Last time, I introduced you to arguably the two best American runners in Galen Rupp and Bernard Lagat! This week...
- I'll be shedding light on the current world 5,000m champion, who is also Rupp's training partner, UK's Mo Farah.
- Of course, I'll keep you up to date on the all of the Canadian Content in the week that just passed.
- Including a video trailer of a documentary following Reid Coolsaet's journey to the Olympics
- Plus, I'll let you know what elites are running the upcoming Boston Marathon & New York City Half Marathon in preparation for the summer Olympics in London.
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The running 'Mecca' of the United States is located in Eugene, Oregon. That's where prolific names like Bill Bowerman, Pre, Kenny Moore, Bill Dellinger, & Galen Rupp made a name for themselves. Currently, the professional runners who train in Eugene run for the Oregon Track Club (OTC) - with the premier athletes coached by the legendary Alberto Salazar (all sponsored by Nike).
Alberto today. The Golden Boy back in the '80s.
Galen Rupp has been training under Salazar for the last ten years and in 2011 he gained a significant training advantage when the UK's top distance runner Mo Farah decided to move to Oregon to train.
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| Farah doing what he does best...screaming at camermen. |
Now just who is Mo Farah you ask? Well with great pleasure I'll introduce you to the 2011 5,000m World Champion. (Not a bad title to have eh?)
The 28-year old Somalia-native moved to England at age 8 not speaking a word of English. At age 13, he entered his first high school XC race, finishing 9th and then won the next 5 years in a row... obviously!
With such a positive start to his running career, he continued his domination through College and eventually turning pro. In 2005, the extraordinarily hardworking Farah moved in with a bunch of other pro runners including many Africans. On this, Farah said: "They sleep, eat, train and rest, that's all they do but as an athlete you have to do all those things... If I ever want to be as good as these athletes I've got to work harder. I don't just want to be British number one, I want to be up there with the best." That pretty much sums up how and why he is the current world #1.
He, like Rupp, is so incredibly impressive because of his range of his running ability. Last week, I told you that Rupp ran 60:30 in his half-marathon debut at last year NYC Half Marathon. What I didn't tell you was that Rupp finished 3rd in that race, Farah won in his own debut in 60:23 (4:36/mile or 2:52/km).
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| Rupp and Farah in the 2011 NYC Half Marathon |
Since last March he has been utterly demolishing competition*, check out these stats:
- European XC & 3,000m champion
- Broke European indoor 5,000m record in a time of 13:10 (4:14/mile or 2:38/km)
- Broke European 10,000m record in a time of 26:46.5 (4:19/mile or 2:41/km)
- Broke British National 5,000m record with a time of 12:53 (4:08/mile or 2:34/km)
- World 5,000m Champion (beating Bernard Lagat)
Farah is well on his way to an Olympic Medal in the 5,000m in his home country! He has his work cut out for him to get gold, but he is a strong favorite and certainly has my vote!
Below is the video of Farah's 2011 World Championship victory! Fast forward to 6:00 to see the last lap! You can literally seem him change gears at least 3 times. Also note how in control he is when he is looking around at the start of the last lap!
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