KIMbia Athletics

It’s Stanford week — we’re just days from arguably the most exciting collection of distance races in America, at the Payton Jordan Invitational.

Rebecca Donaghue is as excited as American running fans are — not least because she can escape the rain of central Pennsylvania for a few days. A recent blog post captures her excitement, as she writes about a beautiful, zen-like run that served as one of her final workouts (essentially a long bout of tempo work) before heading to the West Coast.

It takes me about a mile to settle in and get into a rhythm. Once that happens I start to notice where we are for a few brief moments, the rushing Juniata river to our left, remnants of torn down railroad bridges, and farmland to our right. It’s definitely a different kind of focus than being on the track, and much needed since we’ve been doing this type of workout mostly on the track for the past few months. I’m still able to zone out; it’s just slightly different having new things to look at here and there. All and all it made for a harder workout than the track but ends up being one of my strongest workouts yet.

Rebecca will run the 5000m on Sunday May 1st, her first race on the track since last June. You can read the full blog at RunningRebecca.com, linked here.

If you’re looking for the Live Chat with Runnerspace, join us at Runnerspace.com/Rookies-vs-theWorld — see you there!

We already knew Lineth Chepkurui was one of the best female distance runners on the planet.  But after clocking 38:10 for the Lilac Bloomsday 12k — the fastest time ever recorded for that distance on the roads — she deserves consideration as one of the best female road athletes of all-time.  Her 2010 has certainly been no less sterling than a 2009 season that saw her win Peachtree, Crescent City, Cherryblossom, and, Lilac Bloomsday, and by shaving 25-seconds off of her wining time from last year, it seems that Chepkurui is in fact even better this spring.  Chepkurui enjoyed a 15-second advantage over the international field when she hit the tape, and took almost as much time — 12-seconds — off of the previous world’s best.  As if the winning time wasn’t impressive enough, the Iten-based athlete collected her third-straight Bloomsday title by turning the tables on reigning World Cross Country Champion Emily Chebet Muge.

In addition to Chepkurui, fellow KIMbia athlete Jelliah Tingea placed 5th in 39:33, while Gilbert Okari and Philemon Terer placed 7th and 11th, respectively, in the men’s race. [ Results ]

Perhaps appropriately, KIMbia’s Matt Tegenkamp and Chris Solinsky finished just three-tenths of a second apart under the shadow of the New York City skyline Saturday afternoon, in the last race of the 2009 season.  Back in June, the two training partners stormed to a one-two finish at the US Championship 5k in Eugene and, just like Saturday, the two finished just three-tenths of a second apart.  The 5k in Eugene launched two of the most successful summers of racing the KIMbia group and American distance running have ever seen. The 5th Avenue mile on Saturday was the perfect bookend for those great seasons.

 Matt and Chris finished 7th and 8th respectively in 3:54.20 and 3:54.51.  The race started on E. 80th St. in Manhattan and ran straight down Fifth Ave. to the finish on E. 60th St.  Matt had a brief glimpse of the lead 1200 meters into the race, but the 5000m specialist was not able to match the kick in a field of almost exclusively milers. 

Both runners have a brief vacation from racing to look forward to.  Chris will be using that time to plan for his wedding coming up in the next few months.  Full results of the 5th Ave. Mile after the jump. Read the full article

Across the Atlantic Ocean, there is a vast expanse of majestic landscape, there are bustling city streets, windmills, breathtaking works of art, there’s even something called ”tea time”, BUT MOST ESPECIALLY there is a group of American based KIMbia athletes on the European track circuit. The front half of most of these athlete’s time in Europe is over while some are just getting started. We will be checking in with the athletes to get a full report on how their summer is going. They will be grading themselves on how well they have raced so far and how well their training has been going this season. They’ll also be detailing some of their time off the track to give an idea of what life is like for them on the European circuit.

2009 has been very good to Rebecca Donaghue.  Earlier in the season, Rebecca lowered her PR considerably in the 10k, clocking a 33:08 to win the prestigious Payton Jordan Invite in Stanford.  She rolled into the U.S. Championships shooting for nothing less than a top three finish and a spot on the World Championship team in the 5k.  After leading through a considerably windy second mile and into the third in the 5k finals, Rebecca finished fifth, just three seconds short of third place.  Still, with Kara Goucher forfeiting her 5k spot for the marathon, the third World Championship slot was still in the cards for Rebecca if she could dip under the ‘B’ standard (15:25) over the next few weeks.  And so, Rebecca headed to Europe.

Despite missing the standard, Rebecca made strides in her first European season by posting two more PR’s in the 5000m (15:34 in Liege) and 1500m (4:12.07 in Ghent).  Clearly, the European circuit has treated Rebecca Donaghue well.  Click below to read how Rebecca graded her season and how she describes her first “business trip” to Europe.

Read the full article