From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Jul 27 2009 - 08:55:12 EDT
Keflezighi wins big; but race still has great finish
Don Doxsie | Posted: Saturday, July 25, 2009 8:30 pm | (2) Comments
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Meb Keflezighi from San Diego, CA., moves into the lead over Anthony
Famiglietti from Knoxville, TN., along Kirkwood Blvd. during the 2009
Quad-City Times Bix 7 road race. (John Schultz /Quad-City Times)
It wasn't a tight, nail-biting finish, as we've had in many years.
This time there was one guy running alone at the front for about half the
race. No drama. No suspense. No controversy. No intrigue.
But Saturday's 35th annual Quad-City Times Bix 7 still had a great finish.
It's always great when the winner is someone who genuinely appreciates the
generous crowd support he receives and, in fact, revels in it. For that
matter, Meb Keflezighi was reveling Saturday in the fact that he was able to
run at all.
Keflezighi wasn't the only story to come out of Saturday's Bix 7, which
served as the U.S. national championship for 7 miles. Former Notre Dame star
Molly Huddle claimed an upset victory in the women's race, Davenport's Ben
Lloyd won $3,500 in the Rhythm City Casino Run for the Jackpot, and
Nathaniel Hird of Rock Island won the first Gregg Newell Trophy as the first
Quad-Citian across the finish line.
But the most stirring story was Keflezighi, who won his second Bix 7 only a
year after it appeared his running career might be over.
Last year there were times when it was difficult for him to even get around
his southern California home. Running up and down hills on steamy pavement
in Iowa on the last Saturday in July? Forget it.
"For awhile I was crawling to the bathroom," Keflezighi admitted. "It was
taking me 5 to 7 minutes to get there."
Contrast that to Saturday when it took him less time to run a mile - he
averaged 4 minutes, 37 seconds - than it used to take him to reach the john.
Keflezighi's problems began when he suffered a fracture in his right hip in
the fall of 2007, at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials. He worked very hard
for several months after that to come back.
"I was in physical therapy from 7:30 in the morning until 7 at night," he
said. "It's all I was doing."
After taking six weeks off to rest, he said he couldn't even walk or run in
a straight line.
"I was going sideways," he said.
However, he said it was easy to keep his problems in perspective. Fellow
runner Ryan Shay died of a heart attack in those same marathon trials. What
were a few hip issues by comparison?
Things finally began to turn around this year. Keflezighi won the U.S.
half-marathon championship in Houston in January, then ran the fastest
marathon of his life in London.
"Many people thought my career was over," he said. "But I'm very driven."
He said he stood at the starting line before Saturday's Bix, listened to
Jack Carey sing the national anthem, and thought about the trek his life has
taken, from surviving civil war in Eritrea as a child to seeking refuge in
Italy to settling with his family in San Diego to Olympic stardom to the
depths of last year.
All of it was forgotten as he romped to victory Saturday, then celebrated
with fans he said played a role in spurring him toward the finish line.
"God gave me a second chance," he said. "He took it away from me for about a
year-and-a-half, but I've got it back now."
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