This coming January Steve and I will be spending a few days in Houston to immerse ourselves in marathon mania. For starters we will be running the Aramco Houston Half Marathon. (We decided against trying to train for a full marathon in the middle of winter.) The main purpose of our trip, however, will be to watch the Men's and Women's Olympic marathon qualifying trials. This is the race that determines which six athletes (three men, three women) will represent the USA in the 2012 London Olympic Marathon.
We watched our first marathon trial in 2008 when the women's qualifying race took place the day before I ran the Boston marathon. At the time I didn't know quite what to expect. After all, how does one spectate an event that is 26 miles long and moving at 11 mph? It turns out that the trials courses are designed with this question in mind. The racers typically follow one or more narrow out-and-back loops that lead them repeatedly through the same areas. With a little bit of legwork you might witness the leaders storming by you 10+ times over the course of 2 hours. You can watch the entire race develop from starting gun to finish line tape.
What makes this event so riveting to me, as I learned in 2008, is the combination of presence and proximity. The event is easily the single largest gathering of American distance running talent anywhere. Anyone can enter as long as they attain the (very fast) qualifying times required. Currently there are 129 men and 163 women registered for Houston. The presence of nearly 300 elite athletes is electrifying. But what makes it different than watching a major event on television is the incredible proximity you experience to the athletes. The nature of the course is such that everyone can enjoy a front-row seat to the drama. And when a pack of a dozen or more of the fittest bodies in the country passes within feet of you, sweating, heaving, churning the air, you begin to experience a visceral reality of the human form that we rarely see in modern life. And again, these are all Americans. Fast ones. Hundreds of them.
Marathonguide.com (one of my favorite running websites) has put together some great breakdowns of who these people are. You can sort racers by name, qualifying time, qualifying race, etc. Check it out here. How many more people do you think will qualify before January?
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