“Yes London was another pace surprise (63:10 at halfway) although not the shocker like last year (61:35 halfway). After reviewing my photos, race video, and discussions with the athletes the slow pace reflected that it was was rough day for running.

“Most of the guys talked about slipping on the slick pavement, some even said that there shoes were not well suited for the wet pavement. I didn’t talk to Sammy (Wanjiru) after the race, but I think he had the same shoes as Chicago, and you can imagine those hard slap – slap shoes on wet pavement. The athletes also mentioned having water splashed on their legs causing some cramping.

“Like you – watching the race develop - I wondered what was going on. I double and triple checked the Pace Display sign to see if it was working. I got a thumbs up when pointed to the sign after 5K, and I saw a pick-it-up reaction from Sammy and Gharib after they saw the slow pace at 15K. I think that despite displaying Marathon Pace along with every mile split, the athletes still only trust the Km splits.

“All told I just have to think it was a slow day – just the opposite of Boston. The sight of a few runners in the lead pack who obviously didn’t belong there seemed to reinforce the slow pace theory, but that slow pace destroyed them as they all jogged home or DNF’d. It was a shame after all London had to cope with to get the athletes in place, and that a week of sunny San Diego weather turned to rain an hour before the race – again the opposite of Boston.

“Attached is the pace data displayed to the athletes. Splits were dead on as Hugh Jones was with us and we got splits right on the survey marks on the road.”

Here is a link to a London SlideShow
http://www.uwec.edu/hartnesg/2010London/index.html

Thanks to Sean Hartnett for his unerring eye, and dedication to detail.

Our reporter on Heartbreak Hill was busy corralling whomever he could for a quick interview as the field trudged up toward 21 miles.

“Hi, you’re on live TV,” he began with one woman.  “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” she replied.

“What are you running for?”

Without a second’s irony, she replied, “3:30,” and continued on her purposeful way.

The reporter came to a stop, seemingly caught off guard by her response.  3,30?  Was that some charity he hadn’t hear of?  What did “3,30″ refer to? Flummoxed, he let the woman go, and sought out another runner. Well, of course, the woman was telling the poor soul the time she was shooting for in this, the most prestigious foot race in the world.

Ever since the BAA instituted time qualifications in 1970 to retard the size of the fields, Boston’s qualifying times have become the holy grail of average marathon runners the world over. Qualifying for Boston is often referred to as the People’s Olympics, and if you’ve ever stood at the finish line of a marathon as the clock ticks toward the Boston cut-off time, the emotion on the faces of the runners who make it, testify to the glory attached to earning a Boston bib number over and above simply finishing a particular marathon.

Boston isn’t like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry marathon where $70 to God knows how much will garner you a bib number. No, at Boston you have to be a real runner. Or, at least, that’s how the policy’s unintended consequences have turned out.

Nowadays, however, the sport has so given itself over to charity fundraising that the very concept of running a race for a fast time no longer computes.  And what if Macbook running slow? In fact, there were some runners who qualified for Boston who weren’t able to run this year, because the race had “sold out” by November 2009, many through charity entry.

Please don’t get me wrong. I am among those who believe that the charity connection to running has become a wonderful, and richly rewarding addition to the sport.  But what was once a side dish threatens to become the main course.  What do you think?  Has the charity component gone too far in running? Does any reporter ever ask Kobe Bryant, “what are you shooting for?”  Let us know how you see it.

 ”It hasn’t sunk in yet what I ran,” a surprisingly fresh Solinsky told the gathered media that surrounded him after his historic run.  “We came in hearing about Galen Rupp trying to break the record. This was a glorified tempo run.  This was just an indication race to see where I was, because we are going to Oslo for a 5K (June 4th).  This was my debut. No one expected it.  I didn’t expect it!”

The Payton Jordan meet was selected at the last-minute by Salazar and Rupp after the weather outlook at the previous night’s Oregon Relays didn’t produce the best opportunity for a record attempt.  Salazar had called around for a month hunting for pacers able to run through 7K at sub-27:13 tempo. But pacing became problematic from the gun. 

Kenyan Simon Ndirangu took the pack through an uneven first mile in 4:24, but got back on pace, whirring through a 4:17 third mile, passing 5K in 13:34.  After Ndirangu fell off at 4K, fellow Kenyan Matthew Kisorio, 20, towed Rupp, Kenyans Sam Chelanga and Daniel Salel, and Solinsky for two more kilometers. When Kisorio gave way, it was left to Rupp to muster the effort.  Coach Salazar, himself a 27:25 man in his heyday, encouraged his prized pupil on each lap.  Rupp’s former NCAA rival Sam Chelanga, 19 year-old Daniel Sale, Canada’s Simon Bairu, and Solinsky remained in the lead group.

