Hall To Run London Marathon

Ryan Hall, who won the U.S. Olympic marathon trials this past fall in New York, will be testing himself at the London Marathon this Sunday on his way to Bejing.

Astoundingly, this is only his third marathon. He made his debut by finishing seventh at last year's Flora London Marathon, then went on to steamroll the field and the hills in Central park on his way to a trials record victory on November 4th.

Hall, who has lived at altitude (7,000 feet above sea level at Big Bear Lake, in the San Bernadino Mountains) since he was 3 years old, thinks he discovered his talent late. "My very first run was 15 miles around the lake," Hall said. "You would think I would have known I could be a distance runner."

After twice winning the California state cross-country championships in high school, Hall went on to Stanford in search of his Olympic dream. But, in the process leaving his close-knit family of five siblings, he began to struggle with results, weight gain and depression. He quit Stanford for one academic quarter and regrouped on long forest runs with his father, drawing strength from his deep Christian faith and family. He then returned to become the runner-up at the 2003 N.C.A.A. cross-country championships and won the 2005 championship at 5,000 meters.

"I think what I've learned from having success in high school and losing it all in college, it taught me you can't make your life successful based only on athletics," Hall said.

He learned that lesson painfully at the trials. He had trained with Shay in Mammoth, Calif., and he and his wife Sara were teammates at Stanford with Shay’s wife, Alicia. Hall was ecstatic after crossing the finish line first. Fifteen minutes later, he was overcome with grief. He and Sara stayed with Alicia Shay in January in Flagstaff, Ariz., where they trained and coped together. Sara, a 5,000- and 1,500-meter runner, will compete at the track trials in June with Alicia. Hall keeps a picture of Shay in the bible he carries with him.

This Sunday's event is his last big race before the Olympics. Apparently, he feels he needs this short-term goal to help gauge his training against some of the world's top talent later this summer.

"I needed something else to be excited about," Hall said Wednesday in London. "You could go crazy thinking about it for six months."