Week 7

Wednesday, October 31

The Young Lion

The 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon rests along a generational fault line.  On one side sit the old lions, Alan Culpepper, Khalid Khannouchi, Meb Keflezighi, and Dan Browne, still fearsome and strong. On the other side are the advancing young men anxious to assume the pride of their generation. (Somewhere in the middle is Abdi Abdirahman, who at age 30 has run just four marathons but has a formidable 2:08 PR, the third-best in the Trials field.) With only three slots available on Team USA for the Beijing Olympic Games, the fight for supremacy in New York on November 3 should be epic.

Foremost among the new breed are Michigan-born, now Oregon-trained Dathan Ritzenhein and lifelong Californian Ryan Hall. Ritz got the better of Hall in high school at the 2000 Foot Locker National Cross Country Championships, and again at the 2003 NCAA Cross Country Championships. But it’s been Hall who has roared into 2007, establishing himself as the new superstar of the American distance scene.

“I had run a couple of fast 20Ks,” said Hall, downplaying his 2006 USA Championships title in New Haven and his American record 57:54 at the IAAF World Road Running Championships in Hungary one month later, where he finished 11th. “Houston was the test to see if I would move up to the marathon.”

This so-called test, at last January’s Aramco Houston Half-Marathon/USA Half-Marathon Championships, turned into a sensation. Averaging 4:33 per mile, Hall broke Mark Curp’s 22-year-old American record. His 59:43 clocking bettered the old mark by 1:12, and beat Fasil Bizuneh and Mammoth Lakes teammate and reigning Olympic Marathon silver medalist Meb Keflezighi by nearly three minutes. 

London Calling

Until Houston, Hall had been heading toward the low-key City of Los Angeles Marathon in March to get his Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier. But after Houston, coach Terrence Mahon and agent Ray Flynn decided instead to put him into the lion’s den of the Flora London Marathon in April.

Team Running USA teammate Meb Keflezighi was also entered, hoping for a significant PR. But Keflezighi had blistered badly in beating Hall at the USA 15K Championships in Jacksonville, Florida, in March. In London, Meb was forced to drop out.  Notwithstanding, he had time to assist his young teammate—a gesture typical of him.

“There’s no doubt Meb was a help in London,” said coach Mahon. “He showed Ryan how to pace himself in the first half, how to handle the big studs. Heading out to the bus before the race they prayed together.” (Hall’s father, Mickey Hall, was a minister, and Keflezighi is very religious.)

“They were talking world-record pace, so I was a little surprised when the first miles were 5:00,” recalled Hall. “It was more about holding myself back most of the way.”

Sitting elegantly in the midst of an Olympic-quality pack, Hall shocked a number of his competitors – “Who’s that American kid?” – when he took to the lead at 33K. And though the veterans pulled away in the final miles, Hall’s seventh place 2:08:24 established a new American debut record for the marathon, bettering the 2:09:41 mark shared by Alan Culpepper from Chicago in 2002 and Alberto Salazar from his win in New York City in 1980. With the rush of his half-marathon and debut marathon records, Hall completely recalibrated the odds for the Olympic Trials in New York City.

Sara Smile

None of Hall’s professional success can be considered surprising. Mickey was an Ironman Triathlon finisher, and Ryan’s younger brother Chad won last year’s Foot Locker championship as a high school senior. Endurance is in Hall’s blood. It entered his heart after his sophomore year in high school when he attended a summer camp organized by American mile legend Jim Ryun in Lawrence, Kansas. Back home afterward in Big Bear Lake, under the tutelage of his dad, Hall won California state track titles at 1600 and 3200 meters. In his senior year he posted a 3:42 1500 meters, the equivalent of a 4:00 mile. The success at middle-distance events almost derailed his career.

“I focused on the 800 in my freshman year at Stanford,” said Hall. “And it was so plain to see back then [that I was a distance runner). I was doing 50-minute 10-mile tempo runs in high school, but for some reason I was fixated on the whole miler thing.”

Something else that Hall began to focus on in high school was a young woman from Santa Rosa, California. Sara Bei had won four straight California state cross country titles. In her senior year she took top honors at the 2000 Foot Locker meet in Orlando while Ryan ran third in the boys race, behind Ritzenhein and Alan Webb.

