Ryan Hall, a 25-year-old former miler won earlier this morning in 2 hours 9 minutes and change, while Dathan Ritzenhein, the phenom from outside Grand Rapids, MI was second and Brian Sell, running with the Rochester, MI, Hansons Running club, was third.
In the late 90s I was huge into distance running when the U.S. was no good at all (except Bob Kennedy). I drove to Pittsburgh in 2000 to see the marathon trials where Rod DeHaven was the only runner to qualify and I almost did an undergrad thesis on the effectiveness of European-style clubs in developing Olympic sports competitors. It’s great to see so many great marathoners these days.
UPDATE: Former Michigander Ryan Shay died during the race today. Before there was Ritzenhein, Shay was one of a handful of dominant high school runners in Michigan. A real tragedy.
A well-timed article from salon.com: How Oprah ruined the marathon.
There used to be (and probably still is) a lot of discussion about the decline of the mid-packers. These days at the elite level the men have equaled and are surpassing the men’s abilities from the 70s and 80s, but there’s no depth. The 20th American male in any major race is probably 20 minutes slower now than 25 years ago because there aren’t that many people participating. Same with the women (though the American women aren’t now at the level of the 80s elites).
Much as I’d love to blame Oprah and the Penguin (both pretty annoying), I think the culprit is the American economy. The opportunity costs of being a running bum now are incredibly high and this is exacerbated by student loans and the cost of health care. In the period of stagflation and pretty low economic opportunity through the early 80s, one wasn’t really giving up much by eschewing an entry level professional or business position to run and people emerged with little debt from college. Now you’ve got 6 months to find a job that will support you and allow you to tithe (or worse) to the college loan companies.
A guy I used to discuss this with is Bob Hodge, who took menial jobs for a couple months while training with the Greater Boston Track Club, then traveled around to other places to run and race, then did it all again with some phenomenal success.