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Ryan Hall was right, and I was wrong. It took running 2:09 to make the Olympic marathon team. In fact, it took running 2:09 to be the alternate. Hats off to Hall for his prediction, and boos for me for being so wrong.
I was liveblogging the women’s race, which started 15 minutes after the men’s, so I really got to see only the first couple miles of the men’s. But that was enough for me to realize that Hall had called it correctly. When he launched into 4:50 pace basically from his third step, you knew he would run that pace as long as he could. As that’s 2:06 marathon pace, odds were that he would slow in the second half, but Hall seems immune to hitting the Wall no matter how aggressively he starts, so right away a sub-2:10 was on tap. I turned to Amby Burfoot, who was liveblogging the men’s race, and said, “This is [alliterative obscenity] fantastic.”
Hall made the pace. You could make the argument that Meb made the race, at least in terms of all team members needing to run 2:09 to be top three. Think of it this way: If you were to instruct a young runner on good racing tactics, whose career highlight reel would you have them watch, Hall’s or Meb’s? Like Bernard Lagat, Meb seems always to be in the right place at the right time for as long as his fitness allows.
So if you’re on the start line Saturday and you see Hall set off at 2:06 pace, you might very well say to yourself, “Off you go! Have fun!” and hold back with everyone else. But if you see Meb immediately go with Hall, then you know everyone else really ready to fight for a spot on the team will too, and so you know you need to get on that train.
Behind the four sub-2:10 finishers came the deepest day in American men’s marathoning since the fabled Boston 1983, which, until Saturday, featured the most number of American men breaking 2:10 on one day. (Three did then.) Tenth place in 2:12 is something that had never happened at the marathon trials, but that’s what it took for Jimmy Grabow to place 10th on Saturday. The number of guys running 5:00 pace for a marathon on one day also makes me say, “This is [alliterative obscenity] fantastic.” Yes, a 2:12 marathon ain’t what it used to be on the world stage, but would you prefer that 10th place at the trials not require a 2:12? A widening and growing penultimate row of the pyramid can’t help but skooch the pinnacle higher.
Over the weekend, Amby and I discussed our natural skepticism, and how what’s usually a help in our profession can be a hindrance in Hall’s. Amby said how he now feels that how he’s mentally hardwired—having a hard time shutting off the “Yeah, but….” voice—may have held him back as a runner. (While everyone knows he won Boston in 1968, not as many people know that at one point he was only a second off the American record in the marathon.) As it pertains to Hall’s prediction that it would take 2:09 to make the team, my skepticism wasn’t based on believing there were three guys capable of running 2:09 on the day, just that it wouldn’t be necessary. I was basing that on looking at history.
Hall was thinking not of the past, but the future—he said after the race that Americans need to get used to going fast from the gun if they’re going to compete with the rest of the world. Hall’s way was better, and I was wrong for not believing him.
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