“I always knew I’d be lucky if I ended up with Sara,” said Hall of his now-wife, who was returning to Mammoth from a race on the day we visited. “We began e-mailing in senior year. Drew Ryun [Jim’s son] introduced us at Foot Locker regionals.” Ryan and Sara dated all through college at Stanford and married in September 2005.

Today, the Halls fit comfortably into the chemistry of Team Running USA. But while Deena Kastor and Meb Keflizighi own comfortable homes in Mammoth, Ryan and Sara Hall live modestly in a small trailer at the bottom of a steep hill. The inside was as cluttered as a college dorm room. A Bible was open on the dining room table, a sign of the inner life Ryan and Sara share.

“Running for us is spiritual,” said Hall with a quiet earnestness. “You run along Green Church Road and see all of God’s handiwork, the mountains cascading before you. That’s my sanctuary.  I feel like I’m taking the gift God gave me and expressing it back to Him.”

Living their beliefs, Ryan and Sara share their gifts with those less fortunate than themselves, often making trips to Mexico from the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, south of San Diego. 

“Sara did mission work down there, and the Olympic Training Center is almost a walk to the border,” said Ryan. “We visit an orphanage that my church in Big Bear is involved in. Not everyone has the same blessings as us. You can use running to do big things. People like Lornah [Kiplagat], Deena, Paul Tergat showed what can be done.”

College Daze

When times are good, it is easy to assume they have always been. But in truth, things didn’t work out as expected for Hall at Stanford. Thrown into a super-competitive arena, Hall’s native talent never fully flowered during his years in Palo Alto. 

“No blame on Stanford,” acknowledged Hall. “The transition was hard for me. I come from a small mountain town, a simple life. At Stanford people asked, ‘What are you doing tonight at 10:00 p.m.?’ Well, going to bed, but it took me three or four years to make the transition.”

The move up to Mammoth was a natural return to his mountain roots. In the fall of 2005 Ryan and Sara went from being single amateurs to married professionals. They graduated from Stanford, packed up, and moved to Mammoth, following good friend and fellow Stanford alum Ian Dobson. When they hooked up with coach Mahon, it all began to fall into place.

“Terrence is an awesome coach,” said Ryan enthusiastically. “He’s big reason I’m doing well. He wants to know your spark. He’s concerned about you the person, not just the runner.”

“Ryan has a good mindset,” said Mahon. “And he shows a maturity five to eight years beyond his age. World-class marathoning will be his thing. Why wait four years? He wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think he could make the team.”

“Ryan Hall has the ability to do anything,” agreed Bob Larsen, Keflezighi’s coach. “His talent is so immense. He’s not a high-strung guy, and he’s been training high mileage at altitude since high school. He’s like a Kenyan.”

Talent, altitude, genes, and maturity—it’s a tidy package. But Hall still exhibits qualities of a young, developing professional, and Mahon knows he must manage his athlete carefully. Hall finished seventh at the 2007 AT&T USA Outdoor Championships 10,000 meters in June, his first race back after London. “I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t,” he said. He hasn’t raced at all since pacing Dobson in a European 5000-meter race this summer.

“Ryan is so mentally into racing that sometimes he can come in mentally flat, because he gets so amped up,” explained Mahon. “But he’s also the kind of athlete who gains confidence from his training.”

The key for Hall in New York will be patience, especially on the challenging Central Park course. And though his success has been swift and certain, this will only be Hall’s second marathon. The five-loop trials course around Central Park will not in the least resemble flat, fast London. And while he was under no pressure to perform in London, in New York all eyes will be upon him.

“I want to [recapture] my feelings in Houston,” Hall said. “I want to be in the flow of a confident pace, feeling my legs pop off the ground. I don’t want to get locked into surging at 16 miles or focus on this person or that person. Being super-fast is not important. You need to be strong on the last lap. The slogan my coach gave me is, ‘expect nothing, expect anything.’”

Ryan Hall has had the long, slow, gradual build up that marathoners dream about, the kind that could have 2007 going out like a lion just like it came in. “I dreamed about making the Olympic team in 2004,” he recalled. “I had a chart on the wall, and was tearing pages off the calendar. I have a more realistic chance in 2008.”