Mile four fell in 4:22 as Solinsky suffered through a painful stitch riding the tail of the Rupp’s string.  But with a series of deep breathing exercises Solinsky managed to stave off the cramp and regather his power. 

“With six laps to go the cramp went away, and adrenalin shot through my body,” explained the exhuberant Solinsky.  “And it carried me the rest of the way.”

As the small crowd rose to the record assault, Solinsky took his first steps in front at the top of the stretch with 900 meters to go.  Quickly he opened his advantage.  He blitzed the final 800 in 1:56, his last lap fell in sixty seconds.  His time makes the 25 year-old Stevens Point, Wisconsin native the fastest non-African ever over 10,000 meters, and the first non-African to break 27 minutes.  Notwithstanding, he still fancies himself a 5000 meter man, and has no intention of moving up in distance.

“Everything we’ve been doing is muscle memory training with Simon (Bairu 5th in 27:23.63) and Tim (Nelson 7th in 27:31.56) who are going to New York (City Marathon) this fall.  My mission all year was the American record at 5000. Prefontaine (Meet) is the apex of our season. We’ll run Oslo to get the kinks out, then go to Pre and try to run sub-13 on American soil. That’s been the goal since finding out Pre was having a 5K.”

Behind the chesty Solinsky, another debutant, Daniel Salel of Kenya, finished second in 27:07.85. Sam Chelanga broke his own collegiate record in 27:08.39 in third, with a conflicted Rupp achieving his goal of breaking the old American record in 27:10.74, but not in the manner he had hoped.  Even Solinsky was aware of Rupp’s contribution.

“If not for Galen and his rabbits this wouldn’t have happened.”

Solinsky’s Oregon Track Club teammate Simon Bairu broke the Canadian record in 27:23.63 in fifth. England’s Chris Thompson, OTC, ran the third fastest 10,000m in British history in 27:29.61. Next came Tim Nelson, another of the Solinsky/Bairu teammates trained by Wisconsin transplant Jerry Schumacher. Nelson clocked in at 27:31.56.

With all eyes and expectations on Galen Rupp, Solinsky may have entered the race without any pressure, but knew he was ready for something. 

“We did an 8-miler on a hilly course averaging 4:40 pace recently.  That’s when Jerry (coach Jerry Schumacher) decided to have me try the 10,000.  But I never chase times.  I try to win races, and let the times come.”

As he rambled on to the knot of media on a cool Oregon evening, Solinsky looked fresh and refreshingly agog at his achievement as other runners in the race came over to congratulate the new record holder. Often overshadowed by his Wisconsin teammate Matt Tegenkamp, Chris Solinsky has now stepped out into his own spotlight, and the American distance revolution continues to muster its growing army.

Talk of world records always attends London, though, in fact, they have only witnessed one on the men’s side – in 2002 when Khalid Khannouchi bested Paul Tergat and the debuting Haile Gebrselassie in 2:05:38.  But as we have seen over the last two years, Haile’s 2:03:59 from Berlin `08 is no cakewalk, and will not easily succumb, especially if the temperatures rise to near 70 degrees as forecasters predict. 

Going on two years old, Haile’s < 2:57 per kilometer (4:45/mile) mark is a solid standard. And with the rich talent competing in London, there is always the possibility that once the pacers complete their duties – assuming they even get those duties right – none of the favorites will want to lead his rivals out.

But as Claudio Berardelli, coach to three-time London champ Martin Lel and Duncan Kibet, the second fastest marathoner in history, says, “I think that people like (Tsegay) Kebede, after winning in Fukuoka and running alone the last 10k around 29:15, is now confident with the possibility to push the pace in the second part of the race, and (Zersenay)Tadese again, who has declared the world record, should be the one to go, although from 35k to 42k, its still something he never experienced after dropping out (London `09) around 35k.”

Haile’s 2:03:59 in Berlin 2008 and his 2:04:26 in Berlin `07 were both essentially time trials, though James Kwambai provided a late race spur in 2008.  In London we have the creme de la creme of the sport, the returning podium from last year (Wanjiru, Kebede, Gharib), the reigning medallists from Beijing (Wanjiru, Gharib, Kebede), the current World Champion and runner-up (Abel Kirui, Emmanuel Mutai), and the second career marathon attempt by newly-minted half-marathon world record holder Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea.  In such a gathering there is a separate prestige to winning that may well trump a risky attack on the world record in less than ideal conditions. 

