Haile Gebrselassie to Make Half Marathon Record Attempt at PF Chang's Half Marathon
Will Make U.S. Road Racing Debut in Phoenix
By Bob Ramsak
December 2, 2005
(c) 2005 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

Haile Gebrselassie will make his U.S. road racing debut at the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon in Phoenix, Ariz., in January, organizers confirmed today, and he will be going for the world record.

“This is not a preparation race for the London Marathon in April,” said Gebrselassie in a prepared statement. “I will be training specifically for Arizona and plan on running a very fast time there. It will be a serious race and not just a preparation one.”

Before his victory in the Zevenheuvelenloop (Seven Hills Run) 15-K in Nijmegen, Netherlands two weeks ago, the two-time Olympic 10,000 meter champion told RRW that he was eager to resume racing after his brief break from competition following his 2:06:20 Ethiopian national record performance at the ING Amsterdam Marathon.

“After a marathon, this is something just to race again,” he said of his late-hour entry into the Nijmegen race, which he won in 41:57, the fourth fastest performance ever over the rarely contested distance. And he added that he was particularly looking forward to his upcoming Phoenix appearance.

“It’s important to race again soon. Sometimes if you take too long a break, it's difficult to come back. The best is just to continue. And I’m very happy to have a half-marathon in January.”

“The Arizona race should be very interesting,” he continued. “The good weather there is very important.”

Good race management will help, too.  The Arizona race is organized by Elite Racing, Inc., the San Diego race management concern which founded the Carlsbad 5000 and the “musical marathon” series, which now includes five races.

“It is an overwhelming honor to have Haile Gebrselassie competing at P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona on January 15,” said Tim Murphy, Elite Racing’s president.  “He is the best distance runner in the world and we are thrilled to host his world record attempt. Haile has a history of not just breaking records, but shattering them.”

Gebrselassie had lined up in Amsterdam looking for a world record there, but windy conditions and a lack of competition thwarted him.  He characterized the race as “not such a strong marathon,” adding that his run was “disappointing.”

“It was a good time, but I wanted to really do something,” he said.  “The target was more than 2:06.  So it was a bit disappointing.”

In the race, the Ethiopian reached the halfway mark in a brisk 62:03, but fought a strong wind in the second half, rendering Paul Tergat’s 2:04:55 world record out of reach.  In Phoenix he will be after Samuel Wanjiru’s pending world record of 59:16 set at the Fortis Rotterdam Half-Marathon last September.

“There was a misunderstanding,” he said of his Amsterdam race, smiling at the memory. “They told me that the wind would be behind me in the second half, but it was just the opposite. But it was a good experience. I now understand what a marathon means.”

With another trademark smile, the 32-year-old, still among the most popular figures in Ethiopia, said he’s delighted with his new competitive life as strictly a road racer.

“I’m very happy just to train for the marathon. It’s a different kind of training, there is less tension than in track training,” he said, adding that he’s remained largely injury-free since retiring from the track. “The speed training and the spike training is very difficult, a lot of hard work for the muscles and for my Achilles.”

“Now I just run very far and finish, get very tired, and then go to sleep. It’s very comfortable.”

For his next marathon in London, he admitted that he’s not thinking much at all about tactics, at least not yet.

“It’s so difficult to say now, there will be many stars in that race.” He did say with certainty, however, that he doesn’t envision a rerun of the 2002 edition, when he largely ran from the front and eventually faded to third, clocking 2:06:35 in his debut. “I don’t want to be a pacemaker. That race will be more of a study about the marathon.”

He also studied last month’s ING New York City Marathon, in which Tergat defeated defending champion Hendrick Ramaala by less than a second.

“It was very, very interesting, a beautiful race.” The stride-for-stride battle, Gebrselassie said, brought back a keen memory. “At the end, I was thinking about what happened with me and Tergat in 2000,” he said, referring to the pair’s gut-wrenching battle in the Olympic 10,000 meter final in Sydney. “Remembering that, I knew Tergat was going to win. But with that 4:21 mile, Ramaala was really amazing. It was really a perfect race to watch.”

His daily routine, he said, hasn’t changed at all in recent years. He’s generally on his first training run of the day before 6 a.m., and after breakfast heads to his office where he works until lunch. His various business enterprises, ranging from construction to food service to a cinema, now employ more than 230 people. Most recently, he began importing Isuzu automobiles into Ethiopia. But he primarily stays on the fringes, leaving the day-to-day affairs in the hands of his wife and brother. In the evenings, he spends time with his four children; his first son, Nathan, was born two months ago.

Although his career on the track is over, he remains a keen observer, particularly of his successor as world and Olympic champion and world record holder, Kenenisa Bekele.

The 23-year-old Bekele has twice lowered the global standard in the 10,000, first to 26:20.31 at the Golden Spike Super Grand Prix in Ostrava, Czech Republic in 2004 and again to 26:17.53 this year at August’s Van Damme Memorial in Brussels. Last May, a record assault at the FBK Games in Hengelo, Netherlands, was thwarted by strong winds, yet he still managed a 26:28.72 performance.

“I think he can go faster in the 10,000,” Gebrselassie said. “In Hengelo, he was in very good shape, but the weather there was not good.”

But for his part, Gebrselassie believes he could have gone faster than his 26:22.75 clocking from Hengelo in 1998.

“When I ran that 10,000, I had the power to push more. But I remember [manager] Jos [Hermens] said to me, ‘Don’t break it so crazy.’ But I had the power to go faster.”

“So much really depends on the weather and on the wind. With good weather,” he said, perhaps with tongue in cheek, “a 26:10 is easy. It’s just two times 13:05.”

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