Benefield: Upcoming half marathon your chance to run with an Olympian

Hey, runners, here’s your chance.

Ryan Hall, a two-time Olympic marathoner and undoubtedly the fastest guy expected to toe the line this Sunday in the Napa to Sonoma Half Marathon, says he is not going to go after it at race pace. It will be a training run.

So if you are speedy - plenty speedy - and have ever dreamed of hitting the tape before an Olympian, Sunday’s race just might be your shot. Or not. Hall may be approaching this race with motivation to participate, rather than win, but he’ll still likely fly.

Hall comes to town with his wife, Sara (née Bei) Hall, a record-setting phenom at Montgomery High School who went on to finish second three times at the NCAA 3,000- and 5,000-meter championships, and finished third in the NCAA Cross Country Championships while running for Stanford. Sara Hall, a professional runner who, like her husband, has an eye on making the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon, will not run Sunday despite setting the course record last year.

Even with Sara sitting this one out, Ryan Hall won’t be running alone. In fact, he’ll likely have more company on the road Sunday than he usually has when lining up for a race.

“I enjoy watching people run; I don’t get to do that usually,” he said. “It’s a really fun experience for me to be in the pack and take it all in.

“I’m not sure how I’m going to run it; I’ll kind of approach it as a long run,” he said.

Hall, 32, knows a thing or two about long runs.

An All-American at Stanford, he later posted the fastest-ever marathon time for anyone born in the U.S. when he ran the 2011 Boston Marathon in 2 hours, four minutes and 58 seconds. He owns the U.S. half-marathon record. He represented the United States in both the Beijing and London Olympics.

Still, he has largely fallen short of the expectations of the many who viewed him as the next great hope for American distance running. There were plenty of injuries and high-profile “did not finish” designations, including at the Los Angeles Marathon in March, followed by increasing public commentary that Hall’s once sparkling promise is beginning to fade.

Hall, who now makes his home in Flagstaff, Ariz., doesn’t see it that way.

“I’m still hoping there is a massive breakthrough,” he said.

The injuries were unavoidable and while frustrating, perhaps gave him a chance to take stock.

“I definitely believe I have learned some things. I have learned to value failure,” he said.

But it’s not necessarily the way he would have scripted it.

“It wasn’t fun. I wouldn’t want to relive through those last four years,” he said.

Hall, an outspoken Christian, sounds philosophical when talking of his career - his promise and his realities.

After dropping out of the Los Angeles Marathon at the halfway mark, he stopped running altogether for a brief time. No workouts, no strain, no nothing except perhaps a session on his paddleboard.

“I was just struggling with how I was feeling,” he said of the L.A. race. “I’m not exactly sure what was going on. I did take a break afterwards.

“Running is kind of a mystery sometimes,” he said.

“The problem becomes when you think it’s mental when physically it’s not there; then you turn yourself into a head case,” he said.

So Hall will take it easy Sunday, says he’ll “see what it’s like for everyone else in the race.”

But he won’t completely turn it off. The Olympic trials are in February in L.A. and Hall is looking to make his third Olympic team.

“Everything is based around the trials and trying to get on the team,” he said.

Hall believes he still has amazing runs left in him.

“Everyone is different. Meb (Keflezighi) is running his best marathons and he’s 40 years old,” he said. “It just depends on if things turn around and things start going really well for me then I’ll feel like I’m in the thick of my career.”

But on Sunday, he’ll be in the thick of the pack instead of at the front.

You can reach staff ?columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.bene?field@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield.