The Boston marathon this year ended in an all out sprint in the last block of the race (city block, that is). It wasn’t much of a sprint, because all of these runners had been running for 26.15 miles as fast as possible and they most likely did not do any speed work in the last twelve-ish months. Considering this, the runners probably have minimal fast twitch muscle fibers in their legs. For anyone who reads this and doesn’t know know what those are, they basically just make your legs go faster and help you gain speed. You get these muscle fibers by doing more sprinting rather than jogging / long distance running. The opposite is slow twitch muscle fibers. These are what you build onto when your doing jogging and long distance running, which explains why the runners at the end of the Boston marathon looked like they were just doing a fast jog. For a race like a marathon, it doesn’t often come down to the last few hundred meters, so to train any fast twitch muscle fibers is usually pretty unrational. However, if the winner this year, Lawrence Cherono, did do some speed work it definitely paid off in the form of a $75,000 check. Anyways, back to the topic. The 2019 Boston Marathon was won by Lawrence Cherono of Kenya who edged out Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia. Considering where these two were from and their prosperous winning streaks and careers, this years marathon was expected to be quite a fast one. The top two finishing times were 2 hours, 7 minutes and 57 seconds and 2 hours, 7 minutes and 59 seconds.

You can see the sprint to the finish here:

Lawrence Cherono just edges out Lelisa Desisa to win the 2019 @bostonmarathon !!!! What a finish 👀 #bostonmarathon pic.twitter.com/Ax1RdpWurH

— Kris and Mindy (@RaceEveryStep) April 15, 2019

As for the Women’s race, it was not that close. Worknesh Degefa of Ethiopia won the Women’s section of the Boston Marathon by quite the margin. She won in 2 hours, 23 minutes and 30 seconds. The American racers who were interviewed after the race mentioned that Degefa had taken off pretty early in the race and were interested to see if she would return to the lead pack. Last years winner, Desiree Linden, said she was surprised by how much racing was being done so early on in the race. Usually marathons begin to heat up in the final miles, but this one seemed to take off pretty quickly. Despite this, Degefa did not etch near her personal best marathon time. The Boston Marathon is a hard marathon, so it would make sense. Her personal best in the marathon is 2:17:41, which she ran in Dubai back in January of this year.

Every week it feels like I am writing about another record being broken. I swear its not that normal of a thing. I don’t have any evidence to back up that statement, but I swear its not a normal thing.Anyways, the American 10-mile record was set after standing for 36 years. It was originally set in 1983. Stanley Kebenei of Nike was the man to do it and he is now the fastest American 10 miler.

He was just shy of breaking the 46 minute mark, running 46 minutes flat. The previous record was 46 minutes and 13 seconds. 13 seconds may sound like a lot, but over 10 miles thats only 1.3 seconds faster per mile. A time of 46 minutes and 13 seconds over 10 miles is exactly 4 minutes and 36 second miles over and over again 10 times. At the end of the race it was pretty clear he was going to break the record, but through the beginning half of the race it was hard to tell whether he was going to be able to do it. Both the 2019 and 1983 records were set in Washington, DC., but occurred on different courses and at different times during the year. This race having been run in April and the 1983 record being run late November.

However, although Kebenei set the American record, he did not win the race. Jemal Yimer of Ethiopia won the race in a solid 45 minutes and 36 seconds. ( About a 4 minutes 33 second mile, ten times in a row). Although these may seem blistering fast, one of Kebenei’s Nike teammates ran a marathon in 2 hours flat previously, which about a 4 minutes and 35 second mile for 26 miles and a quarter. I don’t mean to diminish the value of this newly set American record, but Eliud Kipchoge would have gone through the 10 mile mark at 45 minutes and 46 seconds. He also would have had to continue for another 16.2 miles, yikes. Eliud Kipchoge didn’t get the marathon world record for this because he had cars pacing him, the IAAF found this to be enough of a problem to not give him the record.

Even if the marathon record was broken by Eliud, it would not have counted for the 10 mile record because he is not American, he is Kenyan. Just goes to show how low on the totem poll American distance runners are when it comes to the longer races. Blame it on the training or blame it on the popularity of McDonalds, Chic Fil A, or Burger King here in the US, either way American runners need to step up their game.

