Ryan Hall has been widely praised for his tall, chesty running form, which has often taken him to the front of big races. But he'll never win an award for his everyday posture; he's a slouch of the highest order. *I've noticed this quirk often in the past, but it came into more pronounced focus one day last August at a hotel in Manhattan. I was there for a press conference the day before the New York City Half-Marathon. Olympic Marathon medalists Deena Kastor and Catherine Ndereba were there, too, sitting tall and straight at a conference table when Hall slipped into the room. Escorted to a chair, he folded himself into it with a waaaay-back lean. Reminds me of someone, I thought. And then it came to me: Bill Rodgers, the American marathon legend and my former college roommate at Wesleyan University—and another world-class sloucher.Hall and Rodgers, of course, have much more in common than the way they sit. Both had great high school running careers, followed by lackluster college performances, as they struggled to find focus in their lives. Both had to accept a new event, the marathon, they previously had dismissed. Both have an easygoing personality that belies the fierce competitor within; they are friendly almost to a fault, willing to chat with anyone about almost anything. "Sign your program? Sure, no problem. Hey, want to come along on my six-mile cooldown?"
Both also understand that running is a trivial activity compared with life's greater quests. Rodgers protested the Vietnam War, pushed for running to emerge from the dark shadows of amateurism and its under-the-table payments, and railed against politics mixing with sport. Hall, with his wife, Sara, has put time and money toward helping destitute children and families in Africa since his college days. Rodgers and Hall are, in short, the kind of individuals you'd be proud to call your son, brother, uncle, or neighbor.
All that said, though, here's how the two differ: Rodgers won four New York City Marathons; Hall has none. Rodgers won four Boston Marathons; Hall has none. Rodgers won numerous big marathons around the world; Hall has none. With his victories in the late 1970s and early '80s, Rodgers became the face of a running generation; the beloved "Boston Billy." Without any big international wins to his credit, Hall is still "Someday Ryan."
We Americans, including the media and legions of running fans, have long waited for another Bill Rodgers or Frank Shorter or Alberto Salazar. Everyone likes to root for a hometown boy. So when Hall burst onto the scene with his 59:43 American- record half-marathon in January 2007, and then followed with a runaway victory at the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials, we did more than adopt him. We practically anointed him the Great American Marathon Hope. He was photographed for running-magazine covers, followed closely on running Web sites, and written about in major newspapers.
And yet, while Hall has become the dominant American marathoner of his era, he has yet to break into the international win column. He was competitive at the 2007 London Marathon (his first) but ended up well behind a pack of East Africans. He later finished a disappointing 10th in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He did rebound with an impressive third-place finish in Boston last April, but many people still had thought (had wished) he would end a 26-year American victory drought there. He has, seemingly, been stalled in his effort to follow Rodgers, Shorter, Salazar, and Greg Meyer—the great and often-victorious American marathoners who preceded him. To be sure, the odds are stacked against Hall. He has the record, 2:06:17, for an American- born marathoner, but that still places him only 25th on the all-time best marathoners list that is dominated by East Africans. (Moroccan-born Khalid Khannouchi holds the American record, 2:05:38, set in 2002, two years after he gained his American citizenship.)
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