The Eritrean half-marathon genius will have plenty of other fast runners to push him along.
The EDP Lisbon Half Marathon, which takes place Sunday in Portugal’s capitol city, is always fast, but this year organizers hope it proves to be the fastest half marathon ever run. Zersenay Tadese has announced that his goal is to better his personal best time of 58:59 by at least 27 seconds, which would take him under Sammy Wanjiru’s world mark of 58:33. If he pulls it off, he will take home a 50,000 EUR bonus on top of first-place prize money.
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Photo by Julianne Whitelaw.
Written by: Bryon Powell
The American ultrarunning season kicked off in earnest this past weekend with the Way Too Cool 50k (WTC) in Cool, California. This race is the most competitive trail 50k in North America, if not the world.
The start list for this year’s WTC showed a world-class field. Among those toeing the line were Ultrarunning Magazine’s 2009 Ultrarunners of the year Kami Semick and Geoff Roes; a multiple-time American representative at the IAAF Cross Country World Championships, Max King; past Way Too Cool champions, including Leor Pantilat (2009) and Joelle Vaught (2006); and many other laudable trail runners.
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Gebrselassie and Kastor headline strong fields.
Written by: Sean McKeon
The 2010 edition of the New York City Half Marathon will feature marathon world record holder Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia and American half-marathon record holder Deena Kastor. Both men’s and women’s fields are stacked and both races will prove to be important indicators for the upcoming spring marathon season.
Gebrselassie will look to reclaim his 2007 title, which he won in a course-record 59:24. Gunning to take down the former half-marathon world record holder will be two-time New York City Marathon champion Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil and Ethiopian Gebre Gebremariam. Gomes dos Santos comes in with designs on improving upon his personal best 59:33 and Gebremariam hopes to add a title in NYC to a resume that also includes a 2009 world cross country championship victory. Also ready to challenge up front will be Irish 10,000m record holder Alistair Cragg and American Olympians Abdi Adirahman and Anthony Famiglietti.
On the women’s side Kastor will seek to improve upon her 1:09:42 win at January’s P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Half Marathon. The 2004 Olympic marathon bronze medalist will have her hands full with Britain’s newest star, Mara Yamauchi. Kastor and Yamauchi are both preparing for the Virigin London Marathon, where the Brit finished second last year. Also in the field are 2009 Hokkaido Marathon champion Kiyoko Shimahara of Japan and and 2008 New York City Half Marathon runner-up Madaí Pérez of Mexico. Other Americans to keep an eye on include US 25K champion Sally Meyerhoff and Olympic trials qualifier Heidi Westover.
The NYC Half Marathon will be streamed live on Universal Sports and a full recap and photos will be available here on Competitor.com following the race.
About the Author:
Sean McKeon is the editor for Competitor Running. He is a former NCAA All-American at Stonehill College (MA) and is still actively competing in road races. He can be reached at smckeon@competitorgroup.com
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Gender challenge offers $100,000 bonus to winner.
Written by: Sean McKeon
Kenyan Wesley Korir will look to defend his Los Angeles Marathon title this weekend on the all-new “stadium-to-the-sea” course. Korir set a personal best 2:08:24 winning last year, and in the process took home $188,705 for winning both the men’s race and the “gender challenge.
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A fascinating study by exercise physiologist Samuele Marcora has proven that fatigue in endurance is nothing more and nothing less than quitting.
Interview by: Matt Fitzgerald
The design was simple, but the results were profound. Samuele Marcora, an Italian-born exercise physiologist at Wales’s Bangor University, and his colleague Walter Staiano brought 10 male athletes into their lab and had them perform a simple exercise protocol. Each pedaled on a cycle ergometer as hard as he could for 5 seconds (a test of maximal voluntary cycling power, or MVCP), and his power output was recorded. Then the subjects rode the same bikes as long as they could at a fixed power output level that corresponded to 90 percent of their individual VO2max. Immediately after completing this ride to exhaustion, which ended when the required wattage simply could not be sustained any longer (or approximately 12 minutes, on average), each subject then repeated the 5-second maximum power test.
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Relive the excitement of 2010 Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas.
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Defar set the standing world record at the 2006 Carlsbad 5000. Photo: PhotoRun.net
2009 champions will return to defend their crowns.
Written by: Sean McKeon
Ethiopian great Meseret Defar will look to lower her world record at the 2010 Carlsbad 5000 on April 11th in Carlsbad, Cali. The recently crowned world indoor 3000m champion set her current world record of 14:46 at the 2006 Carlsbad 5000. Defar will square off against 2009 champion Aheza Kiros of Ethiopia. Kiros defeated American Shannon Rowbury 15:38 to 15:41 in 2009.
When asked about racing in Carlsbad again Defar said, “”I have so many great memories of Carlsbad. It will be very special to run there for the 25th anniversary of the race. Everyone knows how fast the course is and if we get a good day it would be great to try and challenge my world record.”
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Why lift weights when you can run against gravity?
Written by: Brad Hudson
One of the signature training methods I use with my runners in the Marathon Performance Training Group are steep hill sprints. These short, maximum-intensity efforts against gravity provide two key benefits. First, they strengthen all of the running muscles, making the runner much less injury-prone. They also increase the power and efficiency of the stride, enabling the runner to cover more ground with each stride with less energy in race circumstances. These are significant benefits from a training method that takes very little time and is fun to do.
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This is the first episode of our new running news show called RunCenter! Each episode will feature the latest in running news, race results, training tips and more! This pilot episode features news from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Mardi Gras Marathon and Half Marathon and interviews with American distance running stars Dathan Ritzenhein and Kara Goucher!
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The short answer is late afternoon—unless you normally run at some other time.
By Mario Fraioli
A couple weeks ago I rolled out of bed on an uneventful Thursday morning and went for an easy 6-mile run from home. I covered my usual out-and-back route in 45 minutes, which seems to be par for the course when I lace up the sneaks before noontime on a weekday. Four days later, in the early evening on Monday, I ran the exact same route at an equally easy effort and the watch read a few ticks over 42 minutes.
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