CITIUS MAG: Dopers Gonna Dope, The Marathon Project, Elise Cranny On RED-S
Having already served a previous doping ban, Ridouane Harroufi won the USATF 15K Championships back in March. There was an outcry over his win and rightfully so because turns out he cheated again.
I’m racing! Next Friday night, I’ll be spiking up for the first time in a long time for a one-mile time trial that will be certified and officially timed so I’ll whatever performance comes out of it! In May and June, like many of you, I struggled with finding any sort of motivation for running and training with no races on the schedule. In a pre-COVID world, I’d probably be tapering right now to get ready for the Chicago Marathon and attempt to break three hours for the first time. However, I’m not quite there yet to hype myself up for 20-22 mile long runs and then tackling 26.2 solo.
I’ve decided to go back to the basics. At some point in June, I texted my coach, Kate Gustafson, that I’d like to chase a mile PR. I took a break from the marathon in the fall of 2018 to focus on the mile and then notched a big marathon PR the following spring. So it’s worked before and I have more time now between marathons. Sub-5 is something that’s still on my checklist and constantly bugging me. I’d love to get as close as I can to that in a real race setting.
I find it fitting that my podcast conversation this week is with Jared Ward and we discuss how to find that fun in training again.
I’ve partnered with Bakline Running (use code CITIUS for 15% off everything!) and they’re supporting my podcast but they’re also teaming up with the Trials of Miles race organizers to put on a small meet next Friday night. I’ve been asked to do commentary for the races alongside my occasionally recurring co-host Ryan Welsh. But I convinced them to let me rip a quick mile while they have the timing mats out and everything is set up for an official track meet.
This was supposed to be a duel but unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict, my opponent had to scratch from the race. Let’s just say that it would have been a David and Goliath matchup between podcasters and you wouldn’t want to Blink or you’d miss a great race. ;) We’ll make it happen soon.
So it will be me, one pacer and a race against the clock for a mile PR. Is sub-5 in the cards? We’ll see. I’ll take any and all tips on how to crack through that mental barrier of turning that 5:00 into a 4:59. Wish me luck and stay tuned for more details on how to watch and some of the other cool races taking place that evening…
Onto this week’s news...
DOPERS GONNA DOPE!
Back in March, Ridouane Harroufi won the USATF 15K road championships. He had already served a two-year ban in 2013 for EPO and there was a good amount of public outcry over his participation in the race.
Kevin Hanson, coach of the Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, said that he would not recognize Harroufi as the winner and would pay his runners Zach Panning (fourth in the original results) and Ben Kendell (6th in the original results) as if they were one spot higher. Roots Running recognized Frank Lara, the original runner-up, as “a National Champion in our minds” while calling out Harroufi’s ban.
So Thursday morning rolled around and USADA announced that Harroufi tested positive for a banned substance in a test taken at the USATF 15K road championships and then in an out-of-competition test in May. He is now banned for 8 years. He’s 39 so there’s probably no coming back from this one.
There were lots of tweets yesterday calling for lifetime bans for drug cheats and those who steal prize money from clean athletes. I reached out to Doug Alred, who organized the Gate River Run 15K and USATF Championship. He informed me that the race withheld prize money for the top 10 male finishers while waiting for drug testing results to come back and “everyone in the top 11 will move up one place so Frank Lara will receive the $10,000 first prize"
Big Names Sign Up For The Marathon Project
Major props to Northern Arizona Elite’s Ben Rosario, BOOM Management's Josh Cox and Big River Race Management's Matt Helbig on organizing this 100-person field for a flat, fast marathon in December. The Marathon Project will be contested on Dec. 20 in Chandler, Arizona. It’s going to be a 4.3-mile loop. The men will be targeting a sub-2:10 race. The women will be looking to go under 2:24. They’ll have the talent to try and pull it off.
The race already has commitments from four of the top 10 men from February’s U.S. Olympic Trials (Augustus Maiyo, Martin Hehir, Colin Bennie and Matt McDonald). Plus, NAZ’s own Scott Fauble and Scott Smith will also be in the mix.
The women’s side also has four of the top 10 Trials finishers with Stephanie Bruce, Emma Bates, Kellyn Taylor and Julia Kohnen. Keira D’Amato, who finished 15th in Atlanta and tore up the virtual racing circuit before winning the MVMT Race Series 10,000m in July, will also give it a go.
The race will not have any spectators and adhere to all COVID protocols set forth by USATF and World Athletics. If you’re interested and meet some of the entry standards, they’re still taking applications!
Elise Cranny Opens Up About Her Experience with RED-S
On a recent episode of the Voice in Sport podcast, Bowerman Track Club’s Elise Cranny spoke about dealing with relative energy deficiency in sport syndrome. She started experiencing some of the signs and symptoms toward the end of her high school career and through her first year and a half of college. When I spoke with Elise on the CITIUS MAG Podcast back in early July, much of the conversation centered on how she’s been able to rebound from injuries over the years and now put together a tremendous breakthrough. She admits on the Voice in Sport podcast that she was eating and training in a way that she thought was sustainable but eventually caught up to her.
In case you might not have the time to give it a listen, I’ve transcribed part of Elise’s account below.
“My freshman year I increased my mileage a lot and the intensity of the work was much greater. I was pretty heavily restricting my eating and was just not getting the nutrients needed to support that training. It was so detrimental to my training and performance but also mental health, happiness and life in general. When your body and your brain aren’t getting what you need, it’s really hard to focus in school. You’re just more irritable. You are just more unhappy in general because your body isn’t fueled properly.
