Friday, November 02, 2007

A big marathon weekend...

Be up early Saturday morning if you want to see some awesome running. It's an event I'd think is even bigger than Boston. On Saturday in New York, at 7:30 a.m. ET, the U.S. Olympic trials takes place in Central Park. Starting in the city and four laps around the park. And it'll be watchable online. The U.S. men's marathoning is looking mighty strong. Just look at the lineup courtesy of the USATF:

Meb Keflezighi: The headliner of the Olympic Trials following his silver medal-winning performance at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Keflezighi has a marathon personal best time of 2:09:53, run at the 2004 ING New York City Marathon....

Alan Culpepper: Lafayette, Colo., resident Alan Culpepper will look to qualify for his third Olympic team overall and second as a marathoner following his triumph at the 2004 Olympic Trials Marathon in Birmingham, Ala. ...

Ryan Hall: Widely considered the start of the future, 2005 Stanford graduate Ryan Hall of Big Bear Lake, Calif., has recently taken U.S. road racing by storm. Last October he set the U.S. 20 km record with his time of 57 minutes, 54 seconds before setting the U.S. half marathon record in his debut at that distance in January when he stopped the clocks in 59:43. Hall enjoyed another amazing debut performance when he posted the fastest debut marathon in U.S. history in April with his time of 2:08:24 in London.

Abdi Abdirahman: Two-time Olympian and three-time World Outdoor Championships team member in the 10,000 meters Abdi Abdirahman enters the Olympic Trials looking to qualify for the U.S. Olympic Team as a marathoner....

Dan Browne: After qualifying for the 2004 Olympic Team in the 10,000m and the marathon, Dan Browne of Portland, Ore., has since been hampered by two knee surgeries and an emergency appendectomy....

Dathan Ritzenhein: Although he's only completed one marathon in his career, Dathan Ritzenhein of Eugene, Ore, is familiar with running in New York. "Ritz" looked impressive in running close to the lead group for 22 miles at the 2006 ING New York City Marathon before dropping to an 11th place finish in 2:14:01...

Other contenders in the field include 2003 USA champion Ryan Shay (Flagstaff, Ariz.), 2006 Boston Marathon fourth-place finisher Brian Sell (Rochester Hills, Mich.) and American record holder Khalid Khannouchi (Ossining, N.Y.)

All I can say is, wow. It'll be a strong, strong field.

Oh yeah, and on Sunday, there's a little road race called the New York City Marathon.

3 comments:

Triseverance said...

Here is a funny story, a guy from Oshkosh Jason Ryf qualified for this last year in Chicago. Not one single local story in our paper about him. I am shocked, he is a 30 something runner from Oshkosh a town of 60k and nobody knows he is running this weekend in the trials. The guy blows by me all the time on the trails. Amazing runner, very gifted and hard working.

Triseverance said...

Very sad about Ryan Shay, Jason was 96th. I think he was injured, I have seen him on his bike quite a bit lately, I think he ran a 2:19 in Chicago last fall.

yumke said...

It was very sad to hear about Shay. But what an amazing race.