After two disappointing attempts at breaking the marathon world record for amputees in 2018, American Brian Reynolds unofficially broke the half-marathon world record March 17, 2019. His record has to be officialized by the IAAF before he can officially be called a half-marathon world record holder.

In 2018, Reynolds attempted to tackle the world record for a double amputee in the London Marathon and later at the Chicago Marathon, but fell short at 3:03:35 (a pace of 7 minutes per mile) and 3:03:22 ( a pace of 6 minutes and 59 seconds per mile), respectively. Reynolds was aiming to break 3 hours in the marathon, something never done by a double-leg, below the knee amputee, but failed to do so. Reynolds came back ambitious after these two races and has his sights still set on breaking 3 hours and set himself up well to do so later in this year.

His half marathon time of 1:19:43, a pace of 6 minutes and four seconds per mile, sets him up well to do so. Its nearly impossible to keep up the same pace for a marathon as you have for a half-marathon, so it is unlikely that he could run a time around 2 hours and 40 minutes. However, he is set up well to run somewhere around 2 hours and 55 minutes in a full marathon, which would make him the first double leg below the knee amputee to do so.

Reynolds has a plan to run a few more half marathons in 2019, before taking another shot at a sub 3 hour marathon later in 2019. He has been chasing this goal for a around two years.

Reynolds, aged 30, picked up running as a hobby while chasing his fitness goals of becoming a power lifting in college. Originally, he only did it as cardio to balance out his fitness. But in 2016, he really started to pick up his training and started taking himself seriously as his times, particularly in the marathon, started to get lower.

Brian Reynolds has been an amputee for almost his whole life. He lost his legs at the age of four when he developed a bloodstream infection. Obviously, he hasn’t let it stop him from living his best life. Despite his loss of legs, he was an athlete in high school and is now being considered for holding the world record for below the knee double amputees in the half marathon while also chasing his own World Record ( he has beaten his own marathon world record for double below knee amputees 3 times) in the 26.2 miles it takes to complete a marathon.

You can follow Brian on Instagram @brianreynoldsrunner

The Olympic Standards for 2020 were released this past week. To say the least, runners in America and Olympians looking to return to the prestigious meet are not happy. For example, the time to qualify for the 1500m run is faster than the current collegiate record. This means that no college athlete has ever run the time needed to qualify for the Olympics.

Whatever right?

Well, not really. Many athletes that go to the Olympics are in their peak shape in their mid to late 20s, right around the time when some of them get out of college.

To put how serious these times are into perspective Paul Chelimo, a 2016 Rio silver medalist in the 5,000m, took to twitter just to show how ridiculous these new standards are.

He noted that had these standards been in effect in 2016, he would not have even made it to the Olympics, let alone come in second place for the silver medal. He ran the 5k in a time totaling 13 minutes and 3 seconds, a great time, but only 10 seconds slower than the Olympic standard.

To put this into perspective, you would have to run 3 consecutive miles at a pace of 4 minutes and 12 seconds per mile to run 13 minutes and 3 seconds for the 5k. To qualify at 13 minutes and 13 seconds, you would have to run 3 consecutive miles at 4 minutes and 15 seconds per mile. (You would then have to run 1/8th of a mile afterwards to finish the full 5,000 meters.)

Chelimo also took to twitter to explain that this is how the sport of Track and Field is slowly killing itself. With having to pay highly priced subscription payments monthly to watch live streams and compete in USATF events, not many people care to watch or compete. Lets be honest, Track and Field, and running in general, is not that exciting to watch unless you are a runner. It’s not like football where people are bashing into each other every 30 seconds and that is just not as exciting unless you are big into the running community. So when the companies that run the coverage of track and field have these highly priced programs and such, no one really cares to watch them.

1) because no one wants to pay a lot of money just to watch people run in circles and

2) anyone who would want to watch the races would see that it costs $100/year to watch the meets

Who wants to do that?