While it is certainly true that one must risk losing in order to win, it is equally true that one must be willing to risk an attack from an even greater distance out to take down the world record.  What has also been proven true over and over is how finely calibrated any world record attack must be to carry all the way to the finish. No man who has surveyed the initial half marathon in under 62:00 has ever returned at near that pace. (See accompanying chart provided by Ken Nakamura).

World fastest marathons’ Split/Lap times

                 Year/Venue   5Km   10Km       Half        30Km        40Km       42.195K

Gebrselassie `08Berlin   14:35 29:13     62:05 1  1:28:27   1:57:34   2:03:59*

Gebrselassie 2007Berlin 14:44 29:27     62:29     1:28:57   1:58:10     2:04:26*

D. Kibet 2009Rotterdam 14:41 29:18      62:35     1:28:51   1:57:54     2:04:27

P. Makau 2010Rott         14:48 29:16      62:08      1:28:54  1:58:38     2:04:48

Gebrselassie 2008Dubai 14:17 28:39     61:27      1:28:01  1:58:20     2:04:53

P. Tergat 2003Berlin      15:01 29:58       63:04      1:29:25    1:58:38   2:04:55*

S. Wanjiru 2009London  14:08 28:30      61:36     1:28:35    1:58:32   2:05:10

Martin Lel 2008London   14:22 29:10      62:12      1:28:29    1:58:53   2:05:15

Kebede 2009 Fukuoka    15:02 29:53     63:05       1:29:47    1:59:01  2:05:18

Gebrselassie 2009Dubai     ?    29:12     61:45      1:28:17     1:58:44  2:05:29

Khannouchi 2002London 14:44 29:37    62:46       1:29:01     1:59:11  2:05:38

Wanjiru 2009Chicago      14:34 29:11    62:01       1:28:46     1:58:56  2:05:41

Khannouchi 1999Chicago 15:09 29:55   63:05       1:29:40     1:59:19 2:05:42

V. Kipruto 2009Paris         14:50 29:45   62:46       1:29:26     1:59:31 2:05:47

W.Kipsang 2008Rott       14:57 29:45    62:54        1:29:41     1:59:24  2:05:49

RK Cheruiyto `10Boston 14:53 30:08    63:27        1:29:58     1:59:21  2:05:52

Haile’s split in Berlin `08 was 62:05.  Last year in London the pacers exploded through 5K in 14:08 (sub 2:00 pace!) and galloped through the half in 61:35.  The pace faltered shortly thereafter, erasing all chances for a world best.  Haile’s 2:04:53 in Dubai 2008, history’s fifth best time, was split in 61:27.  That’s as close as we’ve seen to a sub-62 being held.  But once again, that was no race. 

Sammy Wanjiru returns to defend his 2:05:10 course record from 2009 when he spurred the rabbits to a blistering first half (61:35), then took up the reigns at 18 miles with only fellow Olympic medallists Jaouad Gharib and Tsegay Kebede able to respond.  This year Sammy tuned up for London with a lackluster 61:33 half-marathon in New Orleans in March, compared to a 61:08 ninth-place effort last year in Rotterdam. 

Marathon geographer and Track & Fields News writer Sean Harnett told me at Boston last week that Sammy told him he is well prepared, and, as always, able to provoke his competition while sitting in their wake ready to take advantage when they tire.  His favorite workout, says Sean, is “40k up-down” every Monday back home in Kenya.  And if the weather delivers warmer conditions, remember, he was schooled in Japan since his teens, and had the stuff to attack warm conditions at the Beijing Games in 2008. 

Wanjiru’s 2:06:32 performance in Beijing has become the stuff of legend, and a pivotal race in world marathon history. On the Olympic stage under rising temps, Sammy’s take-no-heed attack ripped the mantel of fear from the marathon distance.  In his wake the young stallions of the sport have seemingly lost even a healthy respect for the distance, though Sunday’s heat could well reestablish some of the marathon’s fallen prestige.

With young lions like Wanjiru and Tsegay Kebede – both are 23 – Emmanuel Mutai, 25, runner-up to world champion Abel Kirui, 27, and recent world half-marathon record holder Zersenay Tadese, 28, commanding the odds sheets, some folks have lost faith in 37 year-old Jaouad Gharib of Morocco and 31 year-old Kenyan Duncan Kibet, last year’s Rotterdam champ at 2:04:27.  Gharib has been a top contender for many years now, and held onto Wanjiru longer than anyone else in Beijing, and was only :17 back in London last April.  But his career is beginning to add up in years, and may, like fellow Moroccan Goumri in Boston, be ready to cede positions to the younger guns.  Duncan Kibet was the big attraction at Berlin last fall going up against Haile, but he didn’t last till half-way.  Coach Berardelli says he is in good shape, though. 

