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).

After logging personal bests at 5000m and 1500m at the start of his 2013 campaign, Evan Jager might be forgiven for narrowly missing a steeple PB at the Pre Classic on Saturday. Not simply because his lifetime best there is the American record of 8:06.81 — but because his performance in Eugene was still within the old record (Dan Lincoln 8:08.82) by two-tenths of a second.

Jager’s 8:08.60 is the second-fastest performance in US history and netted him fifth place in a loaded field. He moved into fourth at the bell and was in contention to win even at the final water jump. Crossing the finish line, Jager had beaten the Olympic bronze medalist from London by two seconds and captured his second Top-5 finish in a Diamond League event.

Lopez Lomong also clocked an incredibly fast performance, with his 3:51.45 setting a new personal best. Read the full article

Running from the second heat, Evan Jager logged a tidy two-second personal best at the Oxy High Performance Meet put on by USATF. Lopez Lomong crossed the line fifth in the top-seeded heat, beating World bronze medalist Matt Centrowitz, but it was Jager who finished second overall in the standings, thanks to his 3:36.34 — a time second only to Nick Symmonds. Mile specialists Andrew Wheating and Olympic silver medalist Leo Manzano also were bettered by Jager’s performance in Heat #2. Lomong ran 3:37.08, with Elliott Heath clocking a new PB of 3:39.85 in the third heat.

Chris Solinsky ran his second 5000m race since 2011 and produced a 13:27. Though he was disappointed to miss the World Championships “A”-standard for which he was gunning, the performance showed Solinsky’s previous sub-13:30 at Stanford was no fluke. That night he tweeted, “Wow that one stung. Legs felt dead from the gun. Not happy with how I executed. Fitness is there.”

Up ahead for the KIMbia crew is the Prefontaine Classic on Saturday June 1st.

Here we experience World Cross through the lens of the social media mentions of KIMbia’s World Cross athletes Elliott Heath, Emily Infeld (pictured above, photo by LetsRun.com) and Ireland’s Fionnuala Britton… Read the full article