My last passion blog was about  Yomif Kejelcha and his world record attempt at the indoor mile. Remember how he missed it by .008? Well things haven’t seemed to get better, a week later he was beaten by someone two years younger than him, Samuel Tefera, to earn in the world record in a race only 109 meters shorter.  Tefera isn’t just some nobody, however. Although he is only 19 right now, he was the world indoor 1500m champion last year.

Tefera, born on October 23 of 1999, ran 3:31.04 in the 1500m. This translates to about a 3:48 mile indoors, which is just about the indoor world record that Kejelcha missed last week.

To show the true talent of these athletes, with two laps to go they were by themselves. The race was stacked with some of the best runners in the nation, Tefera and Kejelcha were able to drop them with a quarter mile left in the race. Tefera mostly sits right behind Kejelcha to draft off of him and not use as much energy, which may explain why he had more energy to run faster at the end of the race. You can see Kejelcha gets very nervous and uncomfortable that someone is still running with him with less than a quarter mile left in the race which could have mentally hurt him in this performance.  If you watch the race (link below) you can see it comes down to the final 150m of the race, where Tefera passes Kejelcha on the back stretch at full speed to win the race.

Kejelcha is still trying to set the indoor mile world record this weekend in Boston. He will be competing in another stacked field against many pros, yet I would not be surprised if he finishes the race alone as not all pros are in the shape he is in right now this time of year. It is unclear whetehr Tefera will chase him in this race this weekend or if he will take time off to prepare for the 2020 olympics.

Both of these records were set by Hicham El Guerrouj, now 44, in 1998-1999 and have been called “untouchable records” because of how many professional runners have not reached near his time, until now of course. You can watch him set the outdoor world record (3:43.13) here:

As you can see, El Guerrouj was not alone in the race either.

You can watch the full race video here:

The race starts at 1:10 and Tefera is wearing the number 12 on his uniform.

At the Armory Track and Field Center in New York City last Saturday afternoon, Yomif Kejelcha planned to take an attempt at the twenty-two year old world record in the mile. Originally set in 1997 by Hicham El Guerrouj in a time of 3:46.46 in Ghent, Beligum, the record was said to be untouchable for some time. That was until this years Millrose Games held on February 9th where Yomif Kejelcha took his run at the record.

The competitors in the field were some of the worlds fastest, with a 17 time NCAA champion and bronze olympic medalist, all finishing in the top eight  under 3 minutes and 56 seconds. Two of these top eight are still competing in the NCAA, Josh Kerr and Ollie Hoare, who ran 3:53.65 and 3:54.83 respectively (more on these two later).

For races like these, pacers are set in order to make sure the race is taken out fast and on pace. Since this was an attempt at the mile world record, the pace was set significantly fast. However, Kejelcha felt the pace was too fast through the first quarter mile, and too slow by the time he reached the half mile mark. The first quarter mile was ran in 56 seconds, setting up the race for the rest of the race to be 3:44 if held. However, Kejelcha, now running on his own with the rest of the field behind him, slowed to run 1:52.99 through the half mile, leading him to a 3:46. During the next half mile, Kejelcha continued to slow and at the line missed the World Record by .008 seconds. If the time wasn’t enough, here is a picture from the FAT machine at the line that day:

(courtesy of runnerspace)

The first red line you see is the record he was going for, the red line is the moment his chest crossed the line.

Now, Josh Kerr has been a consistent NCAA champion in the mile indoors and 1500m outdoors since his redshirt freshman year. He’s from the UK, but runs for his college, New Mexico, when he’s in the states. However, last year Ollie Hoare from Australia outkicked him in the final 100m of the 1500m to win the NCAA title in the 1500m. Hoare also won the Cross Country national championship this past year. As you can imagine, there is quite a rivalry between the two as they are two of the best milers in the NCAA, and it will be interesting to see them battle at the indoor NCAA championships in April as well as the Outdoor championship in June.