For me, when I was spending all that energy restricting what I was eating, that also gave me way less energy in training and competing. You don’t have that extra edge when the race gets hard because I had spent so much energy internally thinking about what I’m eating and ‘Oh I shouldn’t have this.’ Overthinking that takes away from your training…
I would say the biggest problem with not getting enough energy is that you lose your period. When you don’t have your period and you don’t have the normal estrogen-progesterone hormones that your body needs to function you start to lose bone density too, which makes you more prone to injury. That’s when I realized – when I first got injured my sophomore year – and I had a stress fracture in my back, that’s when I realized something’s going on here. Having a problem with bone density because I can’t handle the impact.”
John Capriotti Retires From Nike
One of the sport’s most powerful figures is stepping away from the Swoosh. Last Friday afternoon, The Oregonian reported that John Capriotti was resigning as the head of Nike’s track and field sports marketing division. The company issued a statement to the newspaper that Capriotti decided to retire and instead “will consult and continue to play an important role in our relationship with athletes.” In addition to Capriotti’s retirement, Craig Masback and Tim Phelan have also left the company. They were considered close “senior lieutenants” to Capriotti.
Nike has seen a bunch of changes in the past year with John Donahoe entering as the new CEO and then layoffs amid the coronavirus pandemic. Like many industries, more restructuring is likely expected to take place and there still could be more to these changes at Nike.
LetsRun.com provides lots of good background on what made Capriotti such a powerful yet controversial figure within the sport including the 2015 incident at the U.S. Outdoor Track and Field Championships where he threatened to kill Brooks Beasts head coach Danny Mackey. Oiselle’s Sally Bergesen tweeted out the Oregonian story and said: “Notable non-mentions from this article is how his reign was defined by exploiting pro women athletes who became pregnant, and abusive contract maneuvers to pro runners of all kinds. May T&F start healing and see better days.”
Quick Hits
– We now have a time set for Joshua Cheptegai’s world record attempt on Oct. 7 in Spain. He will be attempting to break Kenenisa Bekele’s 10,000m record of 26:17.53 at 3:50 p.m. Eastern Time. The race will be streamed on YouTube. Set your reminders now. Plus, there will be some U.S. presence in the race with Olympian Shadrack Kipchirchir set to participate.
– The Womxn Run the Vote relay is more than halfway to its 680-mile virtual journey from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. and has 10,000 participants. Major kudos to Oiselle’s Sarah Lesko, Alison Désir and the whole team for organizing this. They’ve raised more than $260,000 for Black Votes Matter. Christine Yu has the story of how this all came together for Outside.
– Last week, I briefly wrote about how there was a buzz about the cross country season being pushed back. The NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved and scheduled the 2020 NCAA Cross Country National Championships for March 15th.
– Sports Illustrated has traditionally featured “Signs Of The Apocalypse” in its magazine for years and I feel like that’s too real for 2020 but here’s an odd one. The Venice Marathon will be taking place with just two runners. TWO! Cue the Bill Withers…
– Cathal Dennehy has the story of Tommy Hughes who is 60 years old and can run a marathon in 2:27 and 71 for the half at that age. SHEESH!
– Ben Blankenship wrote for SPIKES on what the loss of Minnesota track and field’s program means to him.
THIS WEEK’S PODCASTS
"Here’s my theory: I’m fit enough to unlock lifetime fitness and that hopefully I’m a little bit more rested & maybe that will compensate for the shortened training cycle”
2016 U.S. Olympian Jared Ward returns to the podcast! The last time he was on this show was back in Feb. 2019. After that, he went on to run 2:029:25 at the 2019 Boston Marathon and was considered a strong contender to make a second Olympic team. However, tough conditions in Atlanta and how the race played out, it wasn’t his day and he finished 27th.
In this episode, we’ll learn how he managed to put that performance behind him, found an appreciation for training amid the global pandemic (with the help of Des Linden) and how he’s preparing for the London Marathon on Sunday, Oct. 4 – where he’ll be in the same race as Eliud Kipchoge and Kenenisa Bekele (the two fastest marathoners of all-time). He had a shortened buildup to work with so he shares some insight into his training and theory of how he’ll find a way to make it work.
As a result of his #DontGetLapped joke, Olympic Trials runner-up Molly Seidel, who will also be racing in London, said that we should make #DontGetLapped shirts. So we did! We’ve put these shirts up for sale for a limited time so go and get one!
Listen to this episode now on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher
Support for this episode and this newsletter comes from Bakline Running. We're excited to partner with this Brooklyn-based company that's making active lifestyle and streetwear-inspired apparel. I'm racing a mile in their performance singlet soon but their hits are their shirts, graphic tees and designs with inspiring mantras like "Me vs Me"; "Nothing But Miles"; "The Future Is Female Runners" and more. Check them out at https://www.bakline.nyc/ and use code CITIUS for 15% off at checkout.
Read the full show notes and quotes from this episode here…
Other shows: Scott Fauble had me on as a guest on his Showrunners podcast to discuss the 2015 classic “Spotlight” – which is one of my favorite films of all-time. The conversation has a little bit of reporting insights that Fauble picked my brain about from my experiences. ..Dana Giordano and I are currently planning out and scheduling interviews for her second season of More Than Running. Feel free to send along any suggestions! We’re super excited for some of the guests that have agreed so far.
That’s all I’ve got for this week. If you learned something new, enjoyed it or have any thoughts to share with me, feel free to reply to this email. I always love hearing from you all. One week to go until this race! GET HYPE.
Cheers,
Chris Chavez