The Olympic Trials Marathon--Men's Race Recap



    On Saturday, I woke up in time to brew a pot of decaf coffee (Mel's not drinking caffeine these days for our little boy. Thanks Mel!), wash my face, and find the best place on the internet to receive updates about what exactly was taking place during the Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston, Texas. Why didn't I just go to NBC Sports and watch the race, or pay my $2.99 fee and watch it on Universal Sports, or go to any number of running websites and watch a free live feed? The answer is that NBC bought the rights to all Olympic events and sued anyone who tried to televise any of the events. And on Saturday, they chose to show cartoons and delay coverage of the marathon till 3 pm. However, the hockey game that was on before the race went long and they still had to get the necessary commercials in and had to end right on time because a dog show had to start right on time, so they cut their coverage short by almost a half hour and quickly removed the content from their website, so no one could show it again. So....to make a long and very bitter story shorter, all HTH has are pictures from people and running websites that were along the race course.

  I will do my best to give you a very brief recap of the men's race. The race started at 8:00 CST. (Picture 1) However, unlike most marathons, the lines of who was in contention for a place on the finish line podium and who wasn't took place within the first mile instead of around miles 16-20. It felt like this whole race was about breaking certain runners who had entered the race with a desire to dethrone the current top runners. And this breaking was done by increasing the pace until one by one, they began to fall off and join the chase group or not finish the race at all. There were times that Ryan Hall, Mo Trafeh, Dathan Ritzenhein, Meb K., and Abdi A., pushed the mile pace to as low as 4:43 for mile after mile. Within the first mile and a half, all the runners had been divided into three separate groups and this would be the case for most of the race. The previous listed runners made up group 1 and Hall lead the race till mile 18 when he moved to second and allowed Abdi to lead for one mile. Group 2, known as the "chase pack" never got closer than 40 seconds behind group 1. And group 3 never got closer than several minutes behind group 2.


Ryan Hall pushing the pace ahead of Group 1

The "Chase Pack"

      Very simply, the race went like this: the gun went off, Group 1 took off like they were shot from a gun, Group 2 attempted to chase after them, but never got close, Group 3 ran their own race, but they were never in contention for much of anything beyond finishing and taking part in the Trials. The real race took place between the already mentioned pack of Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, Mo Trafeh, Abdi Abdirahman, and Meb Keflezighi. They battled from mile one to mile 24 with Hall leading the pack for the majority of miles. He lead every mile except 18, 25, and 26. I was constantly hitting the refresh button in order to find out what was happening. Each mile had drama that was all its own. They would drop a runner. He would catch up. They would change leaders. The leader would add some distance between himself and the others. The others would catch up. They would drop someone else. That someone else would catch up. He would then lead the race. This went on for every mile until mile 24. At mile 24, Mo Trafeh was dropped for good. Dathan was dropped for good in mile 25. Ryan and Meb were the last men standing in mile 26 and after a brief conversation, Meb dropped Ryan in the last half mile to go ahead with the win in a Trial's record time. The top three finishers would all finish below 2:10. Dathan came in a very brave, but career ending fourth. Brett Goucher finished with a PR and a fifth place finish.

   The Trials race proved to be one for the record books. Not just because of the pace, but because it once again showed that anything is possible within the marathon distance. Meb was supposed to either not finish or come in at some distant place behind the winner, but instead won at age 39 in record time. Dathan was supposed to be at his healthiest and some (a lot of) people picked him to win, but instead his legs cramped up and he almost had to completely quit the race. Trafeh beat everyone in the USATF Half Marathon Championship in Houston on the same course and a lot of other people said he would win, but he didn't finish the race. Hall was the clear choice to win because of his dominating performance four years ago and this past year, but instead he came in second place. (I have a little conspiracy theory about why this is so, but I may keep it to myself) Other runners came highly touted by critics at large and they ran well, but were either broken or ran a great raced that was paled by the incredible races run by the top three. And lastly Abdi

Hall pushing the pace near mile 20.




Hall leading the lead pack of five around a curve at mile 22.




Meb preparing to take the lead from Hall near mile 26.

The top three and America's 2012 Olympic Marathon Team: Meb Kefezighi, Ryan Hall, and Abdi Abdirahman.

  The top ten results were: (All of the results can be found at letsrun.com)

 1. Meb Keflezighi 36 New York Athletic Club (NYAC) 2:09:08

 2. Ryan Hall 29 unattached 2:09:30 +0:22

 3. Abdi Abdirahman 33 unattached 2:09:47 +0:39

 4. Dathan Ritzenhein 29 unattached 2:09:55 +0:47

 5. Brett Gotcher 27 McMillan Elite 2:11:06 +1:58

 6. Andrew Carlson 29 Team USA Minnesota 2:11:24 +2:16

 7. Fernando Cabada 29 unattached 2:11:53 +2:45

 8. Nick Arciniaga 28 McMillan Elite 2:11:56 +2:48

 9. James Carney 33 unattached 2:12:23 +3:15

10. Jimmy Grabow 27 adidas Legacy Run Racing 2:12:29 +3:21


   If you didn't watch the race, you missed out. If you did, I hope you found it as exciting as I did. If you watched it on NBC, you probably also found the "live" coverage to be lacking in more than one way. The race really made me excited to see what will take place come summer in London. I hope one or more of these guys can earn us a medal!

Happy Racing and USA! USA! USA!

David