“Duncan is fine, healthy and mentally ready to take the fight; he is probably not far from last year Rotterdam shape but this is probably the most unpredictable race with such strong field. What a pity not to have Martin in the race!”

For the second straight year three-time London champ Martin Lel has been forced to withdraw with an injury.  Not surprising for an athlete of his vintage, but you can almost hear the frustration in Claudio’s words. Lel’s savvy and late race speed is a major loss for the field.

Reigning world champion Abel Kirui told the Daily Standard that he was targeting the course record in his first attempt in London.  But last year’s third placer at Rotterdam (2:05:03) concedes that the conditions could scuttle that goal, and a win in 2:06 would not be a bad consolation.

There is some question as to the overall soundness of Sammy Wanjiru’s back.  He runs with a chesty form that places strain on his lower back, and he complained of discomfort following the chilled conditions in Chicago last fall.  His tune up half-marathon (61:33) raises questions, though it was run in New Orleans in a Rock `n` Roll event - which have become more like guest appearances under the new management rather than deep international competitions.  Even so, he whipped Lel in that race, and tuned up for London ‘s course record win last year in 61:08 in Rotterdam in March, not a significant difference in time from Mardi Gras.  Again, the warm weather may play to his advantage in strategy if not time.

The most dangerous unknown in the field has to be Zersenay Tadese of Ertitrea.  He debuted in London last year, but, due to an illness, only lasted till 35k.  He’s proven the ability to run away from everyone in the world on the turf (2007 IAAF World Cross Country champion – humid as hell there, too, in Mombassa), and the roads (three-time IAAF World Half-Marathon Champion).  Only Keninise Bekele was able to handle his pace over 10,000 meters last summer at the Berlin World Track Championships (Tadese took silver in 26:50).  If his new 58:22 world half record in Lisbon isn’t too sharp an edge, we may see the man the Science of Sport guys in South Africa have called “the most efficient runner in history” emerge fully into his wheelhouse event.

(Watch the Virgin London Marathon April 25 at 8 a.m. ET online at UniversalSports.com,  and at 11 a.m. ET on UniSports TV.  Josh Cox and I will provide the commentary for the TV show.)

The morning after the 114th Boston Marathon Meb was sitting in the Venetian Room of the Copley Plaza Hotel after the post-event press conference.  1990 Boston marathon champion Gelindo Bordin of Italy walked by, saying hi to an old friend on his way out.

“Who was that?” asked Meb.

“That?  That was Gelindo Bordin, the Olympic Marathon champion.”

“Oh, I’ve never met him.”

“Hey, Gelindo!  Come here I want to introduce you to somebody.”

It’s like Hollywood, everybody thinks anyone knows everyone else.  So that’s how the 1988 Olympic gold medalist met the 2004 Olympic silver medalist.  

Meb and Gelindo shared a few words in Italian.  Meb had spent a few years in Milan after emigrating with his family from Eritrea on their eventual way to San Diego.  Gelindo invited Meb back to play soccer in the old country sometime, colleagues. 

It was a nice moment. Any sport  needs to be lucky in its champions.  In Gelindo and Meb running has come out on top.

2008 was an epochal year in distance running.  In America a changing of the guard was underway, led by California’s Ryan Hall.  The previous year had seen his breakthrough, building off a series of record performances, including a majestic win at the Olympic Marathon Trials in November of 2007 in New York City.  He followed with a 2:06:17 fifth place finish in London in the spring, making him the fastest native-born American marathoner of all time, and a medal threat in Beijing. 

Fellow Mammoth Lakes Track Club teammate Meb Keflezighi found himself on an opposite trajectory.  He and Deena Kastor had turned America’s running fortunes around with their Olympic medal performances in Athens 2004, but by 2007 Meb’s fortunes had begun to sour.  Though he had podium finishes in New York City in `04 (2^nd) and 2005 (3^rd), and added another third place in Boston 2006, he was never able to notch the big win. Then a series of frustrating injuries, ailments, and mishaps began derailing his every step. 

Coming into New York 2006 his baggage, which held his racing shoes, was lost on a direct flight from San Diego to New York. Then he contracted food poisoning the week of the race, and finished a dehydrated 21^st.  Notwithstanding, he came back to New York in the fall of 2007 for the Olympic Trials as an odds-on favorite to make the team in Beijing. Yet mid-race he suffered a fractured hip, and had to watch from his eighth place finish as Ryan Hall, Dathan Ritzenhein, and Brian Sell lofted the Red, White, and Blue overhead. 

