By LIZ ROBBINSA week ago, while Ryan Hall was running around sunny Walden Pond, Meb Keflezighi was back home in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., navigating through a foot of snow.
Last November, when Keflezighi was basking on the podium after winning the New York City Marathon, Hall was frustrated in fourth place.
In 2007, after Hall was high-fiving fans en route to winning the Olympic trials in New York’s Central Park, Keflezighi was sitting on the curb sobbing, worried his career might be over after finishing eighth.
Keflezighi and Hall, the United States’ premier marathon runners, belong to the same team and live 1,000 feet from each other in California. But they have rarely been in step the last three years. Too friendly to be marquee rivals, they are more like good neighbors who pass each other on the trails.
Each has his own coach, style, workout regimen and distinct marathon results. Keflezighi, a gritty, methodical runner, has the medals and finally got his major title; Hall, a gutsy frontrunner, has significantly faster times, but still lacks a big-city victory.
On Monday, they will line up in Hopkinton, Mass., for the 114th Boston Marathon, each hoping to become the first American man to win the race since 1983.
“I respect Ryan, we’re good friends and I wish him nothing but the best,” Keflezighi, 34, said this week from California. “I hope one of us does come first.”
Then, laughing, he said, “Of course, I hope it can be me.”
Hall, 27, was in the hunt last year in Boston before battling headwinds and finishing third.
“There’s this brewing fire in me,” Hall said this week from Boston. “I’ve tasted it. I know I can run even faster.”
Hall is at his best when he can lock into a rhythm early and, as he put it, “just fly.” At London in 2008, Hall ran the second-fastest time ever by an American — 2 hours 6 minutes 17 seconds — in finishing fifth. He has announced that he wants to break the American record (2:05:38, by Khalid Khannouchi) on the flat Chicago course this fall.
But Hall also showed he could steamroll the hills of Central Park. Just as he ran that course before the Olympic trials, Hall came to Boston three weeks early, leaving the 8,000-foot altitude in Mammoth Lakes to gain a different advantage.
Hall wanted to become accustomed to the rolling hills, markers, potholes and winds. Last year, he ran as if burst from a cannon, going 4:28 in the first downhill mile, following a scientific study. He never sustained a rhythm or kept the study. “I threw it out after the race,” he said.
This time, he opted for his own research, with a little help from the four-time Boston winner Bill Rodgers. The two have been exchanging e-mail messages and met one day two weeks ago for a brief run. “When you get familiar with the course, you are more in your element, you can flow out of that,” Hall said.
Keflezighi, meanwhile, feeds off the flow of competition. He proved he was a championship racer by winning the silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics, the first American man to medal since Frank Shorter in 1976. In New York, Keflezighi overtook the leader, Robert Cheruiyot, in the final miles to win his first marathon after seven years of near-misses and severe injuries. Perseverance — Keflezighi came to the United States at age 12 after his family escaped war in Eritrea — is his mantra.
Hall’s and Keflezighi’s opposing styles rekindle the age-old running debate over medals and records — and which determines success.
Rodgers has been dazzled by Hall’s talent since his eye-popping marathon debut in London (2:08:24) in 2007. “He’s one of the most, if not the most successful runners since Frank Shorter, who won and won and won,” Rodgers said, but quickly added, “I would say, though, at this point, Meb has achieved a higher level, and that was really cemented in New York.”
Hall, too, was impressed by Keflezighi’s performance in New York.
“It was just cool to see him win after many people had written him off,” he said. “Seeing his age — not that he’s at the end — but it’s good to see a guy out there hit it and pick up victories.”
Keflezighi turns 35 on May 5. He is the father of three girls, the youngest just turning 3 months. Keflezighi opted to stay in Mammoth Lakes until the last possible moment — for his family, and also to make up for lost time.
In January, he injured his left knee after falling on ice, which curtailed his training in February and contributed to his dropping out of the New York City Half Marathon in March. He is still bothered by slight tendonitis, but said he was encouraged by his 100-mile-plus training weeks the last month.
“Obviously he wouldn’t be running Boston if we didn’t think he could come up with a strong competitive race,” his longtime coach, Bob Larsen, said.
Hall, too, had an injury last winter. He finished second at Phoenix’s half marathon in January, when he was bothered by adhesions in his legs and received treatment in February.
Before their injuries, the two did a few tempo and long runs together, but with Hall wanting to push the pace and Keflezighi more methodical, “that doesn’t always lend itself to training together,” said Terrence Mahon, Hall’s coach, who oversees the dozen elite athletes in Mammoth Lakes.
Keflezighi mentored Hall when he began running marathons, and the two now compare notes. Mahon hopes the team’s bonds, albeit loose, will help them against the Ethiopians, led by the defending champion, Deriba Merga, 29, and the Kenyans, featuring the newcomer Gilbert Yegon, 21, who ran a 2:06:18 in Amsterdam last fall.
No American man has won New York and Boston back-to-back since Alberto Salazar in 1982, when he outdueled Minnesota’s Dick Beardsley in the broiling April heat.
“If an American wins Boston, whether it’s Meb or Ryan, that would just be a huge, huge story,” Rodgers said. “And if Meb gets it after winning New York, that would be quite something.”
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