Last week, we had some editing issues when it came to Workout Wednesday. Ryan Fenton was tasked with editing the rise of Eric Jenkins, but we came across some unforeseen issues. This week, we gave the burden of cutting up the footage to Alex Lohr. Simple, right?

Not so much. The same day his plane from Des Moines, IA landed, he napped, did a wash, packed, and left to film another Workout Wednesday with another big high school superstar. For those that don’t know, it’s kind of tough to edit a few hours of raw footage on a two hour flight.

In case we had to rebrand it as Workout Thursday again, we started to draft a weekend recap. Between Drake Relays, Penn Relays, and Payton Jordan, there was a lot to digest. At the eleventh hour (if we want to be specific, really early this morning), Lohr touched down, uploaded this mind-blowing workout, and we set our recap aside.

After watching Bernie “The Beast” Montoya run so fast the Gator couldn’t even keep up, we decided to go ahead with our recap. It’s Wednesday, which is an odd day for a recap, but last week was far from normal. Seven days ago, we were watching the U.S. 1 Mile Road Championship, which kicked off nearly an entire week of elite competition.

It’s easy for some big stuff to go overlooked in this abnormally large pond. We’ll do our best to catch everything.

The Wetmore Factor and Jenny Simpson

It’s one of the most overused cliches in running, but she’s back. Jenny Simpson hasn’t stepped on the track since September, but her return was one filled with awe and fireworks (literally).

In the Drake Relays 1500m, Simpson lead from the gun and never looked back. Even at the bell (3:00.31), it looked as if the race would be close, but we ate our hat 300m later. It was all Jenny, all the time.

But the intriguing part wasn’t the splits. Back when the Colorado star was storming onto the world scene, she had a special aura around her. Each time Simpson went up against the world’s best, she was obviously the most inexperienced, but she was never outclassed.



The first thing Fenton said when I asked him about Drake Relays was that Simpson had regained her “unspoken confidence.” He explained that he always felt that she went into races already knowing the outcome (ie: win). Sometimes when a college runner is a pro race, he or she sets goals. Simpson set goals, but she was never worried about hitting them. There was an invincibility about her.

Over those last 400m, we once again saw that confidence.

Could the return to form be because of her coaching switch from Juli Benson back to Mark Wetmore? Maybe. When she won gold at the ’11 World Championships under Benson, Fenton still sensed an unwavering confidence. Maybe it’s that things are finally starting to click again.

A few quick takeaways.

1) This is Simpson’s fastest race since 2010 when she ran 4:03.63 at the adidas Grand Prix in New York.

2) That’s the kind of closing speed we’re used to seeing out of her.

Jenny Simpson's Last Laps

Race	1100m	1500m	Last Lap
2011 World Championships	3:04.47 (for the leaders)	4:05.42	~ 61.30
2013 Drake Relays	3:00.31	4:03.35	63.04

Speaking of closing fast...

Where’ve You Been Treniere Moser?!

If you thought Simpsons’ three-year hiatus was long, then what do you know about Treniere Moser?

In the 1500m at Payton Jordan, Moser showed closing speed that we hadn’t seen in a long time. More specifically, since ’07. It may be long forgotten, but Moser was the U.S. 1500m champion from ’05 to ’07.

When she won her last U.S. title, she ran a season’s best of 4:05.68 in Rieti. Since then, she hasn’t really come close until Sunday night.

via tilastopaja.org

2004 - 4:11.11
2005 - 4:05.77
2006 - 4:03.32
2007 - 4:05.68
2008 - 4:11.87
2009 - 4:07.91
2010 - 4:07.49
2011 - 4:07.57
2012 - 4:09.34
2013 - 4:06.40

Moser’s definitive win over over a solid Payton Jordan field wasn’t just a breakthrough race, but puts her back in the conversation for making the Moscow team this summer as it takes some serious wheels to make the 1500m team.

Moser’s time of 4:06.40 is impressive, but like Simpson, it’s the way she closed that’s important.