On January 26 2019, French athlete Kevin Mayer set the world record in the decathlon scoring 9,126 total points. For those that do not know, a decathlon is a 2 day event, with 5 events each day spanning from running to throwing. One will gain points based on their performance (here is a Wikipedia link to the scoring chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decathlon#Men’s_decathlon )  and whoever has scored the most points at the end of day 2 wins the event. Kevin Mayer, a 26 year old man from France is now considered the best decathlete of all time, beating the previous world record of American Ashton Eaton, who scored 9,045 points at the 2015 World Championship.

However, Kevin Mayer has unofficially taken the title, and has done so at an event known as the Décastar, a decathlon event held in Talence, France. Behind Mayer followed German athletes Arthur Abele and Tim Nowak who took silver and bronze, respectively. France had two other athletes besides the champion, Ruben Gado, Bastien Auzeil, Jeremy Lelivere, and Florian Geffrouais, who all placed 5th, 6th, 9th, and 11th, respectively.

The Décastar has been an annual event since 1986, but first started in 1976. Athletes from all over the world have participated and won the event, but never at the level Mayer has. In 1992, 1993, 1994, and 1997, Americans have taken home the gold.

Typically, when a young athlete wins the Décastar, they have a phenomenal return the next year. Not to mention, the impending Olympic games in Tokyo, Japan that is less than two years away. Mayer will still be in his athletic prime and could have a great shot at taking home the gold medal. The 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics all watched as Americans dominated the field, however Ashton Eaton (as mentioned above) won in 2012 and 2016 but has since retired. This leaves the field open for great athletes such as Mayer and others who qualify.

Mayer has been participating in the heptathlon, octathlon (events that have athletes participate in 7 and 8 events, respectively) ever since 2009. Its fair to say that Kevin Mayer has been an up and coming athlete for some time now, winning the World Youth Championships in the octathlon and a year later winning the World Junior Championships in the decathlon. He accomplished both just at the age of 17. Little did he know, not even ten years in the future he would become the greatest decathlete of to date.

Kevin Mayer’s 2019decathlon record at Décastar is yet to be ratified by the IAAF.

Edward Cheserek broke the Manchester Road Race record this previous Thanksgiving, November 22, 2018. Despite the sixteen degree temperatures and slow start, Cheserek was still able to win, not only by the large margin of 28 seconds, but also setting the best time for the race by three seconds. The Manchester Road Race is a annual Thanksgiving morning race that has had some of the best runners in the world competing for first since 1936.

As for the individual, Edward Cheserek is 24 years old, and graduated from the University of Oregon in 2017. The native Kenyan was considered the most recruited high school athlete in his senior year in 2013, after being named the 2012-2013 Gatorade Cross Country Runner of the year. After committing to Oregon, Cheserek fit right in capturing his first NCAA title his freshman year, the first freshman to do so in NCAA history. Cheserek would go on to win the national championship in cross country until his senior year, where he came third. Had he won, he would have been the first person ever to win for straight NCAA titles. However, off the course and on the track, Cheserek has captured an extraordinary amount of NCAA titles, earning twelve individual titles and one more on Oregon’s dominant 2016 Distance Medley Relay. This gives the elite runner a total of sixteen NCAA titles, thirteen around the track, and three on the course.

Nicknamed “King Ches”, and rightfully so, the athlete is the most decorated Division I runner of all time. Sitting at sixteen, his predecessors own 15, 10, and 9 NCAA titles. However, although he is considered one of the greatest, and most decorated, athletes to come out of the NCAA, he is not. Jenny Thompson, a female swimmer who attended the University of Stanford owns that title. Thompson owns an unbelievable 19 NCAA wins in her respective swimming events. Had the proclaimed King Ches remained healthy in his final season as a senior in college, he would have had the opportunity to tie the record.

Now, back to track. If you’ve been wondering what you get if you win an NCAA title, here is your chance to see.

Although the picture is of a 2015 trophy, the only thing that has changed since is the year. The prestigious award fits the prestigious accomplishment of being able to call yourself one of the best in the nation. To win, you have to beat everyone in the United States in your race. However, this does not necessarily make it fair. Many runners that are recruited from other countries enter college as a freshman in the United States at ages ranging from 20 to 22. This makes it extremely difficult for some who want to win a trophy to do so when they are going against people in their grade that can be as much as four years older than them.

