Dathan Ritzenhein and his wife are anxiously awaiting the birth of their second child. The boy was due last week but hasn't made it to the starting line yet.
"The waiting game," Ritzenhein called it in his latest Twitter update.
But the long-awaited rebirth of American distance running, in which Ritzenhein has been a major player, continues to create excitement for those who love the sport.
After Bob Kennedy became the first American to break 13 minutes for 5,000 meters, 13 years passed before Ritzenhein became the second. It took only seven days for Matt Tegenkamp to join them in the sub-13 club last summer.
Meb Keflezighi's American record for 10,000 meters stood nine years before Chris Solinsky and Galen Rupp bettered it in the same meet this past May.
"I don't think it was a coincidence that Matt ran 12:58 right after I ran 12:56," Ritzenhein said in a recent interview. "Those are mental barriers, I think. When they come down and you see you can run with those guys — the Kenyans and the Ethiopians — so many more people believe there's no reason they can't be at that level as well."
Unless Ritzenhein and his wife are in the maternity ward today, the New York Road Runners will announce that Ritzenhein will be running the New York City Marathon in November. The former Colorado Buff was the top American in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics, finishing ninth, and aims to run the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics.
"Dathan has shown his capability at so many distances from cross country to the 5K," said Mary Wittenberg, president of the New York Road Runners. "We've never seen the best of Dathan in the marathon. I'm convinced the best of Dathan in the marathon is good enough to win this race."
He'll have stiff competition, though. World-record holder Haile Gebrselassie will be running his first marathon on American soil, and Keflezighi — the 2004 Olympic silver medalist — is entered as well.
Ritzenhein earned a bronze medal in the 2009 world half marathon championships, running 60 minutes flat. That was second only to Ryan Hall's 59:43 on the all-time American list.
"I think it's pretty amazing, the changes we've seen in a relatively short period of time," Ritzenhein said. "To think of where we went from, in the darkest days of the '90s, to erase that completely and gain back that time that was lost."
Ritzenhein is living in Portland, Ore., training in a group coached by former marathon great Alberto Salazar that includes Rupp, Alan Webb, former CU star Kara Goucher and Amy Yoder Begley.
It's intriguing that Ritzenhein now trains with Webb. When Webb, Ritzenhein and Hall graduated from high school nine years ago, track fans believed they represented the vanguard of an American renaissance in running. Webb broke Jim Ryun's American high school records in the mile but has had a mostly frustrating career as a professional. He joined Salazar's Portland group last fall.
Ritzenhein and Hall have had a back-and-forth competitive rivalry. Ritzenhein and Webb were never really competitive rivals as professionals because Webb focused on the 1,500 meters and Ritzenhein ran longer distances.
"I really like Alan a lot," Ritzenhein said. "We knew each other pretty well through competitions, but I've really gotten to know him a lot better. It was good to get that connection with someone who has gone through a lot of the same things I have. He's on the rebound, and he's really looking good again. I think we'll just be able to help each other so much in the coming years."
Ritzenhein is fortunate to have the resources of Nike and its sports science laboratories, because he has a history of injuries and has had problems with cramping in marathons.
"There's no other place I could go where I could get the resources we have here," Ritzenhein said. "There's a lot of great minds and great resources they have to figure out the problems I've had with my feet, and Alberto is just relentless. Sometimes it can become overbearing, because he just won't stop until he finds the absolute fix.
"I'm excited for the future. I think we have a lot of things figured out. A lot of problems I had in the past are going to be fixed and be ready to go, for the fall and 2012."
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