warmups and cooldowns in this way until you’re satisfied with your weekly mileage total. While it sounds like a small amount, the extra kilometers add up.

You’re not doing workouts, you say? If you have race goals, at some point you should be doing speedwork. There are many ways to gradually introduce speedwork without getting injured. (But if you’re really not ready, you can still increase your weekly mileage by simply adding five minutes to the start and end of your runs.)

Emily Sisson, Olympic Marathon Trials favorite, is ready for Saturday

Emily Sisson is the American record holder (2:18:29) in the marathon and the pre-race favorite to win the 2024 US Olympic Marathon Trials.

At the time of publication, 64.2% of you are picking her to win the Trials in the LRC $20,024 Prediction Contest Sponsored by Relay.

Sisson talked to LRC this week via video conference, and by all accounts her buildup for Orlando has gone very well.

“Everything’s been better, all the long runs, all the tempos, and actually my long interval workouts, those have actually been better than they’ve been before.”

When Sisson was asked to compare her fitness and buildup to the 2022 Bank of America Chicago Marathon where she broke the American record, she said:

Everything’s been better, all the long runs, all the tempos, and actually my long interval workouts, those have actually been better than they’ve been before.

The workouts like on paper, like the times they’re all better. I think like I get confidence from that, but also just I’m feeling good and I’m feeling strong. So the training’s been good.

Sisson ran a 30:52 time trial on the roads in Arizona, which is just slightly slower than her official track PB of 30:49. Sisson, unlike Trials #2 contender Betsy Saina who ran a workout with 12 male pacers in Kenya, ran the workout all alone although her husband Shane was next to her on a bike. Sisson wasn’t blown away by almost setting a 10k PR in practice, as she said her track PR should be much faster. But she was pleased she could run that pace by herself. “I was happy that I was able to push myself that hard on my own,” she said.

Lessons from Chicago 2023

Chicago 2023 didn’t go as well as Chicago 2022 for Sisson, as she developed a side stitch later in the race and ran 2:22:09 for 7th place.

Sisson now views the Chicago 2023 setback as a positive experience as she learned from it. “We found some videos early on in Chicago and I just looked a little less fluid this past fall than I did in my 2022 Chicago.  It was really subtle, like there was a little bit more movement in my upper body. So, we’re trying to like stay on top of that a bit more this time just to make sure nothing like a side stitch or anything else breaks down again,” she said, adding she worked with chiropractor John Ball.

Respect for the competition and the marathon distance

Sisson enters the Trials not only fit but healthy. When asked whether she worries about the other competitors in the race, she said, “It’s not that I don’t worry about my competitors. It’s not that I don’t think about them, but, I just feel like the marathon’s different than like a half marathon or a 10k. When I go into those races, I’m just trying to be as fit as I can and try to be fitter than my other competitors. But in the marathon, you are racing your other competitors, but you’re also racing the marathon itself. So it doesn’t matter, what your competitors are doing.”

“I feel fit and I feel healthy. With a marathon, that’s not everything, but those are two big parts of it. So I am happy with that. I’m happy with how training went,” Sisson said.

Getting a Real Olympic Experience

While Sisson made the 2020 Olympic in the 10,000m, she,  like Aliphine Tuliamuk, said she missed out on the traditional Olympic experience because of the Covid protocols.  She’d like to get another shot at it. “Being an Olympian is like the biggest dream,” she said of a goal that started when she watched Olympic gymnastics with her mom as a kid.

“I was so thankful they happened in 2021, but it was definitely a different Olympic experience than Olympics prior. So I’d love to get back there.”

Of Sisson’s 5 marathons, the only one that went poorly was the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials in Atlanta where she dropped out.

Now with some time to reflect, Sisson has a better picture of what she think went wrong. “I think I went too hard in the buildup. I think my body, when I was standing on the start line,  I think I was tired and, and I just didn’t realize it at the time because I was so new to the marathon, I thought it was just so normal to be tired,  but there were things afterwards that I looked back on and there were signs that maybe I’d pushed it too hard in training.”

Sisson has backed off a little in her training this time. “So we did try to focus this time on getting good training in, getting in a good buildup, but just not overdoing it.  I don’t wanna leave my race in training,” she said.

Sisson does believe she can do well in a hilly marathon. If she qualifies for Paris, she’ll get the chance as the Olympic course has a massive uphill heading to Versailles.

Magdalyne Masai eyeing a great start to her season at Sevilla Marathon

Magdalyne Masai has been confirmed for the Sevilla Marathon where she hopes to start her season on a good note.

