Sunday evening, Evan Jager and Chris Solinsky were the big stories for KIMbia out in Palo Alto at the Payton Jordan Invitational. Jager narrowly missed getting the win in a hot 5000, but still notched a major lifetime best. Ben True won to continue a torrid streak in which he was sixth at World Cross — but Jager took him to the wire, clocking a 13:14.60 to place second by just fourteen-hundredths of a second. The mark erased our resident steeplechase specialist’s previous PB of 13:22, set back in 2009 at the US Championships.

Meanwhile, Solinsky made his return to big-time competition after two and a half years of rehabbing his leg and rebuilding his fitness — and delivered a highly encouraging performance. Read the full article

The big pre-race story of the 2013 World Cross Country Championships in Bydgoszcz Poland was a tough course and wintery conditions, and when the dust — or, snow — settled the importance of both was borne out by the big post-race story: a team silver for the American senior men’s team. Elliott Heath placed 30th in the race, the fifth finisher for Team USA, and ahead of two-thirds of the what is widely considered the deepest field in any distance race on the planet. Meanwhile, Fionnuala Britton and Emily Infeld keyed strong placings for their respective teams, each of which finished just outside of the medals.

Matching her best finish at World Cross, Britton crossed the line in 14th place, leading the Irish team to a fifth place team finish. After grabbing team and individual gold at Euro Champs, Britton and Ireland reprised that form chart by being the top European representatives in Poland. Ireland scored seven points better than France and while the reigning two-time European champion was nine seconds ahead of Sophie Duarte, France’s top runner and the second European finisher in Poland.

In her first appearance at a World Championship, Infeld took a strong 21st and was the #2 finisher on a fourth-place American team, ahead of US runner-up Kim Conley and Deena Kastor, previously a medalist at this event.

At 13:07.00, Lopez Lomong‘s 5000m run on Friday night became the new American Indoor Record. It makes him the #11 performer in world history, and is the fastest performance ever run indoors on US soil. Also, he jumps two spots among Americans, regardless of venue, as the 8th-fastest man, indoors or out.

For the Jerry Schumacher-coached crew, the race started off hot with perfect pacing from Travis Mahoney of the local NJ*NYTC, followed by Dan Huling who towed the line of teammates from 2000m out beyond 3 “K.” After the first ten laps started right on 13:15 pace — their intended target and the World Championships “A” standard — Huling began to gradually squeeze down on the throttle. The slight quickening made for a painful grind the last two kilometers… but also made Lomong’s record possible, as he hit the 4-kilometer mark at 10:32.64 — checkpoint for a 13:10. The final kilometer featured three laps of under 31-seconds, and Lomong had the record. Despite beginning Friday as the national leader in the 800 for 2013, this record was earned on the back of his strength, as he held on for a final lap of 30.58, according to LetsRun.com.

Behind him, teammates were all en route to PB’s. Andrew Bumbalough ran Read the full article

It was a small personal best. But by running 68:32 on Sunday’s Rock ‘n Roll Half in New Orleans, Shalane Flanagan moved into the #3 spot on the US all-time performer list, ahead of the legendary Joan Benoit Samuelsson. Shaving five seconds off a previous lifetime best of 68:37, the Massachusetts-native leap-frogged her fellow New England star in Samuelsson, and showed very good fitness for the Boston Marathon on April 15th.

Shalane finished as runner-up in the race to two-time Olympic gold medalist Meseret Defar, beating teammate (and US #2) Kara Goucher and Olympian Helen Clitheroe to do so. Flanagan now owns three of the top 10 American performances all-time — despite never training specifically for a race at the 13.1-mile distance.

He followed in the footsteps of Eamonn Coghlan and Nourredine Morceli by making everyone follow his footsteps at the 2013 Millrose Games: Lopez Lomong ran 3:51.26 on Saturday night to win the Wannamaker Mile and join its list of renowned champions. Lomong’s performance also broke the event record, but that comes with a large caveat now that Millrose has been moved to an incomparably faster facility at the Armory. What needs no caveat, though, is his new #8 all-time ranking in the world — #3 among Americans — for the mile indoors. Moreover, as fast as the track at the Armory is, Lopez turned in the fastest performance in its long history by a whopping 2.7 second.

Lomong’s teammates from the Jerry Schumacher-coached branch of the Oregon Track Club ran stand-out races in the two-mile, as well. Andrew Bumbalough clocked a sterling 8:13.02 as the race runner-up, making him the #3 American all-time indoors and cracking Read the full article