The Top 5 Things 🐠
Here's what's new in the world of running this week
By: Alex Cyr
Disclaimer: Parodied Content. None of this is real. Except for the tattoo photo, unfortunately.
Now that we know the Olympic Games will happen no later than summer 2021, and that some guy really regrets his tattoo, it’s time for a deeper dive into what went down this week.
Top Stories
1- Matt Centrowitz downloads Hinge, deletes Tinder
The 2016 Olympic 1,500m champion took to his Twitter last Tuesday to announce the change. Since turning 30 last October, Centro says he trusts the Hinge algorithm to help him find a serious relationship.
“Hinge is nice because you get more space to write about yourself on your profile,” he said. “On Tinder, you only get a few lines. I only had space to write that I’m Olympic champion, and then realized that everybody already knew that.”
The metric miler is currently in quarantine with his Bowerman Track Club teammate Marc Scott in Portland, Oregon. Scott says he helped his teammate curate his profile.
“They were just minor suggestions,” says Scott. “I pretty much just told him he should have his shirt on in at least one of the pictures.”
Centrowitz and his teammates at the Bowerman Track Club
Centrowitz said that Hinge’s layout allows him to add various prompts to his dating profile.
“It keeps it light,” he says. “Like one of them is ‘The key to my heart,’ and for that I wrote ‘Popeye’s Chicken.’ You know? It makes it easier to get to know people. With Tinder, you just don’t reach that depth in conversation.”
The State of Oregon is not yet on lockdown, but Centrowitz thinks it best to play it safe. For now, he is sticking to virtual dating.
“It’s hard with the virus,” he said. “I’m just trying to match with as many people as possible, so that when the quarantine is lifted I’m in good shape on that front.”
2- Sara Hall makes excuses to avoid lifting weights with her husband
When the 36-year-old marathoner made this Tweet, she did not yet know most of her creative potential would be wasted in her basement home gym.
Turns out, being in quarantine with her husband, two-time Olympic marathoner turned weightlifter Ryan Hall, is making the 36-year-old mother of four tired for her running workouts.
“At the marathon trials,” says Sara, “I hit a wall near the end of the race. I kept feeling this lactate buildup in my biceps. I realized it was likely the dumbbell curls Ryan keeps asking me to do with him.”
Ryan Hall has gained 40 lbs since retiring from professional marathoning. Photo: Runner’s World
Hall, who is just months removed from her marathon personal best of 2:22:16, says she started telling Ryan she cannot join him downstairs, because she is “watching her daughters, practicing mindful meditation, and reading the news.”
“But I’m usually just playing Words With Friends when he is down there,” she says.
Since she stopped accompanying her husband for heavy resistance training twice daily, Hall has found the spring in her step again. Her recent workouts make her think she will emerge from her quarantine even fitter than before.
“I’m looking forward for this to end,” she said. “It’s a challenge to be stuck inside the house for everyone, but I think it’s especially hard when your husband has to max out on the bench press twice a day. And when the bar is stuck on his chest, who do you think has to run down there? That’s right - always Sara.”
3- Asics finally comes out with a carbon-fibre shoe “just in time for the 2020 Olympics”
ASICS lead shoe designer Hiroaki Nishimura announced to three perplexed journalists at a press conference in Tokyo that ASICS is releasing a carbon fibre shoe “so that our marathoners can compete against the best in on the world’s greatest stage this summer.”
Nishimura had spent the last three weeks inside his office with no Wifi signal, after being mocked and ribbed by designers at Adidas, Hoka One One and Saucony for taking so long to release an answer to Nike’s controversial Vaporfly 4% line. The Japanese shoe guru vowed only to come out when his prototype would be ready. Today, he presented his masterpiece, the ASICS Metarun, to an almost empty room.
“Today, I am happy to announce the release of the ASICS Metarun,” said Nishimura. The vision for these shoes was for them to not look like your dad would want to wear them. I trust that our runners will be competitive with others all over the — uh, yes sir you’ve already given me hand sanitizer. What is up with people and sanitizing here?”
The ASICS Metarun - Too Fast For Your Dad
4- Eliud Kipchoge learns he is 65, buys medical insurance
Last week the Kenyan government administered mandatory physicals and checkups for all its citizens in anticipation for the arrival of the Coronavirus on African soil, so that immunocompromised citizens could be flagged. At the doctor’s office, the marathon world record holder and international distance running icon Eliud Kipchoge was in for quite a surprise. As his doctor fished out his birth certificate, the runner noticed he had misread a “8” for a “5”, and that his real birthdate is November 5, 1954, not 1984.
Distance running world beater Eliud Kipchoge has recently learned that he is 65 years old
“It explains a lot,” says Kipchoge, who continues to train for a fall marathon. “I remember every single episode of M*A*S*H, I usually mash up my potatoes and carrots and eat them together, and I don’t think Galen Rupp is boring at all.”
Kipchoge also admitted he thinks ASICS shoes looks sharper than his own Nikes, making him undoubtedly 65. He said that other elites now tease him incessantly about his age.
“I wished Kenenisa Bekele good luck in training as we wait for our showdown to be rescheduled,” said Kipchoge, “and all he answered with was ‘ok, boomer.’ These insults are hurtful, and I want them to know that age is just a number and that we should be kind to each other. And that until he runs under two-hours, Kenenisa can kiss my ass.”
5- Laura Muir gets laid off, runs 3:46 1,500m in backyard
Veterinarian Laura Muir helping a dog to wellness. Does she really look like the type of person who would exaggerate about the time she ran in her backyard?
No longer hampered by her full-time job as a veterinarian, but banned from leaving her property in the U.K., the 26-year-old set up a 200m loop behind her condo and time trialed a 1,500m. Full of energy, she hand-timed herself at 3:46.
“I knew I had way more in me than a 3:55,” said Muir, barely out of breath after her run. “Just imagine being up until 1:00 a.m. on most days operating on dogs - running fast is nearly impossible. I don’t know if I ever want to go back to work.”
Muir’s competitors questioned the legitimacy of her race, but her training partner Gabriella Stafford seems to think it was a fair run.
“Laura is trustworthy,” says Stafford, “and if she says she ran a 3:46 behind her house, I believe it. This chick saves animals, do you think liars save animals?”
Muir and Stafford leading an interval
Muir is now licking her chops for the races to come, when she can trade the uneven grass surface in her yard for sleek mondo track, and slip back into spikes.
“I was wearing my dad’s old trainers.”