What haunted Meb – and all of American running – even more was the tragic death of his friend Ryan Shay who was struck down during the Olympic Trials Marathon by a congenital heart failure five miles into the race.

Shay’s sudden passing at what should have been the ultimate athletic performance of his career hung a cloud over the entire American distance scene. Yet hopes were high come the Beijing Games.  Hall and Ritzenhein, especially, had shown they had the tools to compete against the best in the world.  But on that warm sunny day in Beijing, the marathon world would be rocked by a tectonic shift of excellence, further shaking the Americans.  Despite strength-sapping temperatures reaching into the high 70s, Sammy Wanjiru of Kenya attacked the first mile (4:41), then just about every mile, never coming off the throttle until reaching the Bird’s Nest finish line. His 2:06:32 Olympic record shattered the 2:09:  mark set by Carlos Lopes in L.A. 1984, and left much of the world sitting in stunned silence by the pure balls of his run. 

Americans Ritzenhein and Hall didn’t just choose not to go with Wanjiru and the other frontrunners on their suicidal early pace, they found them impossible to match.  Ritz finished in ninth position, Hall not far behind in tenth over six minutes behind Wanjiru.  It was a sobering moment.  In a single performance Sammy Wanjiru had reformulated what was possible over the marathon distance.  His break-every-rule, yet set an Olympic record in the baking heat of Beijing, had heads reeling.  In some ways, Ryan Hall has yet to recover his footing.

Though Meb Keflezighi is older than Ryan Hall, their careers have over-lapped several times.  Before the 2007 Olympic Trials Marathon in New York City, Meb was a member of America’s Big Three along with Alan Culpepper and Abdi Abdirahman.  The three dominated the 2000′s in track, cross country, and road racing, exchanging national titles on a regular basis.  Ryan Hall was a member of what came to be known as the Class of 2000 along with Dathan Ritzenhein, Alan Webb, and Matt Tegenkamp, young world-beaters in high school who took their inspiration from Meb, Alan, and Abdi.

Meb’s Olympic silver in Athens 2004, along with fellow Mammoth Lakes, California resident Deena Kastor’s bronze in the women’s Olympic Marathon set the new American standard.  By the time Ryan Hall debuted in London 2007, he had already established himself as world-class with his American 20K record at IAAF World Road Running Championships in Debrecen, Hungary in late 2006, followed by a 59:43 half-marathon win in Houston the following January, which broke a 21 year-old American record.  That April in London, Ryan delivered again, finishing seventh while establishing a new American Marathon debut record 2:08:24.  And who helped guide him through the experience, none other than his friend, Meb Keflezighi, who was forced to drop out with a severe blister.

After London 2007, the Big Three of Keflezghi, Culpepper, and Abdirhahman found they had company in the upper echelons of American racing.  New kids Hall and Ritzenhein came banging on the door at the Olympic Trials Marathon in New York that November demanding entry.  Last year’s Boston was Ryan Hall’s return to the marathon stage after his Olympic disappointment.  As if to refute his Beijing strategy, he charged out of Hopkinton riding the cheers of the boisterous home crowd partisans.  But as Boston’s most famous blond haired racer, four-time champion Bill Rodgers, has often said, “Boston is the most treacherous start in the world, and the man who leads the first ten miles almost never wins, almost never”.

Ryan failed to take heed.  Added to his error were the east-blowing headwinds. Yet there was Hall, his baggy singlet whipping in the blustery headwinds, at the point of attack, pushing through five kilometers in 14:32, 2:02:30 pace. 

Though you can’t win Boston from Hopkinton to Natick, you most definitely can lose it.  After passing ten miles Hall finally conceded, too late, the error of his strategy.  He floundered through Wellesley and into Newton.  But in a testament to his conditioning and heart, he rallied over the Newton hills, staging a valiant comeback down Beacon Street. After having fallen as far back as eleventh position, he picked his way through the field, returning all the way up to the podium with a third place finish.

Over the last two decades finishing top three at Boston would be a worthy goal for any runner, much less a home-grown one.  But that was before Meb Keflezighi ended one of running’s longest losing streaks in New York City.  With a stirring final two miles, Meb became the first American in 27 years to win in New York City last November against what was considered by many experts to be their finest field ever.  Now all American doubts have turned to desires.  On strength and savvy courses like Boston and New York, it isn’t how long you can hold world record pace, rather who has the stuff of a champion racer, able to throttle up, or idle down as the circumstance, competition, and lay of the land requires.

