FAST TIMES AT JSERRA HIGH: BOWERMAN TRACK CLUB HEADLINES SOUND RUNNING'S THE TEN

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The Gate River Run 15K may be the official national championship on tap this weekend, but what sure feels like an unofficial 10K pre-nationals is taking place outside Los Angeles on Sunday, March 6th. THE TEN, presented by Sound Running, features four high-quality 10000m fields and one small but mighty 1500m race, and the times should be explosive. The meet was originally scheduled for Saturday night but moved due to the windy conditions in the area.

“Athletes come first,” organizers wrote on Instagram. “Taking a look at the Saturday night forecast had many runners worried about running fast and hitting the needed standards. We made the decision to move the TEN to Sunday night to give everyone the shot they deserve!”

Racing starts at 7:20 p.m. PST with women racing to try and hit the U.S. Championship qualifying mark of 31:45.00, according to organizers. The men vying for the U.S. qualifying time of 27:50.00 will race at 8 p.m. PST.

This meet comes just three days after USATF announced the 10000m championships will be held on the first night of the Prefontaine Classic on May 27 to allow athletes enough time to race and then recover for the world championships in July. Back in December, the word from the USATF annual meetings was that the 10000m selection race would be contested on May 20 at Mt. SAC. USATF has still yet to officially release what the qualifying times are for events and how fans can purchase tickets.

You can watch all of the action by buying a pay-per-view ticket to stream the meet for $5.99 via Trackland.

NOTE: If you’re like me and want to spend all your evenings this weekend watching running, the Tokyo Marathon (featuring world record holders Eliud Kipchoge and Brigid Kosgei) will start at 6:30 p.m. ET on Saturday. You can watch it on Flotrack with a premium subscription.

While it’s always said that the 10000m on the track can be a long race to entertain, the beauty of it is that you can try to keep track of several storylines over the same amount of time it would take you to watch one episode of ‘How I Met Your Father’ – yes, I’m watching it on Hulu and it’s not that bad.

Below, I’ll break down some of the things to watch within each race. (all times local PST)

FAST TIMES ON TAP AT THE TEN

Women’s World Championship Qualifier 10000m | 8:43 p.m.

WILL ELISE CRANNY TAKE AIM AT THE AMERICAN RECORD?

On Feb. 20, 2021, just as the track and field world was starting its return to racing, Elise Cranny ran the third-fastest U.S. women’s 10000m performance with a 30:47.42. Only her coach Shalane Flanagan (30:22.22 at the 2008 Olympics) and Molly Huddle (30:13.17 at the 2016 Olympics) have ever run faster. Bowerman Track Club training partner and Tokyo Olympics roommate Karissa Schweizer was just behind her in 30:47.99 for the fourth-fastest mark in U.S. history. Emily Infeld ran 31:09.57 for fourth place in the race and the ninth-fastest time in American history.

That wasn’t the first track meet at JSerra High School that produced fast times. Just two months before that Rachel Schneider and Weini Kelati ran 31:08.57 and 31:10.08 which puts them at No. 10 and 11 for the U.S. all-time.

You get the point: This meet at a high school track in California in February/March has found its spot on the calendar because it yields fast times in great weather so that athletes aren’t reliant on chasing qualifying standards in the spring/summer when the weather can be warmer, there are more variables and training could be disrupted closer to championships.

This year, Cranny and other Bowerman Track Club teammates return after skipping the U.S. Indoor Championships to prioritize 10000m marks for the 2022 outdoor campaign. Cranny proved she’s in great shape with a 14:33.17 U.S. indoor 5000m record at Boston University on Feb. 11. This will be just the third 10000m race of her career and she’s got a little something to prove at the distance. She had the misfortune of finishing fourth in the U.S. Olympic Trials 10000m final, where the weather neared 90 degrees at 10 am.. and Emily Sisson threw down an Olympic Trials record of 31:03:82.

(Throwback Podcast Plug: Cranny was a guest on the CIITUS MAG Podcast in July 2020 to share how she went from injured to running 14:48 for the 5000m. We went through her progression as a high school star through college growing pains and then life as a pro.)

