Mary Keitany Shatters World Half-Marathon Record Keitany and men’s winner Deriba Merga both went out with scorching speed at the RAK Half-Marathon in the United Arab Emirates on Friday. Keitany, a Kenyan, is a World Half-Marathon champion and the world record holder at 25K 
(1:19:53). By 10K , which she passed in 30:45, she already had a 71-second lead on the field. Her 13.1-mile finishing time of 1:05:50 shattered Lornah Kiplagat’s world record by 35 seconds (Paula Radcliffe has run 1:05:40, but that was on a net downhill course and does not count for record purposes). Keitany’s 20K split of 1:02:36 is also likely to be recognized as a new world record. Keitany earned $25,000 for first place and a $50,000 bonus for her record, and is entered in the Virgin London Marathon on April 17, her second marathon after finishing third at the New York City Marathon in November. RAK men’s winner Deriba Merga of Ethiopia blasted through the first 10K in 27:30. He did slow down, but he still reached the finish in 59:25, with runner-up Bernard Kipyego 20 seconds back. Highly regarded Patrick Makau was well back in 12th place. (photo of Mary Keitany by Victah Sailer) More
Can Abubaker Kaki Break World Indoor 1000-Meter Record? He’s as erratic as he is abundantly talented, but you’d have to think the answer is “yes.” The young Sudanese star was the 2010 World Indoor 
800-meter champion. He’s run 2:13.62 for the 1000 outdoors so on Saturday in Birmingham, England’s National Arena, Kaki’s chances of smashing the world indoor 1000 best of 2:14.96 – which Wilson Kipketer set in the very same arena in 2000 – would have be considered good. It’s been an eventful winter for Kaki and not in the “usual” way. He was training in Cairo when political turmoil broke out in Egypt and was esssentially trapped inside a sport center for several days. Kenyans Richard Kiplagat and Boaz Lalang will also be in Saturday’s 1000-meter run. This Aviva Grand Prix in Birmingham also has a 1500 with American Russell Brown, Ethiopia’s World Indoor champion Deressa Mekonnen, Britain’s Andy Baddeley, and Kenyans Augustine Choge, Brimin Kipruto and Bethwell Birgen. (photo of Abubaker Kaki by Takeshi Ito/Photo Run) More
Can Jo Pavey Be Britain’s 3rd Straight NYC Half-Marathon Champ? Paula Radcliffe was victorious in the 13.1-miler in Manhattan in 2009 and Mara Yamauchi triumphed in 2010. Now Pavey, a three-time Olympian, will look to keep the British skein going on March 20. Pavey has British 
indoor records for 3000 meters (8:31.50) and two miles (9:32.00) and is her nation’s second-fastest outdoor 5000-meter runner (14:39.96) after Radcliffe. “I’m returning from a four-month period of injury and illness, so now that training has gone well, I’m really keen to get out and race again. It’s a great lineup and will provide me with a fantastic opportunity to be in a really competitive race,” states Pavey, who’ll use the NYC Half as a tune-up for her marathon debut at London in April. The NYC Half-Marathon, which has a $100,000 prize purse (the largest for any United States half-marathon), has previously announced a strong lineup of USA competitors: Kara Goucher, Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi, Abdi Abdirahman, Patrick Smyth, and Serena Burla. More than 9,000 runners will run a loop through Central Park, and head down Seventh Avenue through Times Square, across 42nd Street, and along the expansive West Side Highway to Battery Park in the heart of the city’s financial district, finishing with a view of the Statue of Liberty. (photo of Jo Pavey by Jiro Mochizuki/Photo Run)
For Chris Solinsky, It’ll Be the 5000 Now and the 10,000 in 2012 “There was a lot of fear going through my head before this mile,” said of his 
3:54.42 victory in Seattle last weekend. It was his first race since September and “it was intimidating because I hold myself obviously to a pretty high standard.” That’s an attitude that helped him become the American 10,000-meter record-holder with a 26:59.60. Up next for Solinsky is a 5000 in Melbourne, Australia, on March 3, where his goal is get a World Championships qualifying standard of 13:20. Solinsky will likely get in a 10,000 this spring “just to get the ‘A’ standard for the Olympics.” But beyond that, he says “I’m looking more at the 5000 this year, because I don’t think I could survive a 10,000 in Daegu,” the South Korean site of the World Championships where the weather could be sweltering. “I know the 10 (the 10,000) is where my strength is and the climate in England will be better for us in the 10,000″ at the 2012 London Olympics, Solinsky theorizes. “Ultimately, everything I do is preparation for the 10,000 in London.” (photo of Chris Solinsky by Jiro Mochizuki/Photo Run) More
Everyone’s Happy Lisa Koll Came to Portland, Oregon “Everybody” in this case mainly means Olympic 10,000-meter bronze medalist Shalane Flanagan, Koll’s training partner, and Coach Jerry Schumacher, along with transplanted Iowan Koll herself. “Tough little snot,” was Flanagan’s assessment of Koll before they’d even met. “You could just tell she is really tenacious, just a fierce competitor, driven.” Koll, who came in third as Flanagan won at the USA Cross Country Championships on February 5, believes “Shalane is running royalty. To know she wanted me as a training partner, I was very humbled and very excited. What better person to learn from?” For Flanagan, who came in second in the ING New York City Marathon in November, having Koll around paid off instantly. “She was huge in the fact that she is a very strong runner, very strength-oriented,” Flanagan explains. “She came in and adapted to Jerry’s program quicker than I did, and immediately made an impact in my training for New York. I mean, she stepped right in and helped me with all of those sessions. It just made the journey and process leading up to the marathon so much more enjoyable.” More