Ryan Hall was a high school sensation out of Big Bear, California. Along with Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein, Ryan brought chills to running fans with his record-setting performances.  Ryan’s 3:42.70 1500-meter time in high school was just a tic off a sub-four minute mile equivalent.  That success, and subsequent attendance at mile legend Jim Ryun’s summer camp, where he met his future wife Sara Bei, cemented his belief that he, too, was fated to run the mile.  It would become a talisman he fought to hold onto throughout his years at Stanford, even as result after result denied him reinforcement.

Though he captured his only NCAA title over 5000 meters in his senior year, it was only when he moved to the longer distances that his natural strength and elegant form came into full flower.  He took his first national cross country title in New York’s legendary Van Cortlandt Park in the winter of 2006, whipping field by 27-seconds.  His first American record came his way that fall over 20K in Hungary.  The half-marathon followed that next January, and his record win at the Olympic Trials Marathon in November 2007 blew away the field, and created enormous expectations ahead. 

 Since then Ryan has limited himself to racing marathons and the tune-ups for them, proving himself to be more of a trainer than born racer. 

“He’s a pure marathoner,” said his coach Terrence Mahon, in explaining why Ryan only competed five times in 2009, and only once to date in 2010 (a poor 64:07 at the January 17^th P.F. Chang’s Rock `n` Roll Arizona Half Marathon, where he lost to Canada’s Simon Bairu.)

Meb’s career has hewed along a more traditional path than Hall’s.  Having emigrated to the U.S. as a ten year old from Eritrea by way of Milan, Italy, Meb, too, was a high school star in San Diego, then a four-time NCAA track and cross country champion at UCLA.  He made his pro debut on the international running stage when he finished 5th in the 10k at the Pan American Games in 1999.  Throughout the next years Meb moved easily between the track, cross country, and the roads.  He won the Olympic Trials 10,000 meters in 2000, then set the still-standing American 10,000 meter record, 27:13.98, in San Jose in 2001.  He came to the marathon in 2002 in New York, challenging for the win up First Avenue, before fading to ninth place in Central Park. Since then he has experienced the rollercoaster ride of highs and lows that attends any athlete who withstands the tests of time.  His 21 national championships, the win in New York City, coupled with his Olympic silver medal places Meb high on any list of top American runners in history.  He can free wheel from here on, all the pressure of expectations fulfilled. 

In his only run in Boston in 2006 Meb allowed his passion to override precedent. He followed the timorous lead of Kenyan fireball Ben Maiyo, and then-rookie Deriba Merga of Ethiopia (the 2009 Boston champion) through a 1:02:44 half-way split.  They assaulted the early miles like in times of old before the East Africans learned how to husband their resources over the entire distance.  In the end, Meb held on for third in 2:09:56, two and a half minutes behind rangy Robert Cheruiyot’s still-standing 2:07:14 course record, and Maiyo’s 2:08:17 runner up finish.

On Patriot’s Day 2010 both Ryan and Meb will join a field that some have called the best in ten years in Boston.  Both men hope to unseat Greg Meyer from his unwanted throne as America’s last Boston Marathon champion (1983).  Both have tried once before, Meb in 2006, Ryan in 2009.  Both finished third. But now they come together, Meb as the reigning ING New York City Marathon champion, Ryan as America’s fastest native-born marathoner.  Each has experienced the spectacle and particularity of this most treacherous course.

Though we’ve had as many as five Americans in the top ten in 2006, led by Meb in third, we have never seen two Americans come into town each being touted among the race favorites in the modern, Hancock era. 

In Greg Meyer’s 1983, Boston doubled as the qualifier for the inaugural IAAF World Championships in Helsinki, and thus, though excellent, the field was an exclusively American. And in the previous year’s Duel in the Sun between Alberto Salazar and Dick Beardsley, it was Salazar the overwhelming favorite among a field dominated by the top Americans of the day, Beardsley, Rodgers, Ed Mendoza, and Kirk Pfeffer. It was only after the great duel that Beardsley joined Alberto in legend, a status that he never quite achieved again. 

But the buzz that attended those glory years, the same portent of something special building, has been creeping into the long run conversations out along Route 135 as early as February 6^th when Ryan Hall toured the first 22 miles out of Hopkinton in the scouring cold as his wife Sara prepared to race the indoor games at the Reggie Lewis Center in Roxbury.

Both Keflezighi and Hall are deeply religious men, believing that their careers have significance well beyond the glorification of self.  Though Ryan is up 2-1 in their head-to-head match-ups over the marathon distance (London `07 and the Olympic Trials), Meb (New York City `09) has tasted glory more often than Ryan. 