You might be wondering where the other women who finished ahead of Cranny at the Trials are this weekend:

Emily Sisson – Racing this weekend at the USATF 15K Championships in Jacksonville, Florida – you can watch that on USATF.TV with a Runnerspace Plus subscription. Last month, she told Kyle Merber in the Lap Count that she had an injury after Tokyo but is back in training.

“I wasn’t planning on ever going back to racing on the track, but when I didn’t make the marathon team my plans changed,” Sisson said. “ I may still hop on the track again this outdoor season. — I like how the 10000m has its own event apart from the rest of the championships — but next on the schedule is the Gate River Run 15k then the Cooper River Bridge Run.”

Karissa Schweizer – She underwent surgery last fall to treat an Achilles issue with an operation that was “minimally invasive.” She started the recovery process in November and is back to running workouts with her Bowerman Track Club teammates but not racing yet.

Alicia Monson – She just finished second in the 3000m at the U.S. Indoor Championships on Sunday and is preparing for Worlds in Belgrade, Serbia next month.

OTHER COMPETITORS TO WATCH

– Emma Bates is racing for the first time since her runner-up finish at the Chicago Marathon in a personal best of 2:24:20. She already has her spot secured for Team USA at the World Championships in the marathon. She recently did a Victory Lap Q&A with Mac Fleet (unlocked and free to read!) where she said she passed on the opportunity to run the Boston Marathon to focus on Worlds. She shared that her plan for the spring is to “so some speedier stuff, some 10ks and half marathons, in order to feel better going into that summer marathon season.”

– Bates’s training partner Dominique Scott-Efurd is coming off a big personal best at the half marathon in Houston, and her 10000m PB of 31:19 is not far off the South African record of 30:52.51. Scott-Efurd has five indoor national records, but no outdoor or road records, so she may be hoping to claim the 10000m as her own. She already has her qualifying time for the world championships.

–3000m steeplechase Olympic silver medalist Courtney Frerichs is making her 10000m debut. She told CITIUS Mag in February that she and her coaches “have been talking about this 10k debut basically since I joined the group - so 5 years now.”

– It will be interesting to see how Hansons-Brooks Distance Project’s Natosha Rogers will follow up her solo 15:20.42 indoor 50000m performance in Chicago on Feb. 11 with some stiffer competition. She ran her 10000m personal best of 31:12.28 on this track in Dec. 2020.

– Canadian record holder Andrea Seccafien will make her Bowerman Track Club debut. She set the national record of 31:13.94 last May in California.

– Erika Kemp of the Boston Athletic Association is one of the four runners who did not finish the 10000m final at the Olympic Trials. This will be just her third crack at the distance since turning professional. She ran her personal best of 31:35.63 in Dec. 2020 on this track but showed great potential at the longer distances last year since she won the 2021 USATF Running Circuit title and $20,000 due to her performances over 15K, 20K, 25K, 5K and the half marathon.

– People forget Ednah Kurgat was fourth in the 5000m and 11th in the 10000m at the U.S. Olympic Trials last year. The 2017 NCAA cross country champion now runs for the U.S. Army WCAP program and has a personal best of 31:21.65 that she will try to take down.

Men’s World Championship Qualifier 10000m | 9:18 p.m.

WHAT WILL MOH AHMED, GRANT FISHER & WOODY KINCAID THROW DOWN?

We’re just three weeks removed from an epic indoor 5000m at Boston University where Grant Fisher ran the U.S. indoor record of 12:53.75 – just missing Bernard Lagat’s outdoor record by .15 seconds. Fisher is No. 5 on the U.S. all-time list for the 10000m from his 27:11.29 debut last February. He went on to take second at the Olympic Trials and then fifth at the Olympics. Even after the 5000m in Boston, this could be a weekend where he proves that his better event is the 10000m. Having run faster than Galen Rupp’s overall 5000m PR of 12:58, the question naturally arises if Rupp’s American record of 26:44.36 is in jeopardy…

Mohammed Ahmed, sixth in this event at the Olympics, lowered his Canadian indoor 5000m record to 12:56.87 behind Fisher. This is just his second 10000m race since the 2019 world championships, where he ran his personal best and Canadian record of 26:59.35.

Woody Kincaid was just one second behind Fisher (27:12.78) in last year’s race at The Track Meet and sits at No. 6 on the all-time list. He didn’t jump into the fire of the super-fast section of the 5000m in Boston and instead ran a chill 13:05.56 in the not-as-super-fast section [that time is why I didn’t call it the slower section of the 5000m – that’s not slow]. A healthy Kincaid is dangerous and he proved that by winning the Olympic Trials last year.

