From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Fri Aug 07 2009 - 07:41:52 EDT
Resurgent Keflezighi looks for Falmouth win
By John Powers, Globe Staff | August 7, 2009
The man they call “Meb’’ has done this 7-mile seaside jaunt only twice, but
already the vibe seems comfortable to him: competitive yet relaxed, intimate
and friendly. The street-carnival atmosphere at the Woods Hole start, with
the bugler’s call to post. The undulating course that literally goes from
woods to shore. The up-and-down roller coaster dash to the finish with
spectators lining the street. The shorts-and-flipflops, burgers-and-beer
feel of a midsummer weekend on the Cape.
“It’s the most low-stress environment,’’ says Meb Keflezighi, who will take
the line Sunday morning for the 37th Falmouth Road Race with an excellent
chance to become the first domestic men’s victor since Mark Curp in 1988.
Falmouth is where Keflezighi began his comeback last year, setting the stage
for what has been a remarkable 2009 renaissance with victories in three US
championships - the half marathon, cross-country, and 7-mile road race -
plus a personal best of 2 hours 9 minutes 21 seconds in the London Marathon
in April. A triumph here, after a pair of runner-up efforts, would bring the
34-year-old from San Diego full circle from 2007, when Falmouth was the last
good moment for him in what became a hellish Olympic season.
Though he finished second to Kenya’s Micah Kogo that year, it was a
satisfying tuneup for the November marathon trials for Beijing, where
Keflezighi hoped to upgrade the surprise silver he’d won in Athens in 2004.
Making the team in New York seemed almost a given. “I just want to join you
on the team,’’ training partner Ryan Hall told him.
Keflezighi, as always, set out to win. But after Hall ran away from
everybody at 17 miles, he went to Plan B: Make the three-man team. Then,
when his calves cramped and he began falling back, Keflezighi reset his goal
again. “OK, maybe Dathan [Ritzenhein] will run the 10,000 meters and I’ll be
an alternate,’’ he told himself.
On another day, in another race, Keflezighi might have dropped out once his
chances faded.
“Around Mile 22 or 23, people were saying, ‘We love you, Mebby, you’re our
hero,’ ’’ he says. “I’m not a quitter, so I kept going.’’
And paid painfully for it. Keflezighi could barely walk after he struggled
to finish eighth and had to drag himself to the bathroom. It felt far worse
than the usual post-marathon miseries, and when the pain continued for
weeks, Keflezighi wondered if his running days might have ended.
“Can I walk again, normal?’’ he recalls wondering. “That’s where I was.’’
What Keflezighi had, as an MRI showed in late January, was a hip stress
fracture. It wasn’t until May 19 that he returned to the track, just 45 days
before the Olympic track trials in the 10,000, not nearly enough time for
Keflezighi to regain his A game against a loaded field that included the
likes of Abdi Abdirahman, Galen Rupp, and Jorge Torres. After he finished
13th in the event in which he’d competed in Sydney and held the American
record, Keflezighi found himself written off by some as washed up, which
irked him.
“Somebody who knows running knows that you can’t just disappear,’’ he says.
His résumé, compiled over a decade, was top-shelf. US titles (now 19 and
counting) on the track, the road, and cross-country. Two Olympic teams,
including the first marathon medal by a US male since Frank Shorter in 1976.
Two podium finishes in New York and one in Boston. “The only bad race I had
was in 2006 in New York when I had food poisoning,’’ Keflezighi reckons.
Maybe his lost Olympic year was part of God’s plan, he thought.
“I cannot explain it,’’ says Keflezighi, an openly religious man. “I trust
Him and respect Him. Things happen for a reason and I accept it. It just
makes you appreciate the good days when you had them. Imagine if I didn’t
medal in 2004 . . .’’
Last year’s second-place finish behind Ethiopia’s Tadese Tola was heartening
(“Falmouth was the only good thing from last year’’), but Keflezighi’s motto
is “Run To Win’’ and he knew he couldn’t do that consistently unless he got
himself sound again. So at the end of September, Keflezighi went to Colorado
Springs for two months of intensive rehab and strengthening, working from 7
a.m. until 8 p.m.
Still, when he went to Houston in mid-January for the half marathon,
Keflezighi admitted to a few butterflies.
“I was a little bit jittery,’’ he says. “The first time back is a little
weird.’’
But Keflezighi ran a personal best (1:01.25) to beat Ritzenhein by 10
seconds. “Good to see you back,’’ said Brian Sell, the fifth-place finisher
who’d earned the third Olympic spot in the marathon.
Back and very much on his game. That was particularly important, that
Keflezighi remind the world that he hadn’t simply vaporized. In February, he
made his first appearance at the cross-country championships in six years
and held off Tim Nelson at the tape for his third title. Then it was on to
London, where Keflezighi finished ninth but improved his PR by 32 seconds.
If the federation selectors had named him to the marathon team for this
month’s world championships, Keflezighi might have skipped London for the
chance “to try to do something spectacular.’’ His Houston result alone
likely would have been enough to get Keflezighi on the five-man roster for
Berlin. “They said they would let me know after London, but that was too
much of a gamble,’’ he says. “I have to make a living.’’
Keflezighi tried to make the team on the track instead, finishing sixth in
the 10,000 at the US championships in late June. With a bit more recovery
time after London, Keflezighi reckons he might have done it. “I was two
weeks shy of where I wanted to be,’’ he says. “It would have been a
different me.’’
So Keflezighi is back in Falmouth instead, going for the victory that twice
has eluded him in the final mile. “Maybe the third time’s the charm,’’ he
figures. Then he’ll do one more race before running a fall marathon. Other
than an Olympic gold medal or world title, that’s the one missing piece in
Keflezighi’s résumé: a laurel wreath.
“I talk to guys who’ve won a major marathon and they say, ‘I would trade you
any day for that [Athens] medal,’ ’’ he says. “That’s a check mark for me,
but I don’t dwell on it.’’
Already Keflezighi, who grew up in a house without electricity or running
water in Eritrea, has more check marks than he’d dreamed of when he’d left
his homeland at 10 to escape the war with Ethiopia that had dragged on for
decades. He ended up in California, where a scholarship to UCLA launched his
running career.
“My wife and I always pinch ourselves,’’ says the man whose passport lists
him as “Mebrahtom.’’ “Is this true? Where we started - and where we are?’’
*John Powers can be reached at jpowers@globe.com. *
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