KIMbia Athletics

You know the times Chris Solinsky has put up this year. Now, here’s a little perspective to go with them, before he finishes up his season in Rieti on Sunday:

• Solinsky owns the #1 all-time American performance for 10,000m. With room to spare.
• He is the only American ever to have run under 12:58 more than once.
• He is the only American ever to have run under 12:59 three times.
• In 2010, Solinsky averaged 12:59 for the 5000m in four races.
• This season alone, he turned in the #2, #4, and #5 all-time American performances for 5,000m… 60% of the five best performances in US history!

By comparison, the fastest 5000m season, prior to Solinsky’s 2010, would have to go to a fellow member of the KIMbia family — Bob Kennedy, in 1996.  Kennedy’s record in 5000m finals that year was a staggering 13:12.14, 12:58.75 (AR), 13:12.35, 12:58.21 (AR), 13:06.12, 13:04.14, and 13:20.24.  At the time, those races notched the #1, #2, #6, #8, #11 and #12 American performances of all time. (#4, #5, #7, and #9 also belonged to him, from prior seasons. The word “wow,” comes to mind.) Kennedy’s average 5000m from that season is an extremely impressive 13:07.

What do all these numbers mean? Read the full article

Chris spent some time in the mixed zone after his race in Zurich, breaking down his thoughts on the last 5000m he would run in this stellar season.

Thoughts on the race itself:

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Last year, Chris Solinsky‘s PB was 13:12. A good time for an American distance runner: a very good time for an active American distance runner. He made his first World Championships team. But he wanted more.

This past week, Chris was marveling at how prescient some of his words from last summer have turned out to be, words captured in the final episode of Wisconsin to Worlds. Watch below:

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Fast fact: Chris Solinsky had never done a press conference in his entire career as an elite runner. No longer. Solinsky made an appearance at the press conference for Weltklasse Zurich, along with some of the most sought-after names in the sport: Lolo Jones, David Oliver, Mo Farah, Carmelita Jeter and Veronica Campbell-Brown, among others. Here’s a clip in which he addresses — once more — all the interest in his unique blend of speed and size:

OK, so you’ve run some of the fastest times of any American ever.  You can mix it up with the big boys on the pro circuit.  What’s next?  Chris Solinsky talks here, just three days before he races in Zurich, about wanting to take the next step and start making all the other big boys worry.

26:59. 12:56. 13:08. 12:55. For many, that collection of performances would make for a great career. Yet Chris Solinsky has strung together those four absolutely world-class performances in a single break-out season. Solinsky was 6th in Oslo, in the deepest 5000m in history. If he had run nothing other than the 13:08 he logged at the Pre Classic — so far his slowest race of the season — he would still have made himself the 7th fastest American performer of all-time. (Not to mention, it would have made a strong improvement on the 13:12 PB he carried into this year.)

Yet, beyond those hallmarks to consistency, Solinsky can also count the 10,000m American Record and two flirtations with the American Record for 5,000m among his achievements this year. Now, he is just days away from his final 5000 of this season-of-a-lifetime: Weltklasse Zurich on Thursday. Read the full article

Runner’s World chatted (briefly) with Matt Tegenkamp in the final days before Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic, the sixth stop in the inaugural season of the IAAF Diamond League. Along with teammate Chris Solinsky, Tegenkamp will compete in the Men’s 5000m against many of the best in the world, including World Championship-medalists Tariku Bekele, Eliud Kipchoge and Joseph Ebuya, and the hottest name in the 5000m event at the moment, Imane Merga, winner in Oslo and Rome, and third in Doha. Fans are hoping to see the first-ever sub-13:00 clocking on US soil, and both KIMbia athletes figure to be in the mix.

However, while Solinsky ran 12:56.66 in Oslo on June 4th, Tegenkamp’s sterling 12:58 PB was logged last summer, with his 2010 season spent only on under-distance to this point: three runs at 1500 meters. As Runner’s World spent its recurring “A Brief Chat With” feature with Matt, interviewer Peter Gambaccini focused largely on Tegenkamp’s entering the unknown of his first 5,000m of the season. Tegenkamp was quite candid on his plan of attack, even offering up some first-rate racing advice:

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Chris Solinsky sliced an incredible 16-seconds off of his PB, clocking a 12:56.66 in Oslo on Friday evening. Hot on the heels of his own American Record in the 10,000m, Solinsky approached the standing national record in the 5,000m, a 12:56.27 logged by Dathan Ritzenhein in Zurich in 2009; in Oslo, that record still fell, as fellow American Bernard Lagat ran 12:54.12.

With speculation over a possible AR performance running rampant, given Lagat’s pedigree and 12:59 PB, and Solinsky’s standout 26:59 performance at Stanford, the opening kilometer was reached in a very hot 2:32 — 12:40 pace for 5,000m. As the field in this Diamond League race continued to run positive splits — 2:35 and 2:38 to reach 3,000m — there was reason to doubt a record performance.

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Who: 10,000m American & Canadian Record Holders Chris Solinsky and Simon Bairu
What: Live Chat with the fans
When: 1:30pm Eastern/10:30am Pacific

This is how it works: Type any question, comment, anecdote, or musing that you want Chris and/or Simon to hear in the box below, and they will respond live. It’s that simple. This is a forum for fans to interact with some of the world’s best runners in a way that is personal and fun and accessible to the people who really care about the athletes.

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KIMbia athletes did the memory of Kim McDonald proud on Saturday night, as Chris Solinsky and Simon Bairu smashed the American and Canadian national records, respectively, in the 10,000m race that bears McDonald’s name.

Last year, Tim Nelson won this race in a strong 27:39. In 2010, seven KIMbia athletes toed the starting line for the Kim McDonald 10,000m at Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational, and this time, the results were outright astounding.  Chris Solinsky ran steadily in the lead pack for the duration of the race, before stepping around race leader Galen Rupp and making an explosive move with 900 meters to go. Solinsky covered the final two laps in under 2:00 to shock running fans the world over and stop the clock at 26:59.60 — a new American record by an eye-popping fourteen seconds.  Moments later, teammate Simon Bairu would complete his own impressive run, logging a 27:23.63 to set a new Canadian national record. Bairu’s time peeled 12.38 seconds off of the previous record.

Oh, and Tim Nelson? He ran 27:31.56 — an terrific eight-second PB. But this year, on an historic night, it would “only” place him seventh. Clearly, the legacy of Kim McDonald lives on in the performances of the athletes running under the “KIMbia” banner and in the ever-improving performances of athletes around the world. Following Nelson in were Brent Vaughn, making his professional debut at this distance (13th, 28:05), Boaz Cheboiywo (14th, 28:06), and Jason Hartmann (19th, 28:25). Full results can be found here, and a video of the race is at the bottom of the page.

We will have much more on Solinsky and Bairu’s record-breaking races as we move into the week.