At the bell, Moser was at 3:05.56. A a 60.84 last lap is no joke, especially considering some recent championship races. One that came to mind was the 2012 Olympic Trials 1500m, where Morgan Uceny closed in 60.29 to win. Uceny’s winning time was faster in 4:04.59, but there’s plenty of time between now and June. This is not to say Moser is a lock, but she’s in the conversation more so than in year’s past.

As an aside and because it was a related video on YouTube, the last lap for the Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin (possibly under investigation for doping) en route to her London Olympics gold medal time of 4:10.23 was 58.13.

So what’s been the predominant factor in Moser’s return? Hear her answer from 0:28 - 0:57.


You can almost see the switch in her mind flip.

If you wanted more women’s 1500m madness, well guess what we have in store for you!

Elise Cranny has Gone from Good, to Great, to What?

The time’s are changing. In the second section of the 1500m at Payton Jordan, high school junior Elise Cranny went from seventh to third over the final 400-meters to run 4:15.07.

That’s #3 all-time only behind fellow junior Mary Cain (4:10.77) and Jordan Hasay (4:14.50). Number three. All-time.

That’s some pretty good company for a girl whose mile personal best before New Balance Indoor Nationals was 4:58.

Since her 18-second PR and win at nationals (4:40.62, which is #5 all-time indoors), she’s run a few 800/1500m doubles at some local meets and one easy 3200m, so we were wondering when she was going to do something big.

Sunday night was the night. But this sort of progression doesn’t happen for any reason. What’s one of the keys to her success? Just like Moser, you can say it’s been the coaching.

He's too humble to claim credit himself, so congratulations to @jasonrhartmann for coaching Elise Cranny to #3 on the all-time HS 1500 list.

— Dan Lilot (@Lilot1TrackMind) April 29, 2013

We told you Dan Lilot was informative. Seriously, follow him on Twitter.

When we spoke to Hartmann before the Boston Marathon, he said that he hopes to get into coaching once he stops competing professionally (which we hope isn’t anytime soon). Still, he already has a strong resume with just one runner.

If you’re wondering how the partnership has been for both Hartmann and Cranny, Peter Gambaccini of Runner’s World put together a great piece with some good details.

Jason Hartmann: Top Marathoner, Good Coach

Emily Lipari is Strong Island

There’s going to be some New York bias in this one. Back in high school, I had the pleasure of watching Emily Lipari kick girls down almost every week at the Armory. After a while, I just assumed that if she was there with 200m to go, everyone else was in trouble.

So when when Michigan’s Amanda Eccleston pulled away and eventually held off Lipari in the NCAA Indoor DMR, it seemed that she had lost her killer instinct.

Penn reminded us that she’s still got it.

Thursday night, Lipari anchored the Villanova DMR to an easy win in 10:58.84 (Kentucky took second in 11:04.45). But it’s the encore that reaffirmed our previous belief.

The Championship of America 4x800m two days later wouldn’t be as easy to win as the DMR. With a team of two juniors and two freshmen, Nova went up against Oregon and LSU in the race for another giant Penn Relays wheel.

Strong legs from freshman Kelsey Margey (2:07.04; also from NY and yes, she’ll be a huge talent), freshman Angel Piccirillo (2:04.12), and junior Nicky Akande (2:04.04) put Villanova out in front, but Oregon was closing.

With Laura Roesler on the anchor the Ducks, it would be hard to argue that they fastest woman in the U.S. wouldn’t bring it home in her signature event. If her U.S. leading time from Mt. SAC (2:01.75) and U.S. Championship experience didn’t strike doubt among the Nova faithful, Lipari’s open 800m PR before she grabbed the baton was 2:06.77 (set a week earlier).

Roesler passed Lipari on the backstretch, but the Wildcat wasn’t about to acquiesce. Lipari found another gear on the final turn and then dug deep to find one more as she walked down Roesler right before the line.



Last year, Lipari ran the leadoff leg for Villanova’s Championship of America DMR. This year, she anchored both winning squads.

Note: We almost forgot that Akande, Piccirillo, and Lipari ran the 4x1500m Friday night as well. Lipari anchored again and had the fastest split among of anchor legs (4:17.5). Michigan won in 17:15.47 with a similar team when they won the Indoor DMR (swap out Shannon Osika for the 400m leg Maya Long).

