Athing Mu, twice a gold medal winner in the Tokyo Olympics, now will be running in the WHOOP Wanamaker Women’s Mile at The Armory New Balance Track & Field Center on Saturday, January 29th in the 114th Millrose Games. Photo by John Nepolitan.

      NEW YORK, N.Y. - Ray Flynn, a two-time Irish Olympian, is preparing for his 10th Millrose Games as its Meet Director. It also happens to be the 10th time that track & field’s most recognized indoor meet is taking place at The Armory New Balance Track & Field Center.
“We are delighted with this year's terrific field of athletes right across all of our events,” Flynn said. “With 64 Olympians and three gold medalists from Tokyo, I couldn’t be happier.”
On Saturday, Jan. 29, spectators at The Armory along with an NBC nationally-televised audience will welcome this unique track & field event, with its highest level of competition at the youth, high school, collegiate, club, and professional levels.
 
This year’s Millrose Games welcomes 64 Olympians including three gold medal winners from last summer’s Tokyo Olympics: Ryan Crouser, in the Men’s shot put; Athing Mu, in the Women’s 800m and 4x400 relay; and Katie Nageotte in the Women’s pole vault.
Earlier this week it was announced Mu would switch from the Jack and Lewis Rudin Women’s 800m to the WHOOP Wanamaker Women’s Mile.
More than one outstanding signature event is earmarked for the 114th NYRR Millrose Games. Flynn points to at least 15 high-volume elite track & field settings to stimulate deafening roars from inside the famous Armory.
 
1)    Ronnie Baker trying to defend his Millrose Games Men’s 60m title against the World Record holder Christian Coleman, fastest man in the world in 2021 Trayvon Bromell and Olympic bronze medalist Noah Lyles.
 
2)    Is Olympic pole vault gold medalist Katie Nageotte finally due a win on her third Millrose Games start?
 
3)    Olympic Champion and world record holder Ryan Crouser will be ready for another challenge in the center of The Armory track during the Thorne Shot Put. Will he set another world record?
 
4)    Olympic 800m champion Athing Mu enters the Whoop Wanamaker Women’s Mile against American Record holder and defending champion Elle Purrier St Pierre. Don’t sleep on Josette Norris, who will have plenty of home support from nearby Tenafly, N.J., and 2019 champion Konstanze Klosterhalfen.
 
5)    Can New Zealand’s Olympic medalist Nick Willis break 4 minutes for the 20th year in a row?
 
6)    Can American Indoor 800m record holder Ajee’ Wilson maintain her great Millrose winning streak and her indoor American record in the Jack & Lewis Rudin Women’s 800m? Don’t overlook Jamaica middle-distance sensation and Olympian Natoya Goule-Toppin.
 
7)    Look for World Record holder and Olympic silver medalist Keni Harrison to defend her Millrose Games title in the Women’s 60m Hurdles.
 
8)    Will we see a national high school record in the 800m from superstars Roisin Willis, Sophia Gorriaran or from sensational Shawnti Jackson in the Women’s 60m Dash?
 
9)    Will we see another sub 3:50 second Whoop Wanamaker Men’s Mile when British Olympic Medalist Josh Kerr and Australia’s Olympian Ollie Hoare lead a stellar field of athletes?
 
10)  Look for World No. 1 Devon Allen to be challenged in the Men’s 60m Hurdles by 2019 U.S. Champion Daniel Roberts.
 
11)  All eyes will be on U.S. Olympic Bronze medalist and sprint sensation Gabby Thomas in the Women’s 60m against U.S. 60m Champion Mikiah Brisco and Jamaican Olympic 4x100m Gold medalist Briana Williams.
 
12)  How will 800m specialist and World Champion Donavan Brazier fare moving down to the Men’s 400m against Jamaican Olympic finalist Christopher Taylor?
 
13)  Look for the new U.S. star Tara Davis to make her mark in a Women’s Long Jump field that includes three other Olympians.
 
