Ryan Hall, who set records as the fastest American-born marathoner before struggling this fall, has left his longtime coach, Terrence Mahon.
Hall and his wife, Sara, who also trained with Mahon at the Mammoth Track Club in Mammoth, Calif., for nearly five years, have not yet announced a new coach, but they will be moving from Mammoth, said Ray Flynn, Hall’s agent.
“A change of location may be good for his career,” Flynn said. “Sometimes runners need a little change in scenery. There’s not any ill-feeling with the club or the coach.”
Hall, 28, was unavailable for comment, but Flynn said Hall planned to make his announcement of his new coach on his Web site. Mahon did not immediately return messages for comment.
The fall season revealed that something was clearly amiss with Hall. Citing fatigue, he withdrew from the Chicago Marathon two weeks before the race and shortly after finished a shocking 14th place in the Philadelphia half-marathon. Hall owns the American record in the half-marathon, which he set in Houston in 2007 in 59 minutes 43 seconds.
As Runner’s World points out in its article on Hall’s departure from Mahon, Hall said in his blog that his decision not to run Chicago had been a gradual one, as his body struggled to keep up with his training in the previous six weeks. Could this be a difference in philosophy with Mahon?
Under Mahon, Hall established himself as a top marathoner not just in the United States, but in the world.
He ran the fastest marathon debut by an American, at the 2007 London Marathon in 2:08:24. The next year in London he ran 2:06.17 to finish fifth, giving him the second-fastest marathon time by an American. (Behind Khalid Khannouchi, who was born in Morocco and became a United States citizen in 2000.)
Hall won the U.S. Olympic trials marathon in Central Park in 2007 but had yet to win a major marathon. He finished 10th at the Beijing Olympics and third in Boston and fourth in New York in 2009. In Boston this past April, Hall finished fourth. But his time of 2:08:41 was still the fastest run on that course by an American.
Hall said he wanted to run Chicago in order to break the American record this year, but instead he appeared there to cheer on runners for his charity, the Hall Steps Foundation. He will make various appearances in New York, but Flynn said he would not be racing.
As Hall wrote in his blog on Sept. 30, he is done for the year. What he didn’t mention then is where he will pick up again, and with whom.
“In an effort to restore my body I tried everything from nutritional supplements to acupuncture, yet nothing seemed to help,” he wrote. “I tried resting from training for three days and I tried cutting all my afternoon runs until a couple of days ago, at which time it was clear that I was out of time and the only solution would be complete rest, which is why I am not going to race again until 2011. I am going to take a good break and then begin a much more gradual training cycle as I begin preparations for a spring marathon.”
ShareThis