They share a common goal, one both cannot achieve simultaneously.  They train together periodically in Mammoth Lakes – never on significant efforts – and they both want to win Boston very badly.  But with so many top international stars on hand in 2010, the odds of either Ryan or Meb winning cannot be considered high.  The same, however, could have been said before New York 2009. And Meb did win, and Ryan, though not on his A game, finished a strong fourth. 

Though neither man has had a classic build up to Boston, each remains capable of catching lightning on a given day.  Hall is a long-ball hitter, able to drop jaws and inspire awe when his swing is true.  Meb has been bothered by a balky knee, but can get fit faster than any American. There are no guarantees in racing, only hope.  And that, like the marathon itself, springs eternal.

END   

Tiger Woods is among the most self-possessed athletes in modern times. His record of golfing achievements stand in bold relief.  But Tiger Woods, the man?  I’m not sure we ever have, or will, see what’s behind the mask.  Not our right to know, except Tiger wants it both ways.  He wants us to follow, but not intrude, buy, but not pry.  But in accepting the former one forfeits the latter.

Ever since Tiger first showed up on the Mike Douglas Show at age five putting alongside Bob Hope, his has been an image carefully crafted toward hagiography.  That is why his fall from grace last Thanksgiving was so precipitous and shocking, because we, the public, bought the image rather than searching for the man.

Now Nike has come out with a provocative black-and-white ad featuring the disembodied voice of Tiger’s late father, Earl Woods, addressing his stoic-faced son who stands staring blankly into the camera as if heeding the words.  We don’t know what subject matter Early was actually talking about, but the ad men have fit his words into Tiger’s present day sex scandal context.  Tiger has previously made two public appearances to address his situation, an oddly-staged presentation in Florida in front of family and friends, and a press conference Wednesday at the Masters. 

The problem is, since Tiger’s birth we’ve been watching the creation of a false idol.  First his father promised Tiger would change the world.  Not the golf world, or the sports world, but the world world.  Earl didn’t quite rank him with Jesus, but somewhere between Gandhi and the Buddha.   Then, since Tiger turned pro in 1997, it’s been the folks in Beaverton, Oregon writing the hagiography.  Hard to blame Nike.  They have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Woods and the game of golf. But for Tiger to allow a commercial agent to create an image ad in the middle of such an intensely personal moment illustrates what a tin cup ear he has in the service of his own interests. You think Elin or the folks at the sex rehab clinic in Louisiana are backing this at what still must be a delicate stage in his treatment?  It’s an ad.  By definition, it is artifice. How does that dovetail with sincerity? 

The reality is that Tiger’s escapades off the golf course in the last however many years have been the perfect reflection of his alpha-male on-course studliness.  He is the ultimate competitor, and to the victor go the spoils, be they financial, commercial, or sexual.  He said as much, admitting a sense of “entitlement”.  This is how men of stature and position have always acted as a matter of course before women began becoming equal, and therefore less willing to allow men these serial indiscretions of the heart – if that’s the right muscle. 

Only over the last four-plus months has the curtain of this Wizard at Odds (with his own image) been pulled aside to reveal the real stripes of this priapic Tiger.  And the Nike ad only reinforces the sense that everything associated with Tiger is subject to product and image placement, even faux sincerity.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Tiger went out and actually won this weekend’s Masters. He is that focused while on the course, that much in charge of the abundant gifts he’s been endowed with and honed over a lifetime.   But when so much is given in one area, something is inevitably missing in others. 

For Tiger the image bubble has enveloped him for so long, that one wonders if he is even capable of stepping beyond it to see how he looks from the outside in.   Maybe that’s why he continues to listen to the image makers.  Even he doesn’t know who he really is. 

I covered my first Carlsbad 5000 in 1989, the fourth year of the event, and in going back to review what was going on in the running world in leading up to that Carlsbad race, I found notes from a telephone conversation from Sunday December 4, 1988. 

The call was with Alberto Salazar in Oregon who was coming out to Honolulu to join me for the following Sunday’s Honolulu Marathon, which we were announcing as the inaugural event in ESPN’s Road Race of the Month series.  (Wouldn’t it be nice to have that show back on the air?)

Anyway, now that Alberto is coaching Dathan Ritzenhein, Kara Goucher, Alan Webb, Galen Rupp, and the like, the conversation from 1988 struck me as containing all the passion and focus Al put into his own racing, and even the lessons of over-use and abuse that he heaped on himself in that short, but meteoric career of his.

