Unpacking Ekidens, Half Champs and Doping Cases + Watch Friday Night Track Live

An upcoming change! I’m thinking of doing this newsletter on Wednesday mornings so that last weekend’s track and field action recaps aren’t as stale more than five or six days later. This one is coming a little bit later on Friday but just in time for your weekend...

World Half Marathon Championships Deliver

The lone global championship of the year delivered with two very competitive and close races at the World Half Marathon Championships in Gdynia, Poland.

The women’s race led off the day’s action with Kenya’s Peres Jepchirchir claiming her second world half marathon title and broke her own women’s-only half marathon world record in 65:16. (She had run 65:34 at the Prague Half in September.) She will be running the Valencia Marathon in December and told The Star in Kenya that she will be shooting for 2:18 or 2:19, which would be a step up from her 2:23:50 personal best.

SIX women ended up breaking 66 minutes in the race and nine managed to get under 67. German Melat Kejeta took silver in 65:18 and was a bit of a surprise since she didn’t garner much pre-race attention. Her personal best before that had been 68:56. Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw rounded out the podium in 65:19.

In the last newsletter, I picked Jepchirchir for the win so I get to pat myself on the back for that one. My other possible pick was world record holder Ababel Yeshaneh but she took a tumble at 17K and dragged New York City Marathon champion Joyciline Jepkosgei down with her. That kind of made it Jepchirchir’s race to lose.

I lost some points with the men’s race because 5,000 meter and 10,000 meter world record holder Joshua Cheptegei let me down. The commentators were saying that maybe he was feeling the effects of his 10,000 meter world record but he was toward the front for most of the time but just wasn’t 100% in command. His compatriot and 19-year-old sensation Jacob Kiplimo took the win in 58:49. The big move to seal the victory was when he dropped a 13:38 from 15K to 20K and he managed to drop Kenya’s Kibiwott Kandie (who entered the race with the fastest PR of the field). Ethiopia’s Amedework Walelegn overtook Cheptegei in the final stages for the bronze medal.

NAZ Elite Claims Victory at the Michigan Pro Ekiden

The inaugural Michigan Pro Ekiden was met with a lot of excitement as it featured seven of the country’s best clubs and teams facing off in the popular Japanese relay race format. The broadcast was available for free to everyone but a storm the night before the race knocked out six of the cameras that were set along the course and race footage ended up being very limited. However, Dathan Riztenhein and Samantha Hanson did a terrific job keeping people entertained on the broadcast with updates and interviews throughout the 2+ hour broadcast.

NAZ Elite ended up taking the win in 2:10:11. They led after the first stage of the race that was kicked off by Tyler Day (a recent CITIUS MAG Podcast guest) in his strong professional debut. Lauren Paquette, Rory Linkletter, Kellyn Taylor, Scott Fauble and Dani Shanahan never relinquished the lead. The Hansons-Brooks Original Distance Project finished second. Minnesota Distance Elite rounded out the podium in third.

Jesse Squire provided some helpful updates on Twitter throughout the day since he managed to attend the race. He also put out a new episode of the Track and Field History podcast with coach Ben Rosario that discusses how that race came to be, its possible future plans or expansion as well as the innovation that has led to events like The Marathon Project.

Subscribe and catch all the latest episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Anchor.

The Curious Case of Salwa Eid Naser

Back in June, Salwa Eid Naser was one of the latest track and field stars provisionally suspended for three missing drug tests in a 12-month span. The 400 meter world champion from Bahrain contested the case and said that she was not a cheater. The three missed tests happened before she won the gold medal in Doha and had upset Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo.

This week, the Athletics Integrity Unit announced that Naser has been cleared of any offense because one of the missed drug test came as a result of a drug tester knocking on a storage unit door instead of her apartment on April 12, 2019. The building’s numbering confused the drug tester. It was also disclosed that she had a fourth missed test on Jan. 24, 2020 but that strike falls outside of the 12-month window from her first missed test on Jan. 1, 2019 when she had a filing failure with incorrect information regarding her whereabouts. Stay with me. That “first missed test” actually took place on March 16, 2019 but it was backdated to the start of the testing quarter on Jan. 1. Missed tests can be backdated to the first day of the quarter that they failed to update. That kept her from having three missed tests in the 12-month span. If this all sounds familiar, it’s what led to Chirstian Coleman being cleared by the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Naser’s case hasn’t been met with much compassion. Miller-Uibo took to Instagram to question the decision by the AIU. She wrote:

“I cry foul play and I believe there is a deeper explanation on how the World Athletics along with the AIU allowed this to carry on to this extent. Please President Sebatian Coe, I would like to believe that we the athletes deserve a response from you detailing each step of all the failures that unfolded from this case begun. I am bold enough to believe that we the athletes who have to endure error after error and still do our best to uphold our sport, deserve at least this one request. In my opinion, this federation has shown us over and repeatedly that they have not put their best foot forward to protect the athletes and keep the sport clean. A better job needs to be done and I, along with many other athletes in this sport, are waiting for a better result on this matter.”

