The Payton Jordan Invitational is renowned as the place to go for fast 5- and 10-thousands on American soil and 2014 solidified that reputation even further. Among KIMbia athletes, the most head-turning performance came from Boulder Track Club’s Laura Thweatt who ran 15:04 for fourth place for an absolutely massive PB of 30-plus seconds. That time ranks her #5 in the world so far this year… heady stuff for an athlete whose highest conference finish in college was third. The Lee Troop-coached athlete will have a quick turn-around next run the pro mile event at the Twin Cities Marathon on Thursday.

Lopez Lomong was the top KIMbia finisher in a hot men’s 5000, setting a new lifetime best on the outdoor oval. His 13:07.95 was good for 3rd place and stands less than a second away Read the full article

He might have been the top American distance runner without a US title to his name, but Andrew Bumbalough remedied that on Sunday in Providence by winning the CVS Downtown 5k. With that victory, he also took home the US 5k road championship, his first national title in a stellar pro career that has seen him collect runner-up finishes at the US Cross Country Championship (2011) and 5k Road Champs (2012), represent the US on the track at Worlds (2011), and rank among the Top 20 Americans all-time in three different events.

Meanwhile, Emily Infeld — entering only her second season as a professional — took runner-up honors among the women, beaten only by 5000m national record holder Molly Huddle. After a track PB at 3000 earlier this month, and a road win for six miles earlier this summer, Infeld was expected to contend for the win, and she and Huddle wasted little time grabbing the lead early. Read the full article

The track in Rieti, Italy is renowned as one of the fastest in the world, and Emily Infeld and Andrew Bumbalough took full advantage on Sunday, running lifetime bests in the final big meet of the outdoor season.

Each was entered in the 3000, and Infeld turned heads in particular, laying down an 8:41.43 to grab fifth place and slice a whopping 19-seconds off of her previous personal best. The twenty-three-year-old looks poised to take a huge chunk out of her 5000 personal best — currently 15:28 — especially in light of her impressive road win over six miles at Wharf-to-Wharf.  In Italy, not only did Infeld finish as top American in the field, six seconds ahead of Chelsea Reilly (a newly-minted 15:10 performer), but the Georgetown graduate now ranks Read the full article

In Heusden Belgium, Andrew Bumbalough shaved four seconds off his personal best by running 13:12.01 for 5000m. The mark not only is a PB, but now ranks him 18th all-time among Americans. And on that list, ample motivation lies just ahead of “Bumbi” who sits at seventh in the comparable ranking of American indoor performers: with a logjam of Americans at 13:11, Bumbi’s lifetime best is now a mere 2.01 seconds away from 9th position.

The Tennessean took 5th in a very competitive race — twelve runners finished between 13:10  and 13:15 — after leading the chase pack in second position, with less than a kilometer to go. Teammate Elliott Heath ran 13:27.60 in the second heat later in the evening, good for a runner-up finish. The mark narrowly missed the Stanford grad’s personal best by just one-and-a-half seconds.

If the mark of a true master in any craft is making something hard look easy, then Evan Jager and Shalane Flanagan can lay a claim to that title. Each won a national championship in style in Des Moines this weekend; Jager smoothly kicked away from the steeple field, while Shalane hammered the 10,000m from the opening steps and was running entirely alone for the final miles. Both athletes will go to the Moscow World Championships as the clear-cut top American hope in their respective events.

Lopez Lomong also laid claim to a spot on the US team by finishing third in the 1500m, one of the deepest events at the championships — only an Olympic silver medalist and world championships bronze medalist finished ahead of him. Lomong will still need to better the “A” standard of 3:35-flat in order to guarantee inclusion on the team for Moscow, but with a crackerjack 2013 campaign that includes a US record in the indoor 5000 and a pair of 3:51 runs in the mile (Millrose, Pre Classic), that mark looks to be attainable in the right race.

Other KIMbia athletes who took to the track in Des Moines included Matt Tegenkamp (7th) in the 10,000m, and a trio in the 5000m that included Andrew Bumbalough (5th), Elliott Heath (7th), and Chris Solinsky (8th).