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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Fri Nov 05 2010 - 06:35:59 EST
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/nov/04/keflezighi-peace-defending-ny-marathon-title/
Keflezighi at peace defending NY Marathon title
By Don Norcross
Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 5:49 p.m
Meb Keflezighi had knocked off an “easy” run last week. Sixteen miles,
sub 6-minute pace, climbing from 7,000 to 7,800 feet in Mammoth,
temperature in the low 30s. His hands were so cold by the end of the
workout that he couldn’t zip up his warm-up jacket.
Now sitting at home, looking out a window, bundled up from the waist
in four layers, Keflezighi was sipping hot milk.
“I’m numb,” he said by phone.
And at peace. The 35-year-old San Diego High product returns to New
York this week to defend his title at the 41st ING New York City
Marathon. His victory across the five boroughs, in a personal best 2
hours, 9 minutes, 15 seconds, was stunning and historic. Stunning
because his career seemed to be crumbling. Historic because Keflezighi
became the first American since Alberto Salazar in 1982 to win the
race.
Recalling his emotional celebration — dropping to the asphalt, kissing
the ground, standing up, crossing his chest, pointing to the heavens,
then breaking into deep sobs — Keflezighi said, “Obviously, the tears
of joy were pretty deep. When I saw the finish line, there was a sense
of relief. That I had done it.”
Finally, in his 12th attempt at the distance, Keflezighi won a
marathon. Until then, his silver medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics
represented his defining achievement. There had been a second and
third in New York, plus a third at Boston. Always the bridesmaid.
That the victory came in New York, where he has raced the most
marathons, tasted success and heartache (failing to make the Olympic
team in 2007, then learning his former training partner, Ryan Shea,
died during the race), made the win even more meaningful.
“California is my home,” Keflezighi said. “New York is my home away from home.”
How has Keflezighi’s life changed since the win?
He’s richer. Between the $200,000 payday, increased appearance fees
and new endorsements the victory was worth about $1 million.
“It was a blessing,” he said.
His notoriety kicked up a notch. He appeared on the “Late Show With
David Letterman.” The autobiography “Run to Overcome,” co-written by
Keflezighi and Dick Patrick, was released this week. Strangers at
airports have asked him to sign their passports.
“You made me proud to be an American,” many have told him.
More than money, fame or adulation, the New York victory was an
exclamation point to Keflezighi’s career, which includes 20 national
championships.
“It’s so transparent to those close to him,” said Keflezighi’s wife,
Yordanos. “He had this vision of himself long before he ever ran
professionally. This was a stamp on that vision.”
Said Hoover High alum Bob Larsen, Keflezighi’s coach since his
freshman year at UCLA, “I think he feels at this point everything else
is gravy.”
Devout in his Christian faith, soft-spoken yet armed with a cackling
laugh, the 5-foot-7, 119-pound Keflezighi is not one to point a finger
and say “I told you so.” But during the final half-mile in Central
Park last November, as he smiled and pointed to the USA across his
singlet, he couldn’t erase a recurring thought.
“I am proving you wrong.”
Before his New York victory, Keflezighi hadn’t run a quality marathon
since April 2006 at Boston when he finished third. (His results after
that: 21st at New York in ’06; a did-not-finish in ’07 at London; 8th
at the Olympic Trials in ’07 at New York; no marathons in ’08 while
recovering from a pelvis fracture; 9th at London last year.)
In Internet running chat rooms he read comments like “Meb’s over the
hill.” Friends stopped calling. His race appearance fees “dropped like
crazy.”
“I got to know the other side of people,” he said.
Endurance athletes walk a fine line. They push their bodies to the red
line, striving for peak fitness, hoping they don’t cross that line and
break. At the 2007 Trials, Keflezighi broke, suffering the pelvis
fracture.
The day after the race, he couldn’t walk.
Watching her husband crawl in their hotel room, Yordanos told him,
“This is not a good way to make a living. We can survive. You don’t
have to do this anymore.”
Keflezighi prayed, decided that the injury was caused by the taxing
course and elected not to quit.
Meantime, Big Bear’s Ryan Hall became the U.S. distance-running
darling, winning the ’08 Trials and clocking the second fastest
marathon ever by an American (2:06:17 at London in 2008).
“The sport kind of moved on and away from (Meb),” said Larsen.
Challenges, though, don’t faze Keflezighi. Resolve — along with a
preternatural aerobic capacity — seem embedded in his fiber, stemming
partly from his Eritrean roots. In the often-told story, Keflezighi’s
father, Rossom, fled Eritrea 30 years ago when the country was at war
with Ethiopia.
He left behind five children and a pregnant wife. Meb was 5 at the time.
“You are not going to do us any good if you are dead or in prison,”
Keflezighi’s mother told Rossom.
Moving at night, Rossom walked about 275 miles to Sudan. Five years
later, the family reunited in Italy.
“My father didn’t know where he was spending the night,” Keflezighi
said. “He didn’t have GPS. He went on intuition. All I’ve got to do is
look out for potholes. I want to make my parents proud. I want to make
my nation proud.”
Said Toni Reavis, an announcer and distance-running historian, “The
easy road is never the chosen road for Meb.”
As he was last year, Keflezighi will be the underdog Sunday. The field
includes world record holder Haile Gebrselassie (2:03:59). Fourteen
runners own faster personal bests than Keflezighi.
And Meb? His 2010 season has been injury marred. After finishing fifth
at Boston last April, a thigh injury curtailed his training and
racing. He has only competed once since Boston, winning the San Jose
Half Marathon on Oct. 3 in 1:01:45.
He says he’s fit now, setting a personal record on a 10-mile training
run in September at Miramar Lake.
After Keflezighi’s 16-miler in freezing temperatures at Mammoth 10
days before the race, Yordanos gently chided her husband, saying,
“Aren’t you supposed to be tapering?”
To which Larsen said of his prize pupil, “The hunger is still there.
There’s fire in his belly.”
don.norcross@uniontrib.com (619) 293-1803
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