Fast Women: The TEN is an important stop for Olympic distance hopefuls

Tsigie Gebreselama wins the 10,000m race in a record-setting 29:48.34.

Issue 283

Tsigie Gebreselama runs the TEN. (Photo by Gregorio Denny)

Tsigie Gebreselama vs. Alicia Monson turns into a solo run

With 33 runners circling the track in the featured 10,000m race at the TEN in San Juan Capistrano, California, on Saturday night, storylines were plentiful. Up front, it looked like it would be a battle between a pair of On-sponsored athletes: Ethiopia’s Tsigie Gebreselama and Alicia Monson. 

Early on, they followed pacers Nikki Hiltz and Taylor Werner through two miles in 9:36. At that point, Hiltz appeared to exit the race, but then they hopped back in to briefly help one of the chase packs, before dropping out for good, as planned. It looked like Werner would then take over for a stretch, but the pace was too hot, and she dropped out less than 100m later.

It’s not easy to find pacers for such an ambitious time. The pace lights, which Gebreselama and Monson followed early on, were set to 29:37.50 pace. They were programmed for 72 seconds per lap through 3,000m, 71 seconds per lap from 3,000m to 8,000m, and 70 seconds per lap the rest of the way. If she had input regarding the pacing, Monson wasn’t just hoping to break her American record of 30:03.82, she was looking to destroy it.

When Werner dropped out, just as the pace lights were picking up, Gebreselama jumped to the front, while Monson fought to hang on. Just before 4,000m, Monson began to drop back and progressively slowed from there. The chase group caught her, she split 79 seconds for her last 400m (compared to her earlier 71s and 72s), and she dropped out around 6800m. Monson did not do any post-race interviews, but she said on Instagram that she ran into stomach problems and spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. “Not a good time to come down with a stomach bug,” she wrote. “But I guess life happens.”

For the final 6K, Gebreselama was on her own, with only lapped runners and pace lights to chase. She did an admirable job of keeping a steady pace throughout. And her final time, 29:48.34, a personal best by 16 seconds, moves her to ninth on the world all-time list. It’s also the fastest time ever run in the U.S. She’s now the third-fastest Ethiopian woman who currently races on the track (behind Letesenbet Gidey and Gudaf Tsegay). But making her country’s Olympic team is still going to be tough.

Weini Kelati (Photo by Gregorio Denny)

Weini Kelati is the best of the rest

Gebreselama won the race by 45 seconds and lapped everyone except the three runners who finished second through fourth, so this felt like at least three different races. The race for second was a good one; unfortunately the broadcast didn’t show a lot of it. Weini Kelati was racing for the first time since breaking the American half marathon record in January and winning the USATF Cross Country Championships six days later. 

She stayed with the chase pack for about 2,000m, before dropping a 71-second lap and setting off on her own, chasing the pace lights set to the Olympic standard of 30:40, and even pulling ahead of them a bit. Kelati was on her own for a good chunk of the race, but not long after she made her move, Great Britain’s Megan Keith, who is only 21 years old, and Australia’s Lauren Ryan broke from the pack and started chasing the lights, as well as Kelati.

Keith caught and passed Kelati around 7600m in, and Kelati stuck with her until 800m to go. But Kelati had a stronger close and she took second in 30:33.82, a 30-second PR. Ryan closed well, passed Keith, and finished third in an Australian record of 30:35.66. And Keith took fifth, running 30:36.84 in her debut at the distance, which moves her to fourth on the UK all-time list.

All three women dipped under the Olympic standard, which will likely mean different things for each of them. Monson already had the Olympic standard from last year, but Kelati is only the second American woman to get it. That doesn’t mean she’s a lock for an Olympic spot, it just increases her chances. Elise Cranny and Karissa Schweizer have both run well under the standard, they just haven’t since the qualifying window opened at the beginning of 2023. Other women are capable of getting there, and others might sneak in with their world ranking. This story is just getting started.

Ryan, on the other hand, secured her Olympic spot. She won the Australian Trials in December, and getting the time assures her a place on the starting line in Paris. This is a huge moment for the 26-year-old Florida State alum and her Baltimore Distance coach, Lara Rogers. Ryan had a great indoor season, running PRs of 14:57.67 for 5,000m and 8:42.31 for 3,000m, but this is another step up for her. She PRed by a whopping 94 seconds, and the record she broke belonged to Benita Willis and was more than 20 years old. Next up, she’ll run the Australian 5,000m Trials in April.

Like Kelati, getting the standard doesn’t guarantee Keith Olympic selection, but it increases her chances. Eilish McColgan is the only other runner from Great Britain who has the standard at the moment. And while the season is young, there are only so many opportunities to run fast 10,000m races. 