The 2023 Vienna City Marathon champion Magdalyne Masai has been confirmed for the Sevilla Marathon scheduled for Sunday February 18.

Masai will be opening her season at the event with the hope of stunning her opponents and continuing her hot streak from last season.

Last season, the Kenyan was on fire, winning the Vienna Marathon and also finishing third at the Roma Ostia Half Marathon. However, she stumbled at the Frankfurt Marathon where she finished ninth but she will be out to prove her marathon prowess once again.

She will be up against Namibian long-distance runner Helalia Johannes, who is aged 43 but still has it in her legs to run well.

The Namibian only competed once last season, at the Daegu International Marathon that saw her finish 10th and she will seek to start her season on a good note this year.

Azmera Gebru, an Ethiopian runner, has also been confirmed for the event and she will be out to give Masai a run for her money.

Gebru returns to competitive running after a mixed two years and she has her fingers crossed to run well this season.

Last year, she was in action at the Zurich Marathon in Barcelona which saw her finish sixth while in 2022, she was confirmed for the Prague Marathon where she failed to finish the race.

The race organizers of the event are still announcing the elite athletes of the event which will promise fireworks owing to the women who have already been announced.

Kibiwott Kandie and Ruth Chepngetich will lead strong fields to the Barcelona Half Marathon

Kibiwott Kandie and Ruth Chepngetich will lead strong fields to the Barcelona Half Marathon with the aim of shattering the course records.

The race organizers of the 34th Barcelona Half Marathon have expressed their thrill ahead of the event set for Sunday February 11 with more than 28,000 confirming participation in the largest half marathon in Spain and the second largest in Europe.

The organizers have also expressed interest in achieving new course records in both the men’s and women’s races. The men’s course record currently stands at 58:53 while the women’s is 1:04:37.

They will be banking on the 23 international elite athletes who will be competing for the top prize. In the men's field, Kibiwott Kandie stands out.

The three-time Valencia Half Marathon champion and former world record holder over the distance will be aspiring for a podium finish.

Also seeking for top honors will be Prague Half Marathon winner Philemon Kiplimo, Mathew Kimeli (58:43), and Hillary Kipkoech (59:22).

Tanzania’s Gabriel Geay will also be in the mix with the hope of having a great build-up ahead of his return to the Boston Marathon.

In the women’s race, the rival to beat will be two-time Chicago Marathon champion Ruth Chepngetich. She is the 2019 World Marathon champion and also holds the fourth fastest time over the distance.

Her main opponent will be her compatriot Joyciline Jepkosgei, runner-up in the world half marathon in 2018 and who already ran the Mitja de Barcelona achieving a personal best of 1:04:46.

The formidable duo will be joined by the Ethiopian Senbere Teferi and another Kenyan, Gladys Chepkurui, both with achieving under one hour and six minutes.

National record holder Kengo Suzuki joins Tokyo Marathon field

Japanese national record-holder Kengo Suzuki will be part of a strong Tokyo Marathon men's field, led by two-time Olympic champion Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, organizers said Tuesday.

The March 3 marathon is the last of the two remaining "final challenge" races for Japan's third and last spot in the men's marathon at the Paris Olympics.

Also invited are Ichitaka Yamashita, Kenya Sonota and Kazuya Nishiyama, who represented Japan at last summer's world athletics championships in Budapest.

The Osaka Marathon, scheduled for Feb. 25, is the second of the three races, the first having taken place in Fukuoka in December.

Naoki Koyama and Akira Akasaki have already clinched their Paris Olympic berths by finishing first and second, respectively, at October's Marathon Grand Championship in Tokyo.

The Tokyo Marathon women's race will feature Hitomi Niiya, runner of Japan's third-fastest marathon, and Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands, who won both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

Kipngetich Ngeno on why he looks up to Olympic silver medalist Ferguson Rotich

Kipngetich Ngeno has disclosed why he looks up to Ferguson Rotich and how qualifying for the Paris Olympic Games will change his life.

Former World Under-20 800m silver medalist Kipngetich Ngeno has shared why he looks up to Olympic Games 800m silver medalist Ferguson Rotich.

Ngeno noted that he loves Rotich’s style of running and the fact that he has accomplished great milestones on the track including competing at the World Championships, Commonwealth Games, African Championships, and Olympic Games.

Just like Rotich, Ngeno would like to make the Olympic team someday and come back home with a medal. He opened up on the significance of having the Olympic title to his name.

“Ferguson Rotich inspires me a lot…I want to run in the Olympics like him. I have worked with him in a couple of events in 2019 and last year. If I make the cut to this year’s Olympics, I will be just like him.

