AMERICANS SET TO TEST DRIVE MARATHON TRIALS COURSE TOMORROW
By David Monti
(c) 2011 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission

HOUSTON (28-Jan) -- The winners of tomorrow's USA Half-Marathon Championships here will be enriched even more than the $12,000 awarded for first place.  In addition, they will gain the psychological edge of having run the fastest times ever on the 17-turn, 8-mile loop which forms the heart of the 2012 Olympic Trials Marathon course, the race which will determine the 2012 USA Olympic Marathon team next January.

"Tomorrow will be a dress rehearsal for a year from now," said Jorge Torres a 2008 Olympian at 10,000m in Beijing and a contender to win the men's division tomorrow.

Organizers decided to move the USA Championships section of the Aramco Houston Half-Marathon from Sunday to Saturday this year in order to "mimic our schedule," according to race director Brant Kotch, for the 2012 Olympic Trials/Chevron Houston Marathon weekend set for January 14-15 next year.  The 8-mile loop, which has two hairpin turns, is probably slower than the usual half-marathon course here on which Ryan Hall set the USA record of 59:43 in 2007, and not a single athlete who spoke to the media here today mentioned anything about a time goal for tomorrow's race.

"I just want to be in the mix," said last year's runner-up Patrick Smyth of the Mammoth Track Club in Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

Women's 2010 runner-up, Serena Burla of Ellisville, Mo., agreed.  "I think it's definitely more about place," she said.

Hall, sporting a long beard, will be running his first competition here after finishing an unlucky 13th at last September's ING Rock 'n' Roll Philadelphia Half-Marathon.  It was after that effort that the 28 year-old athlete announced he would not compete in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, and that he would split from longtime coach Terrence Mahon.  Since then, Hall has taken a month-long South American trip with his wife, Sara, and has bounced between Big Bear Lake and Palo Alto, Calif., and Flagstaff, Ariz.

"It's good to be back in Houston," Hall said today, looking relaxed.  "I call this the land of breakthroughs."

Hall, who is now self-coached, said that he is healthy and that his training is going well.  He blames his penchant for overly hard training for breaking down his body last fall.  He now says that he just has to be patient and he can return to the form which allowed him to break 2:07 for the marathon and win the 2008 Olympic Trials Marathon in an event record time.

"It's not a matter of effort, but letting the running come out of me," Hall explained.  He continued: "I'm a workhorse.  That has been my biggest downfall, but also my biggest strength."

Hall's personal best time for the half-marathon is almost a minute faster than the next-fastest man in the field, Mo Trafeh, who ran 1:00:39 at the NYC Half-Marathon last March.

Burla, with a 1:10:08 best, is the fastest woman entered here, but Olympic marathoner Magdalena Lewy Boulet (1:11:46) is probably the top athlete on the women's side.  She was the #2 woman in the country last year over the full marathon distance (2:26:22), won the USA 20-K title in 2010, and was the half-marathon national champion in 2009.

"The goal for tomorrow is to be competitive," said a smiling Lewy Boulet, who will also run next Saturday's USA Cross Country Championships in San Diego.

ENDS