Give Me Your Top 5 for the Olympic Marathon Trials

Hall - Meb - Ritz - ?

Flanagan - Davila - Hastings - Goucher - Kastor

Ritz wins in a landslide

Hall, Meb, and Ritz seem like a good top 3. They'll be the team barring a fluke.

After that, I like Trafeh, Hartmann, and Arciniaga. If one of them made the team I'd prefer Trafeh because he seems to have the most upside to be another Hall/Ritz/Meb.

Also not that he's a big threat but is Khalid still running?

W) Pritz, Hastings, Rothstein

M) Shay, Gotcher, Hartman

1. Hall

2. Ritz

3. Lehmkule

4. Cabada

5. Hartmann

6. Gotcher

Obviously, Hall is as close as it gets to being a for sure thing. The guy runs 2:10 on a bad day.

People need to understand that a lot of people fold under pressure. Most of these "picks" are funny. Some people choose people who have never even ran a marathon to make the team. Other choose a guy just cause he has ran a fast time with no pressure on him. Its like a time trial in practice, anyone can run great, but what about in a race with a lot on the line.....

If Meb makes that team, it will be a huge coup for Skechers.

Assuming they get to the starting line healthy -

Men: Hall, Meb, Trafeh, Lehmkuhle, Hartmann

Women: Davila, Flanagan. After these two it's too close to call - Kastor, Goucher, Rhines, Cherobon-Bawcom, Boulet, Hastings, McGregor, Russel, Moody, Grandt.

Men: Ryan Hall is a 95%er to make the team; a healthy Ritz is 75% to make the team; Meb and Arciniaga fighting for the last spot with Lehmulke a dark horse.

Women: Desi Davila is a 95%er to make the team. She can run off of any pace, dropped her 5k and 10k PRs big time this year and can 'race' as evident at Boston. Shalane Flanagan and Kara Goucher are both 50% plus to make the team with Deena Kastor the one who could break up the training duo. Hastings could sneak into 5th. It is hard to fathom Hastings, Moody, Russell or Lewy-Boulet crashing the party and making the team, though any of them could. One thing for sure - the top ten women will easily be our strongest and deepest ever. Good recent interview with Blake Russell at

http://www.garycohenrunning.com/Interviews/Russell.aspx

was in LetsRun news stories this month.

NateP wrote:

I am rooting for the unknowns. Guys like Scott Wietecha who has a 2.24 marathon PR going for a Trials qualifier in early December like me, who just ran a tennessee state record for 10 miles (50.09) winning by 9 minutes.

Who also goes by blaznbison24 here on LetsRun. I would not be surprised at all to see him go to the trials, but to go from 2:24 to 2:18 to 2:12ish all in the span of a few months would be simply unbelievable. That said...I'll be rootin' for him!

It seems like every trials has a guy like that...Briney ('04) and Jenkins ('08). You could say Sell in '08, but let's be honest, as awesome as it was to see him go to Beijing (I, as well