Erin Donohue was not about to sit back and run everybody-else’s race. In the 1500m at London’s Diamond League meeting, New Jersey’s #1 Fan got right on the pacesetter from the gun and went after the fast time that her recent performances had suggested. The hot pace got to her, however — the first 400m was reached at 4:00 1500m pace —  and she finished in 4:09.68. Not only was that time still good for a very credible 6th, but there’s no doubt that she won many admirers on Saturday for refusing to let the rabbit go, as happens all too often in big mile races.

That same day, just across the pond, Allan Kiprono took fifth place in 28:10 at Beach to Beacon after sticking his nose in with the leaders from early on. Boaz Cheboiywo placed 14th, while James Koskei finished 15th — the first Masters runner by a whopping three minutes and five seconds.

Going up against very stiff competition, Simon Bairu and Boaz Cheboiywo took 5th and 10th, respectively, in the 2010 Rock ‘N Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon. Tim Nelson, Bairu’s teammate with the Oregon Track Club, placed 11th. The OTC pair was looking for what Nelson called a “competitive workout” as part of their build-up to November 7th’s ING NYC Marathon, but the teammates parted early, as a pair of Kenyan athletes started surging from the very beginning of the race, breaking the contenders into chase packs. Track standout Matthew Kisorio soon established himself, running the last half of the race — and winning — largely unchallenged.

Bairu, for his part, went with the front pack for as long as possible, competing for 3rd position with Boaz, Peter Some (Kenya) and Shawn Forrest (Australia) for the middle miles of the race. While Some got Simon in the end, and marathon star Abderrahim Goumri came up from the 2nd chase pack to nab 3rd, Bairu still finished an impressive 5th in 1:02:08 — a new PB made all the more impressive by the fact that Bairu felt less than sharp, pointing to the fact that he had done virtually no work at half-marathon pace. Boaz held on for 10th in 1:03:01, while Nelson, charging hard, almost caught the Eastern Michigan alum and fellow KIMbian, finishing in 11th place at 1:03:03.

Half a world apart, Chris Solinsky and Fasil Bizuneh each spent the weekend turning in strong performances in towns off the beaten path.

Solinsky wrapped up a banner 2010 campaign with a PB, running 7:34.32 for 3,000m to take 5th in Rieti, a hilltop town northeast of Rome.  Placing 5th in an outstanding field that featured Bernard Lagat and Tariku Bekele, Solinsky bettered his previous lifetime best by almost two and a half seconds.  While the American record of 7:30.84 may have been in mind, going in, Solinsky’s performance came on the heels of several days feeling under the weather, and what he described as feeling “stung” from his outstanding effort in Zurich, the week prior.  Thought Lagat snagged the headlines by lowering the American record to 7:29.00, Solinsky is already looking forward to some downtime back home in the Midwest, recovering from a landmark 2010, and recharging for a renewed effort to make 2011 an even more historic season.

Meanwhile, in the heart of the Midwest, Bizuneh snagged his first-ever US title, winning the USATF 10-Mile Championship with a time of 47:29. Read the full article

The final time may have been six seconds slower than her World Leader, but there’s no doubt that Lineth Chepkurui remains Queen of the Roads after winning the 2010 AJC Peachtree 10k in Atlanta on Sunday.  Returning to the site of her 2009 triumph, Chepkurui clocked 30:51 to win the women’s race by a whopping twenty-one seconds and finish within shouting distance of the world-leading 30:45 she ran in New Orleans three months prior.  Left in her wake was a field that included Olympian Kim Smith and Boston Marathon champion Dire Tune.

Chepkurui left the rest of the women behind early in the proceedings, and explained, “I didn’t want to worry about anyone … I just wanted to run my own race.”  Nor should she have much reason to worry: running even faster than she did in a stellar 2009 campaign, the African and World Best’s for 10k — 30:27 and 30:21, respectively — might offer the best challenge for her talents, presently.

The USATF 10k Road Championships were also contested as part of the Peachtree Men’s Race with several KIMbians in the field. Read the full article

KIMbia athletes did the memory of Kim McDonald proud on Saturday night, as Chris Solinsky and Simon Bairu smashed the American and Canadian national records, respectively, in the 10,000m race that bears McDonald’s name.

Last year, Tim Nelson won this race in a strong 27:39. In 2010, seven KIMbia athletes toed the starting line for the Kim McDonald 10,000m at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational, and this time, the results were outright astounding.  Chris Solinsky ran steadily in the lead pack for the duration of the race, before stepping around race leader Galen Rupp and making an explosive move with 900 meters to go. Solinsky covered the final two laps in under 2:00 to shock running fans the world over and stop the clock at 26:59.60 — a new American record by an eye-popping fourteen seconds.  Moments later, teammate Simon Bairu would complete his own impressive run, logging a 27:23.63 to set a new Canadian national record. Bairu’s time peeled 12.38 seconds off of the previous record.

Oh, and Tim Nelson? He ran 27:31.56 — an terrific eight-second PB. But this year, on an historic night, it would “only” place him seventh. Clearly, the legacy of Kim McDonald lives on in the performances of the athletes running under the “KIMbia” banner and in the ever-improving performances of athletes around the world. Following Nelson in were Brent Vaughn, making his professional debut at this distance (13th, 28:05), Boaz Cheboiywo (14th, 28:06), and Jason Hartmann (19th, 28:25). Full results can be found here, and a video of the race is at the bottom of the page.

We will have much more on Solinsky and Bairu’s record-breaking races as we move into the week.