July/August 2008
Table of Contents
Departments
Editorial
Making the Rounds
Richard Benyo
On the Road with Don Kardong
The Olympics
Select Medical Corporation Harrisburg Marathon
The Keystone State’s capital hosts a gem of a down-home marathon.
Joe's Journal
Trials Times
Features
Not So Bright on the Hood-to-Coast
Some last-minute madness goes a long way.
by Richard A. Lovett
A Running Journal
My winter with the Hansons, my spring at the Olympic Trials.
by Lori Stich
Every Morning I Run
Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman inspire me.
by Annie Falor
Ryan Hall
Inspiring With the Gift.
by Tito Morales
© 2008 42K(+) Press, Inc.
The men’s Olympic Marathon Trials come around only once every four years, and the stakes are always high.
On the morning of November 3, 2007, 130 of the country’s best marathoners, including 25-year-old Ryan Hall, clustered in the predawn darkness near Rockefeller Center to vie for the right to represent the United States at the 2008 Olympic Games. While all had spent the better part of their lives training for this moment, only three would make the team.
The atmosphere for these Trials was particularly electric. For the first time in history, the competition was being staged in conjunction with the New York City Marathon, one of the highest-profile races on the planet. The course, which featured five challenging loops through Central Park, had been designed for bigger crowd support and heightened drama. Anything to do with the Big Apple, it seems, always equates to heightened drama.
Aside from Hall, the field included all three returning marathoners from the 2004 Olympic team: Meb Keflezighi, who earned a silver medal in Athens; Alan Culpepper; and Dan Browne. Other headliners included Khalid Khannouchi, a former world record holder who has thrice broken 2:06 in his illustrious career; the Hansons-Brooks team, a 13-member contingent led by Brian Sell; Ryan Shay, the 2003 USATF marathon champion; and Abdi Abdirahman, whose marathon PR of 2:08:56 had earned him the third seed.