Another painful setback for Ryan Hall

NEW YORK – As Ryan Hall slunk into his director’s chair on the dais, the look of disappointment on his face told the whole story.

Hall came into the ING New York City Marathon, which doubled as the U.S. men’s marathon championship, with high expectations. Some even thought he had a chance to win here.

Instead, he will leave with another near-miss, a fourth-place overall finish in 2 hours, 10 minutes, 36 seconds, second-best among Americans to Meb Keflezighi, who won the race in 2:09:15.

“It was a disappointing day for me to be honest,” Hall said. “I felt like I was in better shape than that, but the day was what it was.”

What it was is the latest painful setback for Hall following his triumphant turn at the Olympic Trials Men’s Marathon here in 2007. Since then, the Californian has finished 10th at the Beijing Olympics in 2:12:33, and third in the Boston Marathon in 2:09:40.

Neither of those performances could be considered dismal, quite the opposite in fact. Not many runners could hope for a Top 10 finish in their first Olympics and a podium in their first trip to Boston.

In that sense, Hall is perhaps his own worst enemy.

His brash running style and dominant victory in the Trials led many to anoint him, rightly or wrongly, as the savior of American distance running. With that have come expectations of victory that are unrealistic, or, at the very least, premature.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Hall said when asked about the expectations for him before this race. “You know, I handled it the best I could. Felt really confident and comfortable going into the race. You know, it was nothing new. Every time I’ve been to the starting line of a major marathon, people are expecting big things. I think I just expect a lot from myself.

“So maybe this is going to be a good thing not to lower my expectations, but just to, I guess just to go into it more humble and expecting it to be hard, because it is hard.  And, yeah, it’s just not easy to pick up a win in a major marathon.  Everything’s got to click right on the day.”

At no point during the race did Hall look ill-prepared or to be struggling. He employed a strategy that seemed to indicate that he had learned from his mistake in Boston, where he lead for most of the windy early stages before fading slightly late. This time, he ran patiently in the pack and let other shield him on a deceptively windy day.

“Yeah, you get in the wind and you’re out there leading,” Hall said, referring to Boston. “Then you hear the people back in this media room being like what’s he doing leading this race in the wind, you know.  And everyone back home is giving me a hard time for leading in Boston into the wind. So you start to second guess yourself. And honestly, it doesn’t feel comfortable when you’re leading into the wind.”

Hall was right with the other elite runners coming off the Queensboro Bridge. The pack found itself chasing Hendrick Ramaala of South Africa, who made his signature surge when seeing the crowds on First Avenue. But Hall and Keflezighi helped reel Ramaala back in, and the American contingent hung tough during the uphill section of First Avenue.

The pack began to really separate after consecutive miles of 4:43 and 4:37. Hall, as well as Americans Abdi Abdirahman and Jorge Torres fall off, leaving a group of five men – James Kwambai, Robert K. Cheruiyot and Jackson Kipkoech of Kenya, Abderrahime Bouramdane of Morocco, and Keflezighi – at the front.  By the 19-mile point, Hall had fallen 21 seconds off the pace.

“I was kind of going in and out of feeling good and not feeling good,” Hall said. “I think I made some tactical mistakes just sitting too far back. I don’t tend to run well at the back of packs. I was trying to stay relaxed and trying to conserve as much energy as possible. I think I need to be up in the mix more.”

Although he managed to salvage his day by moving up to fourth place, it didn’t seem to ease Hall’s disappointment much, which is understandable. Competitors aren’t after moral victories.

“It’s really disappointing when you don’t feel like you did as well as you were expecting to do,” he said. “I don’t know. I was looking at my splits out there, and I was like, man, I was doing 18‑mile tempo runs at five‑minute pace, and the same split I hit today at 7,000 feet in practice in the middle of 130‑mile weeks. So when you start to see that it’s easy to get down on yourself.

“I invested a lot in this. I brought up a massage therapist and got two hours of massage every single day.  You’re running for these kids out there, trying to raise money for their schools. I wanted to bring home a big paycheck for them, you know. I had a lot to run for with our foundation that we’re starting.

“I was thinking about my family and my wife who has invested so much in me. I mean, there are so many people, my coach, my teammates, everyone back home watching. You want to do well not only for yourself but for them. And when you don’t, it’s a big let down because you invest a lot, so it hurts a lot when you don’t hit it.”

So instead of the celebration at In-and-Out Burger he was looking forward to back home, Hall again finds himself picking up the pieces and moving on to the next opportunity to fulfill those great expectations.

“It takes a couple of days, and then you realize that there’s going to be more opportunities and you learn from it,” he said. “I think you learn a lot more from your disappointments than you do from the times that you win.  And it’s good to have a good humbling experience every once in a while.  I always run my best races after a humbling experience. In a couple of days I’ll turn my head toward the spring and start looking forward to that.

“I’ll get over this.”

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