Ed Torres Retires from Competitive Running

By  LetsRun.com
March 4, 2010

This week while talking to Ed Torres about why the 2012 Olympic Marathon Trials were awarded to Houston, Ed revealed that he's officially retired from the sport.

Ed would be the first to admit his career was overshadowed by his twin brother, Jorge, a 2008 Olympian and a 2002 NCAA XC Champion.

Ed's career had some pretty good moments on its own. After making Footlocker nationals (little did we know until writing this article that Ed tied for the last spot for the 1998 Footlocker finals and the tie could not be broken, so that year 33 runners made the finals), Ed went on to be an All-American in college where he was on Mark Wetmore's first NCAA winning team, the 2001 NCAA XC team at the University of Colorado.

After college he represented the United States three times at the World Cross Country Championships (2003, 2008, and 2009) and was going to represent the US at the most recent World Championships in the marathon in Berlin, but an achilles injury prevented him from competing.

Last year, a tragic car accident that killed his middle school coach and mentor, Greg Fedyski, and injured his mother and his wife, Linda, changed Ed's perspective on a lot of things and led him to the decision to give up running professionally. Ed had been living in Boulder training, while his wife was working in Chicago. The accident made him realize that he "had to be close to what was important to me."

Ed did not feel he could train at the same level in Chicago on his own so he has hung up the spikes.

We asked Ed what the proudest moment of his career was. He said there wasn't a proudest race, but he is proudest of, "the fact I could represent the USA in a few world championships." He regretted not being able to run in Berlin this past summer, but said, "here was a kid who was overshadowed by his brother a lot... but I was able to do my own thing and qualify for a few World Championships." Three World Championship teams is impressive for a 13:57 and 28:16 guy (pr set last summer).

When Ed started running in gym class he could beat his brother, Jorge. But Jorge then "fell in love with the training part. He was the first one to buy running shoes... He found what was important (loving the training and training smart). He's always been that guy who is very smart and knows how to work with his body."

Ed always loved the competition and will miss that. He is excited to have begun "a new chapter in my life. Running will always be there. I still go out there and do my little jog but I'm not out there trying to kill myself."

Ed wanted to give a big thanks for their support and being there for him to "my wife Lynda, Jorge, Mark Wetmore, Steve Jones (his pro coach and former world record holder in the marathon), everyone at global athletics (his agency), and Reebok (his sponsor)."

Ed's family background is in the jewelry business and he is incorporating that with his love of running. He's got a business PR Medal Engravers and they engrave athletes' names onto the race medals on-site. He will be at the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in Dallas next weekend and other Rock 'n' Roll events.

One we found from the archives: Anyone remember the 2007 USA XC Champs in Boulder Where CU Alums Culpepper, Goucher, Ritz, and Jorge Torres Went 1-2-3-4

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