If the Championship of American 4x800m would have been before the USA vs. The World 4x800m, Nova would have had the American record albeit for only a short time. Even in a rarely contested event, it’s still something cool that they could have put on their resume.

Big Drops in Personal Bests for Jamie Cheever and Eric Jenkins

Two personal bests were not just shattered, but obliterated, Sunday night at Payton Jordan.

In the women’s steeple, Jamie Cheever shaved over 20-seconds off her PR with her second place finish in 9:29.13. Cheever’s previous best was 9:51.42, which was set last year the Olympic Trials. Below is her seasonal best from the last six years.

2007 - 10:21.57
2008 - 10:11.33
2009 - 10:22.40
2011 - 10:02.18
2012 - 9:51.42
2013 - 9:29.13

Jenkins’ drop was less of a surprise, but still a giant leap nonetheless. Prior to Payton Jordan, Jenkins had run 14:04.56i last year up in Boston.

We didn’t need to be convinced he was ready for something big after his disqualification at NCAA Indoors, but after we saw his 5k prep workout before the Boston Marathon, we knew he had a good chance to break 13:20 (he ran 13:18.42).

Jenkins is now the tenth fastest collegians and fourth fastest American of all-time. He would be the fourth fastest except...

Diego Estrada is Slowly Becoming Elite

Four places and three seconds in front of Jenkins at Payton Jordan was NAU’s Diego Estrada. We also knew Estrada was ready for something big, thanks a user submitted workout from his teammate Matt McElroy.

Estrada’s 13:15.33 makes his the fourth fastest collegian of all-time. Estrada would have been the top American collegiate at 5000m if not for a series of unfortunate events filled with incorrect information last summer.

via Track and Field News

Rank	Time	Name	School	Date
1	13:08.28i	Lawi Lalang	Arizona	2/11/12
2	13:08.4	Henry Rono	Washington State	4/08/78
3	13:13.74	Stephen Sambu	Arizona	2/11/02
4	13:15.33	Diego Estrada	NAU	4/28/13
5	13:15.77	Bill McChesney	Oregon	5/16/81
6	13:16.98	Alistair Cragg	Arkansas	4/30/04
7	13:18.12i	Galen Rupp	Oregon	2/13/09
8	13:18:46	Brent Vaughn	Colorado	5/04/08
9	13:18.46	Cam Levins	SUU	4/20/12
10	13:18.58	Eric Jenkins	Northeastern	4/28/13

Estrada is U.S. citizen, but competes for Mexico internationally. I’m fairly certain that you cannot be a dual citizen and compete for the U.S. and if I’m wrong, please leave a comment below.

I don’t want to go back into the whole story regarding Estrada’s citizenship, but if you missed it and are interested, we have a video with Estrada (with some external links) and LetsRun has an followup piece on the topic.

- Flotrack Interview with Diego Estrada
- LetsRun article by Weldon Johnson

That’s back when both websites “gave credit where credit is due.” In terms of the Chris Solinsky interview from Payton Jordan, we reached out to LetsRun and unfortunately received no response. So it goes.

However, while we were browsing the message boards, we came across something pretty interesting comparing Estrada and Galen Rupp.

Event	Galen Rupp	Diego Estrada
1500m	3:39.14	3:41.8
Mile	3:57.86	3:55.46
3000m	7:44.69	7:44.29
5000m	13:18.12	13:15.33
10000m	27:33.48	27:32.90

User “adsfdf” compares the final collegiate marks for Rupp and Estrada’s current times. The similarities continue beyond their running resumes; both were Olympians one year prior to their fifth year (Rupp redshirted when he made the Olympic team in ’08 and Estrada was a senior in ’12).

Oddly enough, Rupp and Estrada also never won any NCAA Outdoor titles before their last season as collegiate athletes.

If you think that Estrada can’t win the 10k this year, remember that Kennedy Kithuka hasn’t run all spring. We were told that the NCAA XC champion was going to redshirt this season and it seems as if that’s true.

