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 TWO YEARS AGO, RYAN HALL HAD NEVER RUN A MARATHON. NOW HE HAS LEARNED THAT RACE SO WELL HE IS ON HIS WAY TO BEIJING TO SEEK AN OLYMPIC MEDAL IN THE EVENT.
by micah mcdaniel
AFTER HIS VERY FIRST JOY RUN AS A 14-YEAR-OLD,
Ryan Hall knew he was destined for this. It just took him 11 years to figure it all out.
From a high school middle-distance phenom to an up-and-down collegiate career to the top American marathoner, Hall's transformation has been nothing shy of extraordinary. A miler by trade, Hall quickly progressed to the longer distances and is now the best marathoner this nation has to offer.
He won the 5K as a 2005 senior at the NCAA Championships and then won both the USATF 12K Cross Country and US Half Marathon titles in 2006. He set the American 20K record (57:54) at the inaugural IAAF World Road Running Championships in Hungary to close out 2006 and then set the American Half Marathon record (59:43) at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in January 2007.
In his first-ever 26-mile jaunt in April 2007 at the London Marathon, Hall set an American debut record, placing seventh with a 2:08:24. Seven months later, he stunned the racing community and won the US Olympic marathon trials in New York City, shattering by 17 seconds a record older than he is, running a 2:09:02, more than two minutes ahead of his next competitor.
It wasn't the fact that he won that was so astonishing--his talent has been oozing from his pores since he erupted onto the national running scene in high school. It was the fact that this 25-year-old rookie literally sprinted his way to victory over veteran Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi and former world record holder Khalid Khannouchi, neither of whom made the team. Over the first 40K of the race, each of his 5K splits was faster than the previous one.
Now the United States is pinning its marathon gold medal hopes on someone who has run the distance only two times.
No need to worry, though. He was made for this.
Hall's "ah-ha" moment came during the 2006 USATF 12K Cross-Country Championships. He had finished third in the 4K the previous day in the race he actually came to run. A few weeks prior, he had decided he was going to try to double and run the 12K as well. At the time he was spurred more by curiosity than by anything else. He won by 27 seconds and instantly knew that long distances were his new specialty.
"There was something surreal about that day," says Hall. "Everything was clicking. I was experiencing a runners' high and was in my flow. There was a point late in the race where I looked up into the sky and realized that this is what I was created to do--to run long distances. It was a tough day for many, but not for me. It was cold and snowy, just another 'Big Bear day.' "
Tucked high in the San Bernardino Mountains in Southern California, about a two-hour drive from downtown Los Angeles, the community of Big Bear Lake is your typical mountain community. The Halls moved there when Ryan was five. It wasn't until he was 14, though, that his dad took him for a relaxing jog around the lake, and Ryan was hooked.
"God gave me a vision for my life that day," says Hall. "When I got home from that run with my dad, I knew that God had something special for me on a grand stage. It wasn't about me, but rather, I knew that he was going to use the gift of running to encourage others and spread the gospel."...
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