Reported By Peter Gambaccini
Photo by Victah Sailer
Ryan Hall, who won the U.S. Men’s Olympic Marathon Trials in November in New York City in 2:09:02, 
will compete in the USA Cross Country Championships in San Diego, a 12k
race, on Saturday. Hall won the 2006 USA Cross Country Championships
12k race by 27 seconds at Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. The onetime
NCAA 5000-meter champion at Stanford then began to excel at even longer
distances. He set an American record of 59:43 at the USA Half Marathon
Championships in Houston in January of 2007. Then, in London in April,
he ran his first marathon in 2:08:24 (for seventh place), a U.S. best
for a 26.2-mile debut. Hall, a member of Team Running USA, had set a
U.S. record of 57:54 for 20k at the 2006 World Road Running
Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, where he finished 11th. He was a
national scholastic mile champion while in high school in Big Bear,
California. He is married to Sara Hall (formerly Bei), another former
Stanford star and now a top U.S. runner in the 1500, mile, 3000, and
5000. His younger brother Chad won the 2006 Foot Locker Cross Country
Championships. Ryan Hall spoke by teleconference on Monday, calling
from Big Bear. (photo of Ryan Hall, in center, with 2007 Foot Locker Cross Country entrants, by Victah Sailer)