Odd and Ends

Jordan Hasay is The Little Mermaid

This is so beautiful, we should have brought a poet. Thanks to Ryan Bickerstaff for recording the important part of the women’s 10k, which was Alex Pappas cheering on her former Oregon teammate Jordan Hasay.



Pappas claims Hasay is both a princess and a mermaid. That doesn’t make sense Alexi, which one is it?

Wait.


Never mind.

The Best Race of the Weekend

There’s always that race. Congrats to Loren Pilorin who won the men’s 100m dash at the Payton Jordan Invitational. As Kevin Sully of the new blog, The Daily Relay, puts it, “we know that most people come to Stanford for the sprints.”

 
British Olympian, Lawrence Okoye, is a 49er

The Daily Relay (along with LetsRun) also linked some articles about Lawrence Okoye signing with the San Francisco 49ers. We’ve recently seen some track and field athletes make the switch to football, but how would a discus thrower fare in the NFL?

Historically, pretty well. Back in December ’11, Super Track Fan and now Daily Relay contributor Jesse Squire compiled a huge list NFL athletes that had competed in track. His lengthy list includes three discus throwers, which includes two running backs, two multi-Pro Bowlers, and one guy with the same last night as Lawrence. Whoa.

64.72 - Christian Okoye (RB, Azusa Pacific - Kansas City Chiefs, 2 Pro Bowls) 
63.22 - Brian Milne (RB, Penn State - Cin/Seattle/NO, 63 g) 
61.96 - Michael Carter (DT, SMU - San Francisco 49ers, 3 Pro Bowls) 

If you’re a big NFL fan, you might remember Christian Okoye better as “The Nigerian Nightmare.”

It remains to be seen how Lawrence will do in the NFL. The other discus thrower that played a similar-ish position was Mike Carter (Lawrence will play Defensive End while Carter was a Defensive Tackle. One’s an outside position so they’re not exactly the same, but more similar than a DE and RB).

Size is also currently in Okoye’s favor. Carter was “only” 6’2” and 280 LBS when we played, Okoye is listed at 6’6” and 300 LBS, and if it’s any frame of reference, the New York Giant’s Justin Tuck is listed at 6’5” and 268 LBS. He has a lot to learn, though.

The Best Race of the Weekend

The women’s USA vs. The World 4x400m lived up to its expectations. In my personal pick as the most exciting race of the weekend, Team USA (3:22.66) held off a late charge from Great Britain (3:22.68) to take the win.

But our question was, “Who had the fastest split of the day?” It wasn’t a professional, it was Arkansas’ Regina George.

Looking through #pennrelay splits... did anyone see @divaonthetrack split 49.5 in the 4x4?

— Flotrack (@Flotrack) April 27, 2013

Twins Zane and Jake Robertson are Identical... at Payton Jordan

Here’s some more Twilight Zone-esque stuff from Sunday. The two Kiwis who train in Kenya, Zane and Jake Robertson, both made the trip to Palo Alto, CA to compete at Payton Jordan. Zane competed first in the men’s 5000m (13:21.15) while Jake took to the track later that night to run the 10k (27:45.46).

The weird part? When we tried to figure out which was the better twin, the McMillian Running Calculator listed their races as equivalent performances.

If you’re wondering how they’re doing in Kenya, well, not great. The twins have an indiegogo fund that’s raising money for their living expenses as they remain unsponsored. Here’s the video produced by Michael Del Monte and the link if you want to donate to their cause (there’s only four days left at the time this article was published).

Sponsor Jake and Zane Robertson here!

Things We Got Right and Things We Got Wrong

I’ve made a few sports bets here and there. Track and Field is proving to be one of the most stubborn sports to break even.

This weekend, we were about 50/50 in terms of our predictions. However, just because we were wrong a bunch this weekend doesn’t mean that you, the community, isn’t informed.

In our “What Will Alan Webb Run” poll for the Payton Jordan 5000m, the majority vote was that he’d run between 13:31 and 13:40 in his season debut. Webb ran 13:37, so kudos to you guys. Maybe we should “Ask the Audience” more often.


Nice work.