On Sunday, November fourth, approximately 50,000 men and women toe’d the line to race 26.2 miles through the streets of New York City. Some doing it for fun, others doing it to train or even win. Professional marathon runners are hard to come by, partially because who wants to run marathons as their job, but also because the mental challenge to training, completing, and going for the win in a marathon.

Professional marathoners, competing for the United States, were pleased with the representation of the free world in the top spots of the race. The pro runners crossed in sixth, seventh, ninth, and tenth. Jared Ward finished sixth place in a time of 2:12:24, roughly six and a half minutes behind the winner who is from Ethiopia. Ward, who represented Saucony running company on during the marathon, explained his enthusiasm for his teammates in an interview with Runner’s World after his run. Speaking of his friendships with the other three Americans, and how speaking with them during the race helped. The other three Americans, Scott Fauble, Shadrack Biwott, and Chris Derrick, seemed to agree. Fauble, Biwott, and Derrick all finished in the two hour twelve minute area, with a spread of twenty eight seconds in between the three of them.

Chris Derrick talks about the middle of the race in another interview with Runner’s World, saying how he felt through the ten to fifteen miles, but after that he felt he was falling a part and just trying to finish the race.  Just to put the speed of these racers into perspective, a 2:12 marathon is an average pace of 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile, where a 2:06 marathon is an average of 4 minutes and 48 seconds per mile. The winner, Lelisa Desisa from Ethiopia finished in 2:05:59, with his fellow Ethiopian Shura Kitata right behind him in 2:06:01. As a famous American marathon, the United States is known to have a bigger turnout in this race. To put this into perspective, there were fifty four runners from the United States in the top one hundred, and sixteen in the top twenty five. Despite this, the last time an American has won the NYC marathon was in 2010, with a time of 2:08:14, an average pace of 4 minutes, 53 seconds per mile.

The two time defending champion Abdi Abdirahman was not able to complete the race this year, dropping out at the thirty kilometer mark, complaining about an injured left hip. He was seen leaving in a wheelchair, but kept his spirits high claiming that he will be back next year.

Justin Gallegos announced on National Cerebral Palsy day (October 6) that he is going to be continuing his running career with Nike.

Justin Gallegos, a junior running for the Oregon Club track team, was presented the contract by a Nike marketing manager after after an Oregon running club practice. Gallegos said in a post on his Instagram (@zoommagic), “Growing up with a disability, the thought of becoming a professional athlete is as I have said before like the thought of climbing Mt. Everest! It is definitely possible, but the odds are most definitely not in your favor!” Not only is Gallegos the first professional athlete with Cerebral Palsy, but one of the few to have completed two half-marathons.

Gallegos talks about the struggle of dealing with Cerebral Palsy when he was younger in his reflecting words about signing his professional contract. Mentioning how he spent the first years of his life in a wheel chair, until his upgrade to leg braces. Eventually, he no longer needed them and joined his high school track team in the ninth grade, where he competed in the distance events. Gallegos explains how he struggled with the sport at first, as he was not able to run without falling over. His feet would drag on the ground and he would end up tripping himself. In spite of this, Justin learned to fix his form and running technique until he could run without falling. As for his future, the professional runner plans to break two hours in the half marathon, besting his previous time of two hours and three minutes. On top of that, he is in talks with Nike in training for next years Chicago Marathon, something he says has been on his to-do list for some time now. He also plans to represent the United States at the upcoming Paralympics.

Justin has personal best times of two hours, three minutes, and forty-nine seconds in the half marathon and forty-four minutes and nine seconds in the 8000 meter run. By signing with Nike, Gallegos will receive professional training and help during his journey to best these times, and most likely will do so because of it.

Cerebral Palsy is a neurological disorder that affects the movement, motor skills and muscle tone in the body that varies in severity. Although Justin Gallegos is the first runner with Cerebral Palsy to sign a professional running contract, he is not the first to conquer the long distances that come with the sport. Jamie Watts of Washington D.C. area has completed a marathon, and over 110 other races.