14)  A Who’s Who list boasts the Men’s 3000m. Cole Hocker, Olympic Trials 1500m and NCAA 1500m champion indoors and outdoors for Oregon; Cooper Teare, the NCAA record holder in the indoor mile and 5000m Champion; Olympic finalist Luis Grijalva from Guatemala, recent NCAA cross country champion Conner Mantz and Drew Hunter, winner of USA 5k championships in November.
 
15)  Speaking of the 3000m, in the women’s race Alicia Monson and Weini Kelati are fresh off their January 9th duel at the USATF Cross Country Championships where they finished first and second, respectively. Monson is a 2020 Olympian in the 10,000m and the 2019 Millrose Games champion in the 3000m.
 
For complete Millrose Games fields, go to: https://results.millrosegames.org
 
Tickets can be purchased by going to https://www.millrosegames.org/get-tickets
For more information on all Armory Track events go to www.armory.nyc.
Follow the Millrose Games on www.millrosegames.org and The Armory on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @armorynyc.
 
About The Armory Foundation
The Armory Foundation is a New York City non-profit institution, with the mission of "Keeping Kids on Track." Each season The Armory – the proud home of the Millrose Games – hosts more than 100 track & field meets and welcomes more than 220,000 visits. Among its many youth sports and educational programs, including the acclaimed Armory College Prep program, The Armory runs the leading collegiate indoor track meets with the Dr. Sander Invitational Columbia Challenge and the HBCU Showcase, and hosts the largest high school indoor track meets with the U. S. Air Force Hispanic Games, The New Balance Games, New Balance Nationals Indoor, the Energice Coaches Hall of Fame Invitational and Marine Corps Holiday Classic. New York Road Runners is a proud sponsor of all athletic events at The Armory. The Armory runs the Columbia & NewYork – Presbyterian Indoor Marathon Team Relay presented by New York Road Runners, which is the world’s largest indoor marathon relay. The Armory is also the home to the National Track & Field Hall of Fame and dozens of very large education-focused events. For more: Please visit Armory.NYC and ArmoryTrack.com.
 

From the USATF website.

The 2022 Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships will be held June 23-26 at the University of Oregon’s newly renovated Hayward Field. The meet will serve as the qualifying event for the 2022 World Athletics Outdoor Championships, set for July 15-24 at Hayward Field and marking the first time the event will be held on U.S. soil.
 
Additionally, Team USATF U20 athletes will compete at the U20 Outdoor Championships June 23-25. 
 
Hayward Field is no stranger to USATF Championships, having played host to seven U.S. Olympic Trials, including the past four editions. The historic venue has been the site of nine other U.S. championship meets since 1971 and has also hosted 17 NCAA outdoor championship meets since 1962.

For more info, go to USATF.org.
 
Join the conversation with USATF on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #USATF.
​About USA Track & FieldUSA Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, some of the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the country’s #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport, and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States. For more information on USATF, visit www.usatf.org.

By Elliott Denman

Hi Everybody:

Really great news about Ms. Kelly Curtis being named to USA Winter Olympic team in the very-challenging and very-scary sport of skeleton!!!

What a courageous athlete she is!! We wish her all the best in China!!

We all remember Kelly being a points-scorer for Shore AC at the USATF National Club Championships at Icahn Stadium several years ago...in the javelin. She excelled in the meet along with her then-boyfriend, Mr. Jeff Milliron, one of the truly great throwing events stars in Shore AC history, and noted coach at Princeton and Tulane universities.

Kelly is a graduate of Princeton High School and Springfield College and a former winner of the Penn Relays heptathlon.  Kelly and Jeff are now married and Kelly is serving as an Airman First Class in the U.S. Air Force.

And let's all cheer for Charley Volker, too, in both four-man and two-man bobsled. Just a few years ago, Charley won the NJSIAA Meet of Champions 100-meter final for Rumson-Fair Haven Regional HS....At Princeton University he was a Heps medalist and member of Tigers' school-record 39.9 4x100 team, all this while doing superb things as a running back for the football Rumson Bulldogs and Princeton Tigers.

