“Nike ego takes over,” 1500-meter runner Will Leer told me. “They never let something happen on your terms. They want to solidify the power structure—they have all the power, the athlete has none.”

Banning Russian track and field athletes from the Olympics, raiding coach Jama Aden’s hotel room, busting Kenyan marathoner Rita Jeptoo after a failed drug test—the most visible anti-doping measures happen after the fact. But anti-doping efforts also take place on a quieter front, upstream where doping starts—in the…

Runners competing in the second annual Ultra Fiord 100 trail run in Patagonia waded through a chest-deep glacial stream early on, then faced hours and miles of steep, technical climbs, harrowing descents, freezing temperatures, thigh-deep mud, leg-snapping boulder fields, blowing snow and fierce winds, to say nothing…

UPDATE: Late on June 23, Nike dropped their breach of contract suit against Boris Berian, not because they were wrong or because the bad PR had reached toxic levels, but as a consideration of the stress the suit was causing Berian. Or Boris, as the congenial Nike spokesperson likes to call him.

Track coach Jama Aden has been arrested after police raided his hotel room outside Barcelona and found traces of EPO and other banned substances, according to the Associated Press.

Nike is steamed that 800-meter star Boris Berian has had the temerity to both reject their contract offer and continue to run very well, all the while wearing New Balance gear. In fact, they’re so riled up over losing Berian—who only two years ago was flipping burgers—they’ve filed for a federal court order to stop…

South African sports scientist Ross Tucker and transgender medical physicist Joanna Harper have written a fascinating piece on women’s sports, and the current lack of any limits on testosterone levels in female track and field athletes. This issue is likely to be one of the most controversial and important discussions…

Last night at the Hoka One One Classic,800-meter runner Boris Berian tweeted that he was being sued by Nike:

Yes, I get it, everyone’s doping and no one cares. About doping. But there’s a huge disconnect between what is happening at the top level of the sport and what is happening in my hometown, and I would guess, other people’s hometowns too. Which is running. Competition. Running races is fun and people care about it;…

Notice anything strange about Letsrun’s listing of the world-leading performances from last weekend?

Sometimes I like technology, in this case because YouTube is going to be invaluable in explaining how Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge calmly sliced through Sunday’s London Marathon, covering Her Majesty’s 26.2 miles in 2:03:05, the second fastest (by eight tiny seconds) marathon ever run on a record-eligible course. He’s won…

Entrepreneur and current American 800-meter record-holder Nick Symmonds is auctioning off some ad space on his right shoulder on eBay. The space is available for the remainder of the 2016 outdoor season, including through the Olympics, should he qualify.

I couldn’t get worked up about Monday’s Boston Marathon. After all, any American who might have been on TV ran the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in February, and is skipping Boston. So I followed this three-step program:

Brigham Young University professor of statistics Jared Ward finished third in February’s US Olympic Trials Marathon, filling the final spot on the Rio-bound marathon team. The married father of two is almost unknown outside the competitive running community, but has been successful enough in the last year to attract…

See the steam rising off Nepali mountain runner Mira Rai? Sweet effect, right?

The World Anti-Doping Agency has turned it’s focus on Ethiopia, warning track and field officials there they need to test up to 200 athletes by November or face possible banishment by the International Association of Athletics Federations, the Associated Press reported.

Now this is how to win the World Half Marathon Championship. Kenyan ace Geoffrey Kamworor’s ripping victory in 59:10 (that’s averaging four minutes and 30 seconds per mile for 13.1 miles) at Sunday’s race in Cardiff, Wales, is a thing of physiological wonder. That any human could scissor his legs over pavement that…

Molly Huddle’s smudge-less, next-big-thing in U.S. distance running status took a little hit on March 20, at the NYC Half Marathon. With $20,000 for first and $10,000 less for second on the line, Huddle’s left arm—maybe under the influence of the fight-or-flight, primitive sportsmanship-be-damned part of her…

British ultrarunning legend Lizzy Hawker recently ran somewhat more than 125 miles including more than 15,000 meters of elevation gain on trails encircling Nepal’s capitol, Kathmandu, in 35 hours, 39 minutes and 22 seconds. In one go. Without sleeping, or lying down. With a headlamp, and some sandwiches. On her 40th…