“I know my life will change when I compete at the Olympics and also my profile will improve,” Ngeno said.

Meanwhile, Ngeno was also in action at last year’s World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, competing alongside World Under-20 800m champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Rotich, and the then defending champion Emmanuel Korir.

He, however, did not proceed to the final of the event after faltering in the semifinal. Despite the setback, Ngeno had a lot of take aways from the global showpiece.

“I learnt a lot of things from there and I want to polish up on my shortcomings so that I can make the Olympic team when I go for the trials. I’m working on my endurance and speed and hopefully by April, my body will be okay,” he said.

Doping-approved games receive massive financial boost ahead of first-ever event in 2025

The doping-approved Enhance Games has received a huge financial boost from the co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, and cryptocurrency investor Christian Angermayer among other billionaires.

Aron D’Souza, the man behind the doping-enthused Enhanced Games, has revealed he received millions of dollars in financial backing for his entrepreneurial idea a year and a half before his first planned Games in 2025.

As per the Canadian Running Magazine, D’Souza revealed that German-American billionaire and co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, has invested a “single-digit million-dollar number” into the Enhanced Games.

He disclosed that Thiel isn’t the only investor on board since cryptocurrency investor and billionaire Christian Angermayer and Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of crypto exchange Coinbase, have also invested in his idea.

Meanwhile, D’Souza wants to provide an alternative to what organizers perceive as a ‘corrupt Olympics’ and he openly criticizes the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its alleged exploitation of athletes, lack of payment of athletes, and rejection of “enhanced” world records.

On their website, they openly speak about using science and focusing on core sports, aiming to break world records and ensure fair compensation for athletes.

They insist that performance-enhancing drugs, when used responsibly, can significantly enhance training outcomes and allow athletes to reach their full potential.

“The Olympic Games are this ancient model reinvented by a colonialist aristocrat in 1896 for the Victorian world.

“We need to design a modernized Games for social media [like TikTok and Instagram] and broadcast television for short attention spans,” he added.

The Enhanced Games will focus on a limited number of events that are of high interest, like track and field, and swimming.

“The core focus of the Games is breaking world records. We only want athletes who have the potential to break world records in sports that actually matter. And so by having a much narrower set (of events), we can deliver much more cost-effectively,” he said.

Speaking about the prize money, the Enhanced Games competitors will be paid a base rate for competing, with bonuses for winning events and setting world records.

“We anticipate there’ll be multi-million-dollar prize pools for breaking world records. We have to create real incentives for athletes to jump ship from this very established prestigious system,” he added.

Molly Seidel withdraws from Olympic Marathon Trials due to injury

Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist Molly Seidel announced she is withdrawing from Saturday’s U.S. marathon trials for the Paris Games due to a knee injury.

Seidel, 29, said in a video posted Thursday that she suffered a knee injury a month ago, couldn’t run on it and got an MRI that revealed a broken patella and a partially torn patella tendon.

“I have done everything in my power over this last month to try and get myself to the (starting) line,” she said. “I’ve had just the most incredible physios and doctors doing everything in their power to help me. I’ve been cross-training my (butt) off, but ultimately I got to this week, and my knee had not healed up enough, and I knew that I could not race a marathon hard on it in its current state without really, really injuring myself.”

The trials are Saturday at 10 a.m. ET from Orlando, airing live on Peacock with coverage on NBC, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app at noon.

Four years ago, Seidel placed second in the trials in her marathon debut to make the three-woman Olympic team.

After the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the Tokyo Games by one year, Seidel finished third in the Olympic marathon held in Sapporo.

She became the third U.S. woman to win a marathon medal after Joan Benoit Samuelson, who won the first Olympic women’s marathon in 1984, and Deena Kastor, the 2004 bronze medalist.

After Tokyo, Seidel dealt with a hip injury and anemia, plus took time to focus on mental health after an eating disorder relapse.

Then last Oct. 8, Seidel finished a 26.2-mile race for the first time in two years. She was the second-fastest American woman at the Chicago Marathon, running a personal best and re-establishing herself as a prime candidate to make the Paris team of three at trials.

Seidel is the second contender to withdraw in the lead-up to trials.

Emma Bates, the third-fastest U.S. female marathoner of 2023, bowed out Jan. 7, saying then, “There’s just not enough time to be where I need to be.”

The field still includes three of the four fastest American women in history — American record holder Emily Sisson, former American record holder Keira D’Amato and Sara Hall, No. 4 on the all-time list.

Plus, former Iowa State teammates Betsy Saina (the fastest American in 2023) and Aliphine Tuliamuk (Tokyo Olympic Trials winner).