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U.S. men's marathoning woes continue Posted: Tuesday April 22, 2003 12:58 PM
BOSTON -- The state of U.S. men's marathon running is bright, we're told. The day soon will come when an infusion of youth in the form of successful track runners Alan Culpepper, Dan Browne and Meb Keflezighi will be the future of the event for a country whose elite runners sometimes just seem capable of tying their Nikes properly. Recently naturalized Khalid Khannouchi has run the world's fastest time, but the Moroccan transplant is an anomaly. Know which U.S. man has run the fastest marathon time this year? Ryan Shay. He won a race in Birmingham, Ala., in 2:14:29 -- and his time doesn't even crack the top 140 in the world in 2003. Gone are the days when Connecticut native Bill Rodgers won the Boston Marathon four times, with such command that he'd have pursuers looking over their shoulders at their pursuers in hopeless resignation of fighting for second place. But at Monday's running of the Boston Marathon, words such as future and youth were relative to the beholder's perspective. For the record, Robert Cheruiyot won the event in 2:10:11, leading a field of eight Kenyans among the first nine finishers. A 2:10 marathon these days is nothing special, even on Boston's demanding course of rolling terrain and Heartbreak Hills. After the race, a reporter asked Benjamin Kimutai, the runner-up, if the early pace had been too fast. "Fast?" Kimutai asked, amused at the thought. "But it was not fast. Eddy was still there." At that, Kimutai looked over at Eddy Hellebuyck, the 42-year-old Belgian native and U.S. citizen of four years who finished in 2:17:18, slow by Kenyan standards but good enough to become the first U.S. male to crack the top 10 in Boston since 1987. Hellebuyck was sitting just to Kimutai's left as the second-place finisher spoke, so this was no behind-the-back slap. When Hellebuyck turned 40, he became eligible to run in the masters division of races, and he has won numerous bonus checks for his toils, usually in the hundreds of dollars rather than the thousands. In Boston, Hellebuyck hung with the lead Kenyans for roughly half of the 26.2-mile race before gradually falling off the pace. Kimutai giggled at the thought, saying matter-of-factly and apparently without intent to insult, "I mean, Eddy's a master. I was laughing because he was still with me. So, no, the pace was not at all fast." Hellebuyck was a curious sidelight to the race's 107th running. He was a relatively accomplished runner and physical-education teacher in his homeland who competed at the 1993 Chicago Marathon and fell in love on two fronts. "I met my wife [Shawn] at that race and I realized that I really wanted to live in America," he said. Hellebuyck moved to the runners' haven of Albuquerque the next year and married Shawn in 1995. While he awaited his U.S. citizenship, he ran for Belgium at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and finished far back in the pack. The Immigration and Naturalization Service granted him his wish in 1999 and Hellebuyck represented the U.S. at world championships in 1999 and 2001, winning no medals and leaving some to scratch their heads about what had happened to this youthful running revival in the States. Hellebuyck didn't take Kimutai's comments as fighting words, either. "It's disappointing," he said of the lack of quality U.S. men in the field. "I'm representing the U.S. and I'm 42 years old. Where is everybody? It's sad. This is the Boston Marathon and the Americans don't even try." None of the top U.S. male runners came to Boston this year. (American Marla Runyan finished fifth in the women's division.) Some opted instead to prepare for a shot at this summer's world championships in Paris. Running in Boston as well would have been too taxing. Yet overracing hardly stops Hellebuyck, who has run more than 90 marathons and had arrived in Boston Saturday night after running a 10K race in New Orleans earlier in the day. That's nuts. If Roger Clemens had thrown 100 fastballs against a backstop the day before starting the first game of the World Series, his arm would have come unscrewed at the shoulder socket. But at 5-foot-3 and 108 pounds, Hellebuyck insists his legs are used to it. "I would not advise younger runners or any runner to take my lifestyle," he said. "If you want to be a serious runner, you should peak for one race, but that doesn't work for me. ... My training partners consider me a freak: Most people take ice baths; I take hot baths because they feel better. On days I don't feel like running, I don't train, because I race enough. I don't think you can be a slave to your preparation. When you've run as long as I have, you become pretty good at adapting." Hellebuyck adapted to his new life as successful coach of the La Cueva High School cross-country team that has won the New Mexico state title three years in a row. The lack of good international results among U.S. marathoners, he insists, is a source of constant frustration. "The talent is here," he said. "I have a record number of runners on my high school team now, more than 100. I am so proud to be representing this country. But I don't want to be the best. I'd like to coach the best someday. "A lot of Americans don't have the passion. They're too scared of defeat." Hellebuyck also sees effective club systems in Kenya, Mexico and other countries designed to have young runners build slowly so they can peak a handful of times for specific races. That is happening slowly in places like Albuquerque and Eugene, Ore. Alberto Salazar, a former marathon world-record holder in the '80s, has one such group, but it's an exception to the rule of collegiate overracing and post-graduate freelancing. "We need to change the system here if we want to have a chance to keep pace with the Kenyans," Hellebuyck says. "They are over-, over-, overracing college kids, because coaches need the points from their best kids to win meets, which attracts the next generation of kids to their university. But those kids burn out. If you're used to it, as I am, that's one thing. But our young runners aren't learning how to peak. Even in high school this happens. It's been happening for too long." That story is a lot older than even Hellebuyck. Sports Illustrated staff writer Brian Cazeneuve covers Olympic sports for the magazine and is regular contributor to SI.com.
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