Cheers again for Kelly.
Cheers again for Charley!!!
Cheers again for all magnificent Winter Olympians!!!
Check your local listings.

Shore AC is mighty proud of the lifetime achievements of Dr. Jason Karp! He joined our club as a promising runner at Marlboro High School and has gone to worldwide success as coach, author, entrepreneur and much more. We cheer all his successes!
And Shore AC welcomes this latest report from Kenya
 
By Jason R. Karp, PhD, MBA
 

“How was your training?” he asked me, as I entered the large, heavy metal gate where I live in Iten, Kenya, the sweat on my forehead glistening in the hot Kenyan sun.

“Good. The altitude feels a little lower today,” I joked.

The first time I was asked that question, I was taken aback. It immediately changed myperspective. 

No one in Iten, Kenya asks you, “How was your run?” They always ask, “How was your training?”

In this rural town, where the world-class runners outnumber the cows and sheep (and there are many cows and sheep!), no one runs. Everyone trains. They train to run faster, to attract an agent who can help them get invited to races in Europe or the U.S., and to get a flight out of Africa so they can run those races and win money.

Trainingis their way out of poverty. They train in used, hand-me-down shoes onrocky, red dirt trails,twice per day, five days per week, and a long run on Saturday, with the relentless intention to be the best. To win. Winning means a lot more to these Kenyan runners than it does to runners in the Western world. Winning—and the money that comes with it—means escaping poverty. It means a better life. It means they can buy a cow.  

Even when speaking to this 48-year-old mzungu (white person), they ask, “How was your training?”

I have a lot to live up to.

As an American coach from Marlboro, New Jersey living and coaching in Kenya, I see hundreds of runners training every day, and have the opportunity to coach some of them. Here’s some of their training secrets. 

Training in Groups

Like a pack of wolves traversing the wilderness together, Kenyan runners train in groups. While pack life for wolves ensures the care and feeding of the young and enables them to defend their common territory, group running for Kenyans ensures competition to push the pace for the more seasoned runners, while providing careful training and motivation for the lower-level runners, who practice holding on to the group pace. 

Controlling the Pace

A senior member of the Kenyan running group dictates the pace of the run. No one is allowed to pick up the pace on his or her own. Everything is controlled.

This is a difficult concept for manyU.S. runners to understand. When I was in college, there was a guy on the cross country team who always had to be in front. He would push the pace all the time because he had to always finish each run ahead of everyone else. That’s immature, and shows ignorance of how to train properly. Most runners run much faster than they need to meet the purpose of the workout. I have seen this countless times over my coaching career. 

Runners shouldn’tdo workouts to practice running faster; they should do workouts to improve the physiological characteristics that will enable them to run faster in the future. To do that, they should run only as fast as they need to meet the purpose of the workout.

For example, if the purpose of an interval workout is to train VO₂max, run at VO₂max pace, no faster. If your VO₂max pace is 6:30 per mile, run your reps at 6:30 pace, no faster. Running at 6:20 pace or 6:10 pace is not better than running at 6:30 pace when 6:30 pace achieves the purpose of the workout.

For a distance runner, it’s better to run more volume (distance or time) at the correct pace than less volume at faster than the correct pace.Make workouts harder by adding more volume (more reps or longer reps) or less recovery time between reps.

Running by Feel

Most of the Kenyan runners don’t run with a GPS watch on their wrists; only the top runners can afford one. Instead, they run by feel. Every run, every fartlek, every interval workout not done on a track is done by feel. Through months and years of practice running with others in groups, the Kenyan runners have learned what different paces feel like, and they become masters of the pace and of the effort it takes to run a specific pace. 

When you become a master of the pace and of the effort, you become a master of yourself, and youwon’t make mistakes like starting every workout or every race too fast, only to slow down in the second half. Instead, you start at the paceyou know you canhold the entire workout or race because you have become an expert judge of the pace, and then are in a position to run faster toward the end. Leaveyour GPS watchat home and run by feel.

Running High Mileage

Most of the Kenyan marathon runners run upwards of 115 miles per week, with the shorter distance runners running slightly less. Even the runner ranked 5,865th in Kenya runs high mileage. Running 100 miles per week is nothing special in Kenya. The Kenyans race infrequently, instead focusing on developing their aerobic systems to their highest potential through high mileage, running 11 times per week.

From your current starting point, whether zero, 20, or 50 miles per week, slowly increase yourmileage until it’s time to back off to taper prior to the most important end-of-season races. Don’t back off the mileage for every race every weekend; all that does is retard your aerobic development.

Although many interval workouts and races can improve fitness quickly, long-term progress should not be subordinated to short-term results.Training intensity needs to be carefully controlled, with the major increase in training from year to year coming from volume, sprinkling in just enough intensity at the right times to get the job done and hold your interest. The more aerobically fit you are, the more you will ultimately get from your subsequent speed work. And since youlikely did not grow upwalking and running to school like the Kenyan kids, you need to make up for lost time.

Running Fartleks

Every Thursday at 9 a.m. in Iten, about 200 Kenyan runners (and a few visiting Caucasian runners, referred to as mzungu by the locals) collect at a trailhead at the side of the road for the famous Iten Fartlek. It is a special event and impressive to watch. The fartlek is 5K to 10K on rolling dirt, rocky trails.

A combination of two Swedish words that, when put together, translate to “speedplay,” fartlek running dates back to 1937, when it was developed by Swedish coach Gösta Holmér, who used it as part of Sweden’s military training. Many of the Kenyan runners in Iten don’t have transportation or the financial means to use the few available tracks, so they rely on fartleks for their quality workouts. Fartleks allow you to play with changes in speed and to have fun while doing quality workouts determined by effort.

The Iten Fartlek rotates three workouts: 5K to 10K of either alternating 1 minute fast/1 minute slow, 2 minutes fast/1 minute slow, or 3 minutes fast/1 minute slow, repeating those three workouts every three weeks. Some runners stop at 5K and then jog home, while senior members of the group make a right turn at the fork in the trail to extend the fartlek to 10K. The runners usually start the fartlek conservatively, with the second half of the workout run faster. The slow parts are run very slow, which enables them to run the fast parts fast.

The Kenyan runners have a singular focus and work ethic that make them successful. If you train in groups, control the pace, run high mileage, and run fartleks, you will surely succeed, and perhaps you’ll even be able to keep up with a Kenyan.

Dr. Jason Karp is an American distance running coach/ living and coaching in Kenya. He is founder and CEO of the women’s-specialty run coaching company Kyniska Running. A competitive runner since sixth grade who attended Marlboro High School and The Peddie School in Hightstown, Jason quickly learned how running molds us into better, more deeply conscious people, just as the miles and interval workouts mold us into faster, more enduring runners. This passion Jason found as a kid placed him on a yellow brick road that he still follows as a coach, exercise physiologist, bestselling author of 12 books and more than 400 articles, and speaker. He is the 2011 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year and two-time recipient of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition Community Leadership award. His REVO₂LUTION RUNNING™ certification has been obtained by coaches and fitness professionals in 25 countries. His books may be found at //drjasonkarp.com/books.

   As his website tells us, “Since becoming one of the youngest college head coaches in the country when he was 24, Dr. Karp has had a long coaching career that has included college and high school cross country and track & field and private coaching of adult runners. He is a USA Track & Field certified coach and creator of a popular coaching certification program. Run faster with his award-winning coaching services.

  He is an entrepreneur in mind and heart. Dr. Karp left academia to pursue his own ideas and passion. He has founded several businesses and pursues many projects, including a women’s-specialty run coaching company, a run coaching certification program, a literary agency, and a running camp in Kenya.
   Follow him on  Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube. To contact Dr. Karp: [email protected]

Great news on the marathon front this morning as Roberta Groner, in her Shore AC gear, finished 4th overall in the women’s race at the Houston Marathon in 2:32:02, easily qualifying for the Olympic Trials at age 44.