Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Stars at Night....Deep in the Heart of Houston!

No one would generally expect the last week of January to hold so many insights and clues into the development of the 2012 American Olympic Marathon team, but this week has, and will as the weekend winds up. The Aramco Houston Marathon and Half Marathon will showcase some of the best distance talent in the United States this weekend. While no one who is expected to contend for a spot in London is running the full marathon, the full tilt will still boast some great international talent. Last year's winner is making another appearance, and he won crossing the tape in under 2:08, which for races in America not located in the windy city, is pretty descent.
Ryan Hall, who for the remainder of this article we will call the beard, will be making his return to racing. His last performance was at the Philadelphia Distance Run, where he finished 13th and days later withdrew from the Chicago Marathon. He sacked his coach in pursuit of his own training ideas (something that I consider as noble in this day of dependence on coaches, I do not think the Kenyans have coaches these days, maybe the ones training in Japan, but this is quite the run on parenthetical, so I will stop). Honestly I am going to go ahead and state that Hall is going to win, in fact I think Hall will win going away, he may even set an American record, especially if he is being pushed by others. (FYI-Ryan Hall has never raced with a beard before :))
(This is an edit. I was under the impression that Gotcher was running just the half. It is apparent he is running the full marathon. While I feel this is a mistake as he should run the half, and then run Boston or London in the spring to really face the giants of marathoning, it is a chance for an American to win a big race. I am giong to leave the rest of my thoughts on Gotcher as follows, as I feel that it is how it would play out if Gotcher was running the half)That main other, I believe will be Bret Gotcher. Gotcher American running circles last year by almost breaking 2:10 in his marathon debut in the same city. Gotcher has laid low since and has not made much noise. This I believe is wise. As we in the distance running community are rejoicing at our international resurgence, some of the guys we are lifting up are beginning to wilt. I am afraid of this with Dathan Ritzenhien who just yesterday withdrew from the London Marathon citing yet ANOTHER injury. Gotcher, I believe will nip the heels of the Beard for a good ways, and maybe even force Hall to jump his pace a little soon, but the Beard will pull away as I stated earlier, and win.
That, I am pretty sure, will be the one two punch. Third place, well not sure on that one. There are several guys who have done great things, but we still just do not know what they are fully capable of.
Jorge Torres
Abdi Abdirahman
Jason Lehmkuhle
All three of these guys have had top 10 marathon finishes in the past year or so. Abdirahman represented the US in Beijing in the 10k. All three though, with this past year being a non championship year, and a non Olympic year, simply did not make any splashes. Look for one of these three men to take the third spot.
Because of the deep competition, I do not look for any unknown stealing the spotlight, of course this is what racing is always about. Who is good on what day?
In order to follow the Houston Marathon, your best bet is to follow Runner's World Amby Burfoot as he follows the each race live on www.runnersworld.com.
Enjoy the race, and watch, the Beard wins, and bests his own Half Marathon record.

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