There are a number of college-aged athletes throughout the world who, if they were competing in the NCAA, would be considered superstars, and Keith is one of them. Her time was 41 seconds faster than Lisa Koll’s collegiate 10,000m record, from 2010.

Keira D’Amato (left) and Karissa Schweizer (Photo by Gregorio Denny)

Other Highlights

• Rachel Smith has been impressive in her postpartum return, and Saturday’s race was no exception. She finished fifth in 31:04.02, taking five seconds off the PR she set in 2020. And by running faster than 31:30, she secured herself a spot on the starting line at the Olympic Trials. 

• Karissa Schweizer’s 31:04.80 wasn’t a PR, but it was a really strong performance in her first race back after having Haglund’s surgery last fall. Having only one data point, I’m not sure what her improvement trajectory has been like. But now that she’s healthy, it would not be a surprise to see her come on really strong later this season.

• Keira D’Amato—what a pivot! Six weeks after competing at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, she finished seventh in 31:05.31, a 45-second PR. Running this race wasn’t previously on D’Amato’s radar; she fully expected to be running the marathon in Paris this summer. But she still dreams of being an Olympian, and the 10,000m is her next best shot. I wasn’t sure how this one would go, because the last time D’Amato raced on the track, in 2022, she wasn’t a fan. But her run earned her a spot at the Trials and a huge PR, despite the fact that she “had a little thing pop up last week” (which I always assume means a small injury scare) and she was sick leading up to the race. “My main goal was to not hate this,” she told Citius Mag. Mission accomplished.

• Elly Henes finished eighth in 31:07.23 and though she has run faster, it was a great step in the right direction after she had to take three months off due to a spontaneous pneumothorax and the resulting lung surgery. She’s another one who is almost certainly going to improve, given more time.

• In her first year with HOKA NAZ Elite, Kenya’a Mercy Chelangat has made good progress. She finished ninth in 31:15.39, 40 seconds faster than she ran as a senior at the University of Alabama last year.

• It was déjà vu for Emily Lipari who, after kicking a lap early at this race in 2022, did it again this year. The confusion was somewhat understandable, because Gebreselama lapped Lipari’s pack just before Lipari had two laps to go, but the lap counter would have indicated one lap to go. Maybe she didn’t see Gebreselama go by, or she just wasn’t thinking straight. Either way, she ran her penultimate lap in 70.77 seconds, and then her final lap in 84.23 seconds. She definitely lost some time, but she still managed to finish 10th in a PR of 31:19.72, and she secured her spot at the Trials. I was interested to learn via the broadcast that Alan Culpepper is now coaching Lipari.

• Erika Kemp, who also ran the Marathon Trials, finished 13th in 31:28.69 and earned a spot at the Track Trials. Sara Hall, also recovering from the Trials, took 14th in 31:32.52. She just missed out on the auto qualifying time, but her time will almost certainly be good enough to get her into the Trials. Hall has made it clear that she’s not going for masters records, but she took 92 seconds off of Jen Rhines’ American masters record from 2015. Florencia Borelli, who finished 15th in 31:33:07, took a minute off the Argentinian record. First-year pro Amanda Vestri of ZAP Endurance won the other heat of the 10,000m in 31:54.22, a 14-second personal best.

• Nikki Hiltz said they made a last-minute decision to pace the TEN because it snowed in Flagstaff, and Southern California seemed like a nicer place to work out. They said until now, they had just done easy runs since winning a silver medal in the 1500m at the World Indoor Championships. 

• The 1500m offered high school junior Sadie Engelhardt an opportunity to race the pros. But instead of hanging back and letting herself be dragged to a fast time, she did a lot of the leading, wanting to make sure the pace stayed honest. Lauren Gregory, who was making her pro debut after returning from injury, went by Engelhardt on the last lap, but Engelhardt passed her back and won, 4:09.70 to 4:10.03. Engelhardt said that one of her goals for this season is to qualify for the Olympic Trials. (The auto qualifying standard is 4:06.00.) Jenn Randall, who just announced that she’s now with the Oregon Track Club, finished third in 4:11.49. 

(Results from the TEN | Full 10,000m replay)

Report is critical of how some of the complaints against longtime Saratoga Springs coaches Art and Linda Kranick were handled

Last October, former Saratoga Springs (NY) High School athletes, including members of the cross country and track & field teams, accused the school of having an abusive sports culture. For decades, the school has had one of the highest-performing distance running programs in the country, and for just as long, the program has been the subject of scrutiny. 

The results of an independent investigation were released last week, and it found that the district “may not have gone far enough” and lacked sufficient follow-through in addressing complaints and allegations about longtime cross country and track coaches Art and Linda Kranick. You can access the full report here. If you start at the bottom of page 24, you can read a timeline of the allegations, dating back to the late 1980s.

The report did not uncover any unlawful conduct. But it confirms Kristen Gecewicz Gunning’s story that in the 1980s, Art tied her to the back of a truck, and then drove it to push her to increase her turnover. It also revealed that Art was disciplined for allegedly shoving a runner in 2012. The investigators spoke only with Linda, because Art has recently been dealing with health issues.

The most frequent complaints, as mentioned in the report, are overtraining, the expectation that athletes run seven days per week, no breaks between seasons, and mismanagement of runners’ injuries. And in 2019, parents Steve Anthes and Jen Wilcox reached out to the athletic director with several concerns, including what they described as weigh-ins before and after practice. The complaints have spanned decades and six different athletic directors. 

The conclusion of the report states, “While the District received complaints regarding student athletes across multiple years concerning alleged improper conduct of the Kranicks, the District continued their annual appointment as coaches, even after they had no rights under the CBA to those appointments due to their retirements from teaching.”

The investigation team recommended that the school district use the information in the report to assess its policies regarding the hiring, training, and retention of coaches. And while addressing the media on Thursday, Saratoga Springs Superintendent Michael Patton said that the Kranicks will need to submit a coaching plan going forward. It’s not clear whether the district will take any further measures. 

According to the report and other media sources, USATF has conducted its own investigation, though it’s not clear if it has been resolved yet. Former Saratoga runner Lauren Hogan told The Daily Gazette that her conversation with the USATF investigator was much more thorough. Current Saratoga runner Emily Bush spoke at a school board meeting last week and emphasized what a positive experience she has had in the program.

In November, Hogan told The Daily Gazette, “All of the girls there are just brainwashed to think that you’re not tough if you don’t do this, you don’t want it enough if you don’t speak up or you’re just conditioned to say that I want it more than anyone, I’ve worked for it and nobody is going to take it from me. It’s a type of conditioning they do over a number of years of grooming.”

Other News

• Sara Hall, Caroline Rotich, and Jenny Simpson have been added to the Boston Marathon field, and Dakotah Lindwurm will run the Boston 5K. (Apparently it’s not the B.A.A. 5K anymore.) Ethiopia’s Worknesh Degefa and Zeinba Yimer and Eritrea’s Nazret Weldu have withdrawn from the race. 

• Before I clicked on this blog post from Marci Klimek about the Nike Dreamweaver program, I feared it was going to essentially be a Nike ad. And while it includes plenty of raving about Nike, Klimek takes a balanced approach, acknowledging some of the problematic elements of the company’s past. If you’ve been curious about the Dreamweaver program, which helped women go after their goals leading up to the 2024 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, Klimek’s post includes far more details than I’ve seen anywhere else.

• Emma Grace Hurley, who left Atlanta Track Club Elite to join the Heartland Track Club, has signed with Asics.

• Great Britain’s Innes FitzGerald, 17, who has become as well known for her eco-friendly travel practices as her running accomplishments, has changed her mind and will now compete at the World Cross Country Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, on March 30. FitzGerald skipped last year’s event, in Bathurst, Australia, because she was concerned about the environmental impact of air travel. It sounds like she will make the long journey from her home in Devon, England, to Belgrade, Serbia, via train.

• Johanna Garton’s book about Elvin Kibet and Shadrack Kipchirchir, All in Stride, comes out on April 2 and is available for preorder.

• Watching requires having a free account, but this is a really well done video from World Athletics about 2022 world marathon champion Gotytom Gebreslase of Ethiopia. And while you’re there, check out this short video featuring Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon. I’m loving the high quality content featuring  East African women, because there’s so little of it out there.

• Katie Rainsberger did a Q&A about her experience with RED-S.

• I don’t know many of the details, but select AMC theaters will be showing NBC’s Olympic coverage live this summer. Watching the Olympic marathons, or a night of track events, live on the big screen with friends sounds like a lot of fun.

• I love that the Running Industry Diversity Coalition is offering a $200,000 grant and mentorship to support a new running store in the U.S. that has at least 51 percent Black ownership. More information here.

Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal celebrates her NYC Half win. (Photo courtesy of New York Road Runners)

Additional Results

• Kenya’s Stacy Ndiwa pulled away from the lead pack with about a mile to go and repeated as LA Marathon champion, running 2:25:29. Joan Benoit Samuelson, who was in LA to celebrate the 40 year anniversary of her Olympic gold, held the finish line tape. Ndiwa won by 20 seconds over Volha Mazuronak of Belarus. Makena Morley, who missed the Olympic Marathon Trials due to injury, was the top American finisher, taking fifth in 2:30:25, a three-second PR. In a strange twist of events, in the equalizer race, where the women were supposed to have a 17-minute head start, race organizers mistakenly sent the men off early. So the men finished ahead of the women, but Ndiwa actually won the equalizer race and the $10,000 bonus (in addition to the $6,000 she earned for being the top woman). (Race replay | Results - it takes some toggling to get there)

• Kenya’s Brigid Kosgei dominated the Lisbon Half Marathon, winning by more than four minutes, in 1:05:51. (Results)

• After finishing third at the NYC Half Marathon three times—in 2018, 2022, and 2023—Norway’s Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal won this year’s edition of the race in 1:09:09. Kenya’s Gladys Chepkurui and Edna Kiplagat, 44, earned the next two spots, in 1:09:27 and 1:09:46, respectively. Jenny Simpson was the top American, finishing sixth in 1:12:06. She said that her race strategy was to follow Des Linden, and she did for much of the way before picking up the pace the last 5K. Linden finished ninth in 1:12:39. Susannah Scaroni won the wheelchair race in 53:50. (Race replay | Results)

• Germany’s Konstanze Klosterhalfen won a 10K road race in Laredo, Spain, on Saturday, running 31:07.

• Ethiopia’s Asmarech Anley won the Podium Festival 5K, held in driving rain in Leicester, England, in 14:59. Runner-up Caroline Nyaga of Kenya finished a fraction of a second back, also in a time of 14:59. (Results)

• When all was said and done, Camille Herron broke at least 13 records during Lululemon’s FURTHER six-day event, which wrapped up last Tuesday in La Quinta, California. Herron covered a world record of 560.330 miles in six days; New Zealand’s Sandra Barwick set the previous six-day record of 549.063 miles in 1990. Herron ran 15:25 per mile for six days straight, and that includes her breaks to rest and refuel. You can read about the event in much greater detail in this piece from Abby Levene. There’s a difference between running for one’s health and running to find one’s limits, and this post from Herron, where she says she lost any control she had of her organs, underlines that. Hopefully the damage is only temporary. You can see everyone’s mileage totals, minus some rounding, here. (I was glad to see that Leah Yingling hit 400 miles, not 399.9, as the tracker says.) It was nice to see so many women run farther (not further!) than they ever had before.

• Anna Oeser won the New Bedford (MA) Half Marathon in 1:13:40. (Results)

Podcast Highlights

• Ali Feller’s live show with Keira D’Amato, in Richmond, Virginia, was a fun listen, but the best part by far, in my opinion, was D’Amato talking about the fact that she hid little ducks in sunglasses around the athlete hotel the weekend of the Olympic Marathon Trials, to amuse herself, and she didn’t tell anyone she was behind it (until now). I also love that she challenged Scott Fauble to work the word bananas into what he said in the pre-Trials press conference, and he challenged her to use the word rodent, and she managed to do so without anyone questioning it.

• Sara Hall was on Running--State of the Sport, and she doesn’t get enough attention for the work she does through the Hall Steps Foundation. She said they’re currently funding a home for unhoused girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and when she retires, she wants to do more in person, with help from her daughters, who were born in Ethiopia. She said a number of other interesting things, like she thinks part of the key to her longevity has been not trying to manipulate her weight, like her husband, Ryan Hall, did during his career. She also mentioned that the pay gap between men’s and women’s contracts was significant when she came out of college, and she thinks it’s a lot smaller now.

• I appreciated getting an Emma Coburn update on the Ali on the Run Show. She said she plans to run two Diamond League steeplechases before the Olympic Trials—an early one and the Prefontaine Classic. The early one has to be Xiamen (April 20) or Shanghai (April 27), because those are the only early DL races that include a women’s steeplechase.

• I appreciated Black Canyon 100K champ Rachel Drake discussing “bounce back postpartum culture” on I’ll Have Another, along with the fact that her book recommendation was the children’s book, Little Blue Truck, which she said she reads multiple times a day.

Additional Episodes: Annie Frisbie on Women’s Running Stories | Dakotah Lindwurm and her partner Montana Popehn on C Tolle Run | Jenny Simpson on Citius Mag | Last week’s episode of Nobody Asked Us was a good time | Cory McGee on LongRunLactic (recorded well in advance of her wedding, which took place over the weekend) |  Anna (Kacius) Louden discussed her impressive trajectory in the sport on Runners of the Bay | Sadie Engelhardt on The Running Effect | Shannon Jones, 38, who recently starred in the NJCAA for Daytona State, discussed more of her story on Run Farther and Faster (content warning: discussion of sexual assault)

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I’m so appreciative of everyone who helps keep this newsletter going via your contributions on Patreon and Venmo. And a massive thanks to Gregorio Denny for sharing his photos from the TEN and Sarah Lorge Butler for editing this. I hope you all have a good week!

Alison