KIMbia Athletics

Chris Solinsky sliced an incredible 16-seconds off of his PB, clocking a 12:56.66 in Oslo on Friday evening. Hot on the heels of his own American Record in the 10,000m, Solinsky approached the standing national record in the 5,000m, a 12:56.27 logged by Dathan Ritzenhein in Zurich in 2009; in Oslo, that record still fell, as fellow American Bernard Lagat ran 12:54.12.

With speculation over a possible AR performance running rampant, given Lagat’s pedigree and 12:59 PB, and Solinsky’s standout 26:59 performance at Stanford, the opening kilometer was reached in a very hot 2:32 — 12:40 pace for 5,000m. As the field in this Diamond League race continued to run positive splits — 2:35 and 2:38 to reach 3,000m — there was reason to doubt a record performance.

Read the full article

While Bolder Boulder race organizers could celebrate a record number of finishers in the annual 10k Memorial Day race, Brent Vaughn and James Carney stood out from the crowd in the elite race, placing 4th and 7th, respectively. Both athletes represented Team Colorado in the three-person team race, and with Vaughn finishing in 29:56 behind a trio of world-class Ethiopian athletes, Team Colorado took 2nd in team competition, beating trios from Kenya, Australia, and even the United States at-large. In the fourteen previous years of International Challenge competition at Bolder Boulder, no representative of Team Colorado had placed higher than 11th. As each crossed the finish line before a hometown crowd, the Boulder-area-based Vaughn and Carney became the first and second Team Colorado competitors ever to notch Top 10 finishes in a race that has routinely hosted Olympic medalists, World Record holders, and some of the best road runners in the world. Another Boulder-based athlete, Jason Hartmann, represented KIMbia and Team USA in 12th place, clocking a 30:35. In the women’s race, Jelliah Tenega placed 4th in 33:57, scoring for the runner-up team from Kenya.

[ Full Results ]

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.

Lineth Chepkurui once again found herself among the best of the best, when the results came in at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. After taking fourth in 2009, the native of Bomet, Kenya came fifth in Poland in 2010, the third scorer on the title-winning Kenyan team. Leading the field through the two initial two-kilometer loops, Chepkurui fell back on the penultimate circuit, but held on for a strong fifth-place result in 24:40, just two-seconds behind the most decorated female distance runner on the planet, in Tirunesh Dibaba.

A good week’s work for most, but Chepkurui bounced back from World Cross to cross the Atlantic and defend her title as Crescent City Classic Champion in impressive fashion, just six days later. Read the full article

Anyone looking to make a splash in America might want to take notes from John Kemboi.

With a string of top performances on the roads this spring, Kemboi has marked himself as one of Kenya’s most dangerous young talents, ringing up victories at Chicago’s Bank of America Shamrock Shuffle and the Azalea Trail Run, and placing second at the prestigious Crescent City Classic.  Making his first trip across the Atlantic to gain valuable experience, Kemboi has done that — and more. Read the full article

In the deepest distance race on the planet, Simon Bairu represented Canada, Nike OTC, and KIMbia impressively by taking 13th place at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, held in Bydgoszcz, Poland on Sunday. The 12k race consisted of six 2k loops, and Bairu established himself early, tucking into 19th place, just three seconds behind the leaders, as the field completed the first lap.  From there he would continue to pick off runners.

Staying close to race favorites Paul Tanui and Joseph Ebuya of Kenya, Ethiopia’s Gebregziabher Gebremariam, and Moses Kipsiro of Uganda, Simon remained just seconds back from the lead pack, even as the racing heated up on the 4th circuit, working himself up as high as 13th and just five seconds outside of the Top 5. Read the full article

Once again, Tim Nelson stepped away from the track and collected a runner-up finish at a USATF Championship, placing 2nd at the Gate River Run 15k in 43:52.  Nelson laid off the hot early pace set by eventual race winner Mo Trafeh, who hit one-mile in 4:22, allowing Nelson to cross the line four seconds before recent USATF Half Marathon champion Antonio Vega, who placed third. Also running a credible race, Boston-native Sean Quigley came 5th in 44:05, while Jason Hartmann finished 13th.

In the women’s race, Rebecca Donaghue took 4th place, ahead of Olympians Blake Russell and Lindsay Anderson. Donaghue completed the 15k in 51:13.

Full results can be found here.

In the altitude of Albuquerque, Chris Solinsky took third place in the 3000m at the USATF Indoor Championships.  With a championship on the line, the early work was tactical and much of the field remained in contention until late, Solinsky included.

In the end, the finishing speed of double World Champion Bernard Lagat was too much to match and Lagat took home the title in 8:12.60.  Solinsky would cross the line barely a second arears, in 8:13.85, fellow Portlander Galen Rupp just four-tenths in front of him in second position.

The third-place finish wrapped up Solinsky’s indoor season, and he will return to his preparations for outdoor.

With a wedding to plan and a marriage to start, it’s been a busy winter for Chris Solinsky — to the point where it might be forgiven if he started 2010 showing a little rust.  Yet a new house, wife, and home life seem to be agreeing with the Stevens Point native, as he ran 3:55.75 at the UW Invitational in Seattle, on Saturday.  Opening the season indoors, Solinsky defeated Galen Rupp by a little less than half a second.

His 3:55.75 is a facility record at one of the fastest tracks in the world; a PB of over a second, indoors or out; his first time under 4:00 indoors; and is just .11 seconds off the current world leader.

In a match-up pitting Canada’s best distance runner against the fastest American half-marathoner in history, KIMbia’s Simon Bairu came home the victor, winning the Rock and Roll Arizona Half Marathon over Olympian Ryan Hall. Bairu’s 1:02:47 not only won the day, but also took nearly of two-minutes off of the course record. Running just his second half-marathon, Bairu used the 11th mile to put 26 seconds between himself and Hall, and only lengthened his lead to the tape. With high hopes for his next race — the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Poland — Bairu certainly seems on the right track.

Meanwhile, a hop, a skip, and a very long jump away in eastern Texas, the USATF Half Marathon National Championships brought together a deep domestic field.  Houston has a history of auspicious, break-out races — from Hall’s own AR, to KIMbia’s Jim Carney winning the National Championship in his debut in 2008 — and Tim Nelson and Brent Vaughn looked to add their own chapter to that story as each took his first swing at the 13.1-mile distance. Read the full article