And here’s this take from Noah Lyles…

WATCH LIVE TRACK TONIGHT ON CITIUS MAG

Support for this newsletter and the podcast comes from Bakline Running. I partnered with this Brooklyn-based company and I’m a fan of their active lifestyle and streetwear-inspired apparel. In my sub-five mile attempt, I wore one of their performance singlets. You can see more on display on Friday night as they’ve teamed up with Trials of Miles Racing to put on the Big City Invitational in New York.

Racing begins at 7 p.m. ET and can be viewed for free on CITIUS MAG’s YouTube channel. Lots of past CITIUS MAG Podcast and Runners of NYC Podcast guests will be competing. Shout-out to our very own David Melly, who will be duking it out in the 5,000 meters.

In the meantime, check out Bakline’s graphic tees, sweaters and joggers with designs featuring inspiring mantras like “Me vs Me”; “Nothing But Miles”; “The Future Is Female Runners” and more. Check them out at https://www.bakline.nyc/ and use code CITIUS for 15% off at checkout.

It Shouldn’t Be This Way

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the leading figures in the United States' fight against the coronavirus pandemic, was profiled on 60 Minutes. It’s pretty well known that he used to be an avid runner but now at 79 years old, he’s resorted to power walking. (The Columbia grad is definitely a dream guest for the Runners of NYC or CITIUS MAG Podcast. We’ve already put in the request and heard from his group but 100% understand that he’s a little bit busy with handling the pandemic.)

The fact that he has to have a security detail with him because there’s bozos out there who want to hurt him and his family is absurd. His job and his hope is only to help get America through this latest pandemic. I recently listened to the Fauci audiobook by Michael Specter on Audible (highly recommend it!) and he’s been through this before since he’s served for six presidents. However, it’s never like this and it can all be traced to Donald Trump’s vitriol hate and insecurity that leads him to spread conspiracies and lies.

Track and Field Programs on the Line

– William and Mary announced they have reinstated women’s gymnastics, women’s swimming & women’s volleyball since they were facing a possible Title IX lawsuit. Bad news is that there’s no change since the September announcement of plans to cut men’s track and field at the end of the 2020-21 academic year.

– The University of Missouri-Kansas City announced they will suspend operations for golf, cross country and track and field starting on Nov. 1 due to the financial implications of COVID-19. They do not have a football team. Student athletes that are affected will be able to hold onto their scholarships. The thing to watch here is hopefully that the university can resume these sports in the future. UMKC is where steeplechase American record holder and world championship silver medalist Courtney Frerichs got her start. She expressed her disappointment with the news on Twitter.

Quick Hits

– If you paid super close attention on Instagram the past couple months, you may have noticed that Nikki Hiltz has not been training with the Golden Coast Track Club. That’s because she has parted ways with the group, which is headed by Terrence Mahon and Jen Rhines, and decided to be coached by Mac Fleet. Hiltz and Fleet were teammates for a year at Oregon and he helped pace her in her training leading up to last year’s world championships in Doha. Hiltz made the news official in an Ali on the Run podcast appearance.

– Jasmin Stowers announced her decision to retire from the sport at 29 years old. She cited multiple setbacks with a back injury that caused nerve pain in her leg. Her 100m hurdles personal best of 12.35 seconds puts her as the sixth-fastest American of all-time and No. 11 in the world ever in the event. She was a standout star at LSU.

– The Honolulu Marathon, which was set for Dec. 13, isn’t happening this year due to COVID-19.

Podcast Palooza

We’ve all been in a funk when it comes to balancing work and running. This week, I decided to bring on my friend Pat Jeffers onto the podcast because last year he captivated me on Instagram in his pursuit of an Olympic Marathon Trials Qualifier last year. He used #OTQorHospital to document his training. But what made the whole journey special is that in March 2019, he could barely hold a sub-7 minute per mile pace while he was running with a team in the Speed Project. Once he got re-motivated with running, he started making some major leaps in training. This goal was a longshot and his training was all geared for that type of marathon pace even though he’d suffer through it.

Spoiler Alert: He didn’t achieve the goal but did end up running 2:26, which is very impressive. What you’ll hear in our conversation is more about the lessons learned in the process and why it’s OK to take those shots and set those goals. He’s running a marathon in November and raising money for SisterSong: The National Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Enter Pat’s prediction contest by donating any dollar amount to his GoFundMe campaign here. (Sister Song is an organization fighting to eradicate reproductive oppression for Indigenous, African American, Asian and Pacific Islander, Arab and Middle Eastern, Latinx, and queer women and trans people) If you predict Pat’s time and come the closest to his result, he will send you a one-of-one of piece of running memorabilia – the only one that exists. Worth it.

– On Social Sport, Emma Zimmerman speaks with the leaders of Ride to DC (Erin Poland and Roberto Godinez) on how they led a group of more than 100 cyclists from Seneca village in Manhattan, NY to Washington, D.C. as a movement to recognize the existence and significance of Black lives and call for justice at the Commitment March in late August.

– On Running Things Considered, long-time listener and caller Young B-Bone finally makes a guest appearance.

Just a Funny Tweet for Your Weekend

This is me in the third lap of a mile.

Made it this far down? Let me know what you thought or if I missed anything important. Got something you want me to share? Feel free to hit me back: [email protected]

See you all next week!

Cheers,

Chris Chavez