Has anyone who has never run a marathon made the team?

George Young - 1968 - Won the trial in Alamosa. One tough man. Got the Bronze in the Steeplechase in Mexico City. I believe he was 11th or 12th in the Marathon.

Just checked, George was 16th in the Marathon.

Can't speak for the old-old days (pre-1970s) but since then at least they've had to actually run a full marathon under the qualifying time. There were some 10K byes in 2012, but I think this is the first time that they've done it in droves.

Sorry. I find Young's place on the 68 team more interesting than your question. No disrespect intended.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

A question for you LetsRun historians. Has anyone who qualified with a half, but has never run a full, made the Olympic marathon team in the past? Top example this year would be Rupp.

How exactly is he an "example" of something he hasn't done yet?

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

A question for you LetsRun historians. Has anyone who qualified with a half, but has never run a full, made the Olympic marathon team in the past? Top example this year would be Rupp.

Are you going to do the hobby jogger race the next day and then brag about running the "Olympic Trials" like you did 4 years ago in Houston?

hipster dufus wrote:

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

A question for you LetsRun historians. Has anyone who qualified with a half, but has never run a full, made the Olympic marathon team in the past? Top example this year would be Rupp.

How exactly is he an "example" of something he hasn't done yet?

Maybe I didn't word that the best way, but a lot of people are expecting him to make the team. I'm working on my predictions for the contest and want to weigh the odds. I think Rupp will either make the team or DNF (to save himself for the track), which is making this tough.

It's not far fetched of an idea to make the team without ever running a marathon before.

Many people have had pretty good marathon debuts.

Probably not the answer to the question you meant to ask, but Emil Zatopek famously won Olympic gold in his debut marathon.

Star wrote:

It's not far fetched of an idea to make the team without ever running a marathon before.

Many people have had pretty good marathon debuts.

Sure, but there's some difference between a regular race and the trials. Placing is more important than time, so that's a different strategy. Plus if midway through, you don't have a shot at making the top 3, it's more tempting and perhaps smarter to drop out. I doubt someone like Rupp would continue only to finish or see what time he could run.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:Maybe I didn't word that the best way, but a lot of people are expecting him to make the team. I'm working on my predictions for the contest and want to weigh the odds. I think Rupp will either make the team or DNF (to save himself for the track), which is making this tough.

Rupp will win the race

No one will be capable of pushing him out of his comfort zone to make him think about dropping out. He's capable of 2:05. Maybe faster. The 2:12 they're going to run is going to be a jog for him. Come the last 5k, he'll blow everyone's doors off and make it look stupid easy.

Citizen Runner wrote:

Probably not the answer to the question you meant to ask, but Emil Zatopek famously won Olympic gold in his debut marathon.

And John Treacy got silver in LA in 1984 in his first marathon. Ian Thopmson won what was the British equivalent of a trials marathon in 1973 for the Commonwealth Games which he went on to win. George Young has been mentioned. Does anyone know if the '68 Trial was Kenny Moore's first one too? I'm not sure of this, but I think Billy Mills first marathon ever was the '64 Trial. But no one who's ever made a US Marathon team has done it with a half marathon qualifier. Until 1968 anyone who wanted to could run the Marathon Trial and after that you needed a time from a full marathon until very recently.

Citizen Runner wrote:

Probably not the answer to the question you meant to ask, but Emil Zatopek famously won Olympic gold in his debut marathon.

Also a bit off the original question, and I could be wrong here, but I believe Lasse Viren ran his debut at the Olympics.

I think Billy Mills ran the '68 trials marathon, not the '64 (where he won the 10K).

Kenny Moore had run marathons before he made the team in '68.

And yes, Lasse Viren's marathon debut was in the '76 games.

Mills ran both the 10,000 and marathon in Tokyo where he was 14th in 2:22:55. He was not on the Mexico City team.

Wrong. If he's close, top 7, he'll hang on for the money. He's got money, but whatever he makes on Saturday is that much more than he had before the race started (f-ing profound!!!)I bet you don't know too much about running. I will also bet that many are clueless as to the affect/effect (argue it) that the heat is going to have in 3 short days from today. Running slower can be worse for some runners and not for others. You'll see. L.A., bad choice for the trials as the gamble didn't pay off. Wait for it TaxRunner, you'll see.

txRUNNERgirl wrote:

hipster dufus wrote:

How exactly is he an "example" of something he hasn't done yet?

Maybe I didn't word that the best way, but a lot of people are expecting him to make the team. I'm working on my predictions for the contest and want to weigh the odds. I think Rupp will either make the team or DNF (to save himself for the track), which is making this tough.

I don't need to prove to you how much I know about running, but you must be new here.

Also, people have been talking about the heat in LA since they were in the process of picking the location. That's why everyone wanted Houston.

Yeah, I am new here and I didn't ask you to prove anything to me (where did I do that?). Your pretend validation wouldn't change anything. If you wanna bet fella (tax account girl???, yeah right), just post an email address and I'll take that bet. I've broken 2:25, twice, and know a tad more about heat and running at a faster pace (I know, that's really slow and I suck, right?). You pick your top 3 and I'll pick mine. I'm willing to bet a wad of cash that I'll get more in the top 3 than you do. Respectfully, wanna bet? The top are not going to be Dathan, Meb and Galen, I can tell you that much for sure. It's 26.2 miles in the heat, things won't go according to the charts.

Billy Mills was second in the 1964 US Marathon Trials which was run in Culver City making the last spot on the Olympic team and then came 14th in the 1964 Olympic Marathon after having won the 10,000.