HOUSTON – There were few surprises at the US Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston on Saturday. The 2004 Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi rebounded after missing the 2008 Olympic team and ran a lifetime best 2:09:08 despite only 48 days of training after the New York City Marathon and spending three weeks on the couch with an infected foot. Ryan Hall, the pre-race favorite and American record holder, was beaten and placed second (2:09:30). Abdi Abdirahman made his fourth U.S. Olympic Team (2:09:47) despite struggling for the past year and a half with an ailing hip and stress fracture in his right femur.
In the women’s race: Shalane Flanagan beat the deepest U.S. field ever assembled and ran a Trials record of 2:25:38 in just her second career marathon. Pre-race favorite Desiree Davila made her first Olympic team in 2:25:55, and Kara Goucher hung on for third (2:26:06).
But to truly appreciate the efforts of the men and women who can sustain sub-five and sub-5:45 minute miles, respectively, for two hours or more, it helps to have the best seat in the house: in the lead vehicle, riding backwards on a flatbed truck, shoulder-to-shoulder with photographers and their long lenses, just hoping that your hat doesn’t obscure the digital clock behind mounted behind you that the runners use to calculate their splits during the race.
Since the men’s and women’s Trials were held concurrently, each race had a separate press truck. I opted for the women’s truck, thinking that race would be less predictable.
When our engine started, our view of the Houston Astros’ ballpark grew smaller as we headed toward the start line for the 8:15am gun.
There were eight of us on that flatbed, including a college kid would record the official mile splits, and Flanagan’s mother, Cheryl, a professional photographer who, in 1971, held the women’s world record in the marathon. Suddenly, this was better than being in the front row, it was like being in the Flanagans’ living room – except it was 37 degrees and we were bundled up like Eskimos.
The race started slowly (6:11 for the first mile) but our truck was quick, and we were so far ahead of the pack that it was impossible to discern who was who, even through a telephoto lens. The driver’s windows were closed so I wrote “Slower Please” on the back of my start list and held it against the window of the cab, but it didn’t seem to work.
If you couldn’t see the racers, you could at least watch the crowd – and it was stunning to see silhouettes of men and bicycles on the pedestrian bridges over the highway in the glare of the low morning sun; 50 to 60 tiny flags stuck into the fence of the road divider; and perhaps, most bizarrely, an older man in a sleeveless shirt with a car tire harnessed to his waist, pulling it slowly behind him on the sandy shoulder of the road.
No one ever said the Olympic Trials weren’t inspirational.
By mile 12, five women were in the lead pack. We could identify the 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor’s stiff arm pumping, Davila’s loose black shorts, Flanagan’s blond ponytail, Goucher’s long dark hair, and Amy Hastings’ neon green sports bra.
Soon, just four remained as Kastor dropped back.
Then, after one hour and 29 minutes confined to a truck, profound appreciation for these women set in. My hungry stomach grumbled, my feet were frozen, and my butt hurt from sitting, but it was nothing compared to the exertion of running a 5:20 split – their fastest yet – after smacking concrete for 16 miles on incinerated thighs. Yet their faces betrayed emotion.
Just then, on the side of the road, Jerry Schumacher (who coaches Flanagan and Goucher) yelled, “Kara, put your head down, relax, Deena’s 200 yards back.”
Then, a few yards down near the same patch of grass, a thin man in a grey windbreaker and cap jumped onto an ElliptiGo (a cross between a bike and an elliptical machine) and pedaled like the wind. It was Goucher’s husband, Adam (an Olympian himself) leapfrogging the race to offer Kara as much support as he could.
Four miles later, Hastings faded, and the three-woman Olympic team seemed to be set.
The lone question was: who – if anyone – would go for the win? As speculation hummed, Flanagan’s mother turned to quash the notion that Shalane would be content just making the team. “I say to them,” she said of anyone who might think that, “‘You don’t know my daughter.’”
At mile 24, Kastor and Hastings were completely out of view. For all we knew, they had stopped. Just then, the truck accelerated, exited the course, and sped toward to the finish line. Now, we would have no idea what would transpire in the decisive and final 10 minutes of the race. We were forewarned this would happen because the truck isn’t allowed to trip the timing wire at the finish.
When the truck finally stopped, we leapt out single-file and raced up the stairs to the photo bridge. On the JumboTron, we could see that Flanagan had opened up a substantial lead and was running alone. In the end, Flanagan, Davila, and Goucher were separated by 28 seconds… Hastings crossed one minute and 11 seconds after Goucher, and Kastor finished more than three minutes and 30 seconds behind Hastings, in sixth place, and off the Olympic team. Two of the three new Olympians cried; Kastor did not.
And then, ambling quickly on frozen feet, I was off to the press room to find out what the heck happened in the men’s race.
Aimee Berg is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.