Tulu, Ozaki, and Masresha Headline Yokohama Women’s Marathon Ethiopia’s Derartu Tulu, of course, is a two-time Olympic 10,000-meter 
gold medalist who won the 2009 ING New York City Marathon and was second in the 2010 Nagoya Women’s Marathon. On Sunday in Yokohama, she’ll be challenged by Japan’s Yoshimi Ozaki, a 2009 World Championships silver medalist who has the same 2:23:30 career best time as Tulu. They’ll both have to be wary of Azalech Masresha, an Ethiopian who’s just 22 and set personal bests of 2:25:34 for the marathon and 1:09:46 for the half marathon in 2010. (photo of Derartu Tulu by Andrew McClanahan/Photo Run) More
Kathy Newberry and Robert Cheseret Lead NACAC Teams “NACAC” stands for North America, Central America and Caribbean, and the NACAC Cross Country Championships are Saturday at at Queen’s Park Savannah in Trinidad. The American women’s squad includes Kathy Newberry, who has competed in the World Cross Country Championships five times, Kim Conley, Megan Duwell, Allison Kieffer, and Kara June. The U.S. men are Robert Cheseret (Bernard Lagat’s brother and a former USA 5K road champ), Colin Leak, Jeremy Johnson, Jacques Sallberg, and Craig Curley. More
Amy Deem And Andrew Valmon Are U.S. Olympic Head Coaches University of Miami women’s head coach Amy Deem will also lead the women’s coaching staff at the 2012 London Olympics, with Tonja Buford Bailey, Rose Monday, Gwen Wentland and Connie Price-Smith as her assistants. Andrew Valmon, the University of Maryland’s head coach, will coach the men’s squad, assisted by Mike Holloway, Jack Hazen, Edrick Floreal, and Tom Pukstys. Valmon, as an athlete, was on U.S. 4×400-meter gold medal relays in 1988 and 1992. He’s married to former 800-meter Olympian Meredith Rainey Valmon. More
Canada Forms a National Track League This is the type of venture you wish well. The NTL will have stops in Edmonton (the first meet, on June 29), Vancouver, Victoria, Halifax, and 
Toronto (the series finale on July 13). This will be a point-based series with over $300,000 in prize money. “Now that I’ve been on the international tour for a couple of years it’s great to see changes on the horizon for the next generation of athletes in the system,” affirms Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, the #1-ranked 100-meter hurdler in the world in 2010. “Canadian athletes will benefit immensely from high-level competition in their own backyard, personally I’m excited to get more opportunities to compete and succeed on home soil!” (photo of Priscilla Lopes-Schliep by Giancarlo Colombo/Photo Run) More
NYRR’s ‘A Running Start’ Earns Outstanding Achievement Award “A Running Start: The Video Resource for Coaching Youth Runners” won a 2011 Interactive Media “Outstanding Achievement” Award in recognition of its excellence in design and development. The video resource received almost perfect judges scores for design, content, usability, and feature functionality. Launched in September 2010, “A Running Start” is a free online collection of 83 coaching videos developed by New York Road Runners (NYRR) to help coaches and P.E. teachers teach the fundamentals of running. Created in collaboration with a team of expert youth coaches and exercise physiologists, it blends real-world activity demonstrations with helpful guidelines and expert advice on topics like pacing and proper form. “A Running Start” is “an excellent and exciting resource for anyone interested in spreading the joy, fun, and benefits of running to youngsters of all ages,” says marathon world record-holder Paula Radcliffe. “NYRR has shown fun and exciting ways for youngsters to discover and explore the joys of running and develop their potential in interesting and entertaining ways.” To watch these award-winning videos, visit www.nyrr.org/arunningstart.
I Won’t Have Leonard Chuene to Kick Around Anymore Chuene had already been suspended, since 2009, from his position as President of Athletics South Africa. Now the South African Olympic Committee has fired Chuene and barred him from, as a report says, “holding any top sports positions for seven years.” I guess we’ll see just what’s covered by that characterization of “top.” A committee investigation found Chuene guilty of misappropriating funds, evading taxes, and in effect being a poor administrator. Chuene also cleared Caster Semenya for competition as a woman in the 2009 World Championships despite medical advice not to do so. Regular readers of this section know just how deeply I’m going to miss this spoilsport. Ah, he’ll surely show up somehow somewhere. More
Caster Semenya Returns to Racing in South Africa on Saturday The 2009 World Champion 800-meter runner hasn’t had an official race in her home country since she won that global gold in Germany. Now recovered from a back problem, she’ll be in an 800 in Potchefstroom on Saturday. Coach Michael Seme says “Caster is looking forward to going to her second successive World Championships, which will also form part of her preparations for the 2012 London Olympics.” Mapaseka Makhanya, another up-and-coming young South African, should be Semenya’s chief opposition on Saturday. More
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