Two of the men ahead of Fisher on the all-time list are also in the race. Bowerman teammate Lopez Lomong is racing his first 10000 since dropping out of the Olympic Trials. He showed he’s in good shape with a 13:07.40 behind Kincaid. 2016 Olympian Shadrak Kipchirchir looked a little off his game at BU and ran 13:10 in his first track race since 2020, but he’s also coming off a victory at the U.S. Cross-Country Championships in January, so don’t count him out.

We could see a number of national records in this event, as the men’s field is particularly international. Patrick Tiernan (Australia), Ahmed (Canada), and Kieran Tuntivate (Thailand) already hold their nations’ records and are entered, so a PB is a new national record by default.

Mo Farah’s U.K. record of 26:46.57 is a tall order, but there is a veritable British invasion in this race with Sam Atkin (coming off his 13:03 PB in Boston) and Andy Butchart, Luke Caldwell, and Patrick Dever also entered, it’s not impossible.

Throw in Matt Baxter possibly targeting the New Zealand national record of 27:30 and Jack Rayner (Australia) and Matt Hughes (Canada) chasing their countrymen, and the record books may be getting quite the revision.

Ultimately, the question will come down to the pacesetting. While the race is billed as a “world championship qualifier,” many athletes in the race have the 27:28.00 standard already and personal bests far quicker than that mark. If the race goes out at 27:10 pace, it would not be surprising to see a few top racers close hard to finish under 27:00, but the U.S. and U.K. records of 26:44 and 26:46 would be harder to snag as you’d need to close around 13:10 for the second 5k. But if a few brave souls and talented pacers take the race out in 26:50 pace, all bets are off. Don’t be surprised to see two distinct pace groups emerge early in this race as Kipchirchir and the Bowerman crew may be chasing bolder goals than the rest of the field.

The big benefit to all of these pace questions is that the meet will have Wavelight pacing, which guided Joshua Cheptegei and Letsenbet Gidey to their respective 10000m world records.

Men’s 1500m - 8:35 p.m.

HOW WILL JOSH THOMPSON FARE AGAINST INTERNATIONAL TALENT?

Squeezed in between the two slates of 10000m is a small but high-quality men’s 1500m race, featuring three Olympians, the U.S. indoor 1500m runner-up, and the 2022 Millrose 3000m champion. The world standard in the event is 3:35.00 and several men in this race will be eager to knock it out as they are either very close or just missed the window.

On Athletic Club’s Olli Hoare, coming off his 3:50.83 victory at the Wanamaker Mile, is likely your favorite in this race with a 3:32.66 outdoor PB. His teammate, Geordie Beamish, “only” has a PB of 3:37.57, but all indications point to Beamish being on the verge of a breakout year.

They’ll face off with Bowerman Track Club’s Josh Thompson, who has a PB of 3:34.77 from February 2020 but does not yet have the World standard. He’ll likely want to knock that out before heading to indoor Worlds after finishing 2nd in last week’s U.S. championships to Cole Hocker.

Three men who’ll surely be hungry to break the 3:35 barrier are Vincent Ciattei (who ran sub-3:35 about a month before the Eugene ‘22 window opened), Amos Bartelsmeyer (3:35.24 PB), and Luis Grijalva (3:35.32 PB). This will be particularly important for Bartelsmeyer and Grijalva, who represent Germany and Guatemala in international competition, respectively, and will have a good shot at qualifying for Worlds simply by snagging the standard.

Rounding out the field are a pair of Brooks Beasts in David Ribich and Izaic Yorks. After Josh Kerr proved to the world last week that the Brooks spikes have record-breaking potential, it’ll be interesting to see how his teammates fare in them as well.

HOW TO WATCH THE 2022 USATF INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS

Date: March 6, 2022

Time: A full schedule of events and entries can be found here. The action starts at 7:20 p.m. PST.

Livestream: You can stream the meet by paying $5.99 for a pay-per-view ticket.

That’s it from me today. As always, thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, learned something new, or have any questions or commentary on anything featured in this issue, feel free to hit my inbox by replying or writing to [email protected]

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