Though he never did regain the form which delivered three straight NYC Marathon crowns from 1981-`83, and the legendary ”Duel in the Sun” win over Dick Beardsley in Boston 1982, you can all but feel the intensity that fueled his career coming over the telephone line that long-ago Sunday in the excerpt below.

“I went to see Tom Tellez (Carl Lewis’ coach) in Houston after New York,” began Al after informing me he would arrive in Honolulu on Thursday with wife Molly and the kids.  “And I got unbelievable results.  He said he’d seen my style all along.  My center of gravity was always behind my footstrike, so my hamstrings were always pulling me along rather than my quads pushing me.  So he changed my mechanics.  He had me bring my foot up, and just drop it straight down.  I felt like I was going to fall on my face! But my hips are right ver my foot strike, and my times have dropped immediately.

“Four days after seeing him, I went out on the roads.  I thought I was turning 5:45s, but when I came onto the track my first lap was a 76, second lap 76. I was running 5:08 pace, but it felt like 5:45!

“I time everything, and that was frustrating for the last four years, because my easy loping was at 6:30 – 6:45 pace, and it used to be 6:00.  So everyday I was reminded that I couldn’t even jog like I used to.  Now everything is at 6:00 – 6:05 again.   And when I was doing the 6:40s, the next day my hamstrings would be sore.  Now at 6:05 pace they’re not sore at all.

“I was forcing my body to use hamstrings which are only 75% as strong as the quads.  I used to feel three distinct phases in my footstrike: heel, mid, and push-off.  My gut instinct was to stretch out my stride if I wanted to run faster, instead of lifting.  The hams are for the recovery stage.

“I know I’m going to run well again. But I’m still keeping my mileage low so I don’t overdo it. I got hurt because I just kept doing more with the bad mechanics until my hamstrings just gave way.  Tellez says I wasn’t running as tall as I used to.  I was sitting down on my hips, and pulling rather than elevating my hips and pushing.”

Well,  Tom’s advice didn’t get Alberto back to the form of old, but all that Al learned from his own mistakes he has been able to avoid in his coaching of others.  What remains unchanged is the passion (along with Molly and the kids, now adults).  

Oh, Yobes Ondieki, the first man sub-27:00 for 10,000 meters, sprinted past a shocked Julius Kariuki, that summer’s Olympic steeplechase champion, at C’BAD 1989 in a new world road record 13:26.  On the women’s side, Canada’s delightful Lynn Williams set a new women’s world record at 15:19 coming off a bronze medal performance at the IAAF World Cross Country Championship in Stavanger, Norway.  The more things change, the more they stay the same. 

This year Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar returns to Carlsbad, hunting for her own & current world road record, 14:46, which she set three years ago in Carlsbad.  The men’s race will be led by former world champion at 5000 meters, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, who will attempt to knock down Sammy Kipketer’s long standing 13-flat best from 2000 & 2001.  

Watch for the world cross country connection to resurface this year, as Matt Turnbull of CGI follows in the hallowed footsteps of the late Mike Long as elite athlete coordinator, when the entire field is announced in a few days. 

When I find anything else of note, I’ll let you know.

Coherence!  It is the key word in presenting any sport to the general public, and it is the one thing running and track have failed to achieve over the last 30+ years.  Now, the Diamond League attempts to cohere around a schedule of 14 world meets as it replaces the six-meet, Euro-centric Golden League in 2010 beginning in Doha, Qatar May 14th.  Competitions in Shanghai, Oslo, Rome, New York, Eugene (Oregon), Lausanne, Gateshead, Paris, Monaco, Stockholm, London, Zurich and Brussels on August 27th will follow Doha.  That’s 14 events in 15 weeks, creating the crtical mass necessary to achieve momentum and a seasonal feel to the new league.

A structured presentation on a fixed calendar is how every rational sport presents itself.  It makes one wonder why road racing can’t seem to find enough partners to build a similar staging structure during its major seasons in the spring and fall – which would fit nicely alongside the summer Diamond League track circuit. 

The World Marathon Majors series made their attempt to create a unified road effort three years ago, but that construct has proven untenable.  The last two cycles have ended with one of the gender winners not even participating in the final event, and the rolling two-year cycle - where a single event counts toward two yearly point lists - is beyond confusing. 

On top of that, the series hasn’t sold a single sponsorship, because the five stake holding events – Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, and New York City – still see their individual events and sponsors as more important than the WMM series.  Dave Bedford in London has been particularly averse to allowing the series to expand to shorter distance events where it might be able to build critical mass and support structure.  Perhaps a successful Diamond League inaugural year may wake up the roadees.