Week 7

Friday, November 2

Entering the Crucible

At the championship level, the marathon takes just over two hours to complete. While the pain of a shorter race pierces, the marathon’s pain penetrates. The marathon calls for management of the load. What takes thousands of miles to build will be burned to ashes in just 26.2. All that I was and am no more has been given to the road in the hope of emerging as an Olympian.

This, then, the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon in New York City on November 3, 2007, is the hero’s quest of old, told anew. The marathon is the insidious withering of the will as the body cannibalizes itself over time in an exchange of fitness for distance, until finally it reaches the point where each step is a victory. For athletes of the highest caliber, fitness is like a candle: It has to burn brightly, but not too quickly. The marathon is a long burn, and it’s the rate that becomes key. Whose rhythm best matches race pace? Whose energy is being utilized most efficiently? That’s what we mean by, “Whose day is it?” [More]

Thursday, November 1

Meb Keflezighi, Silver Medalist

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Music:
"Mince Meat" by DANGERDOOM
"Who We Are" by Echoing August
"Sofa King" by DANGERDOOM

Thursday, November 1

Making a Comeback

On Monday, October 22, 2007, Olympian Dan Browne had already decided to get out of San Diego as the massive wildfires continued to char thousands of acres and consume hundreds of homes. He had driven down from Mammoth Lakes on Sunday night to begin his adjustment to sea level for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon. But when he arrived at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, he found nightmarish conditions.

“Ash was falling, my eyes were burning, and you could feel it coming into your lungs,” he says. “If I didn’t think I was ready to do something at the Trials, I’d stay. But no one is training here. They’re all wearing masks. I’ve worked too hard for the last three and a half months with Meb to come down with a throat or lung infection in the last 12 days.” [More]

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. [More]

Tuesday, October 30

Run to Win

The first snow of the season clung to the ground around Lake Mary, the pristine mountain lake that Team Running USA uses to simulate the Central Park course of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Men’s Marathon. Reigning Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi warmed up with fellow `04 Olympian Dan Browne, and Josh Cox, the 2004 Trials seventh-place finisher. Each wore a hat, gloves, and sweatshirt in the brisk mountain air.

“Okay, Josh, Dan,” said coach Bob Larsen, turning to the runners as they stripped down.  It’s 2.2 miles. Let’s start cautiously. If he goes out fast, Dan, be careful. Josh, double careful. We definitely don’t want to push the first one, okay?” [More]

Tuesday, October 30

Ryan Hall, Marathoner

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Music:
Coffee by ...living in a loop?
Homemade Hurricanes by amplifico
Mystic Chants by Anne Young
I Am A Racecar by Cassandra Kubinski

Monday, October 29

The Road to Mammoth

We met up in Reno at 10:30 p.m., grabbed our gear and drove deadbolt straight out along I-395 through Carson City heading south to Gardnerville, Nevada. Behind us the lights of the casinos winked in futility against the luster of overhanging moon. My Chasing Glory partner Matt Taylor and I were on our way to visit Team Running USA in Mammoth Lakes, California, perhaps the most influential American running camp this side of the 1970s. But we had to get there by eight in the morning to meet Coach Terrence Mahon and his group for the first run of the day. We had hoped to make it in one drive, but Terrence had warned about driving at night. “It’s a narrow road,” he’d said, “and winding, too.”

So, at midnight we checked in to the Topaz Lake Inn, rousing the night manager for our room. We were out before dawn (the shortest hotel stay of my career) and, true to Mahon’s word, we soon found ourselves twisting through steep mountain canyons, their walls rising up sheer alongside the two-lane highway as it cut through Toiyable National Forest. Once into California, we passed sulfurous creeks emitting gasses from the earth’s crust, the steam hanging like low-lying fog in the crisp pre-dawn air. [More]