Ryan Hall finds a purplepatch

A couple of weeks ago Ryan Hall posted the fastest ever marathon run by an American athlete, on his way to a 4th place finish at the Boston Marathon.

This breakout performance came following a significant shift in his global approach to training and preparing for performance, including shifting away from his former coaching and training group, and sourcing assistance and advice from other endurance experts.

One of Ryan's closest advisors throughout his preparation for Boston was purplepatch coach Matt Dixon. Not a classical elite running coach, Matt assisted Ryan in various components of training, including optimizing health, integrating recovery, program structure and nutrition.

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London marathon

London Marathon 2011

Blog Roll - Lee Merrien

It’s been two weeks since the race but it’s still fresh in the mind and now in a position to post this up after just getting back from our family holiday. Here’s my latest blog update…Results wise I finished 14th overall in a time of 2.14.27, which was a PB by over 2 minutes (previous PB was 2.16.48, which I ran in London last year) although I was actually a little disappointed with the time. I was looking to get under the Olympic & World Champs A Standard of 2.12 and whilst clearly that was still my ideal outcome I made the choice over the race weekend to start with the 2.13 pace group. Partly I felt that the 2.11 group might be a little too quick at this stage and I didn’t want to damage my changes of running in the region of 2.12-2.13 which would have been a good stepping stone to running something faster in the future. I feel on reflection I made the right choice as many of the 2.11 group seemed to struggle and whilst my finish time was not what I was after there were lots of plus points to take away.

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Meanwhile at the Gettysburg North-South Marathon...

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Get your kicks - NIKE LUNAR RACER VENGEANCE - GREY/RED

Danny Kassap Memorial Fund

Danny Kassap, one of Canada’s top distance runners of the past decade, died suddenly on the morning of May 2, 2011. He was just 28 years old. Danny’s estate cannot cover his funeral and burial expenses, and so additional financial assistance is urgently required.

Danny’s friends with the University of Toronto Track Club have established the Danny Kassap Memorial Fund (www.dannykassapmemorial.com), through which sponsors can make secure online donations to this cause.

A native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Danny came to Canada as a teenager in 2001 for the Francophone Games in Ottawa. He made a daring escape from the athletes' village, finding his way to Toronto and seeking refugee status in Canada on the basis of political persecution.

In 2004, Danny won the first marathon he ever ran. For the next several years, he continued to run very fast times on very high mileage, while also working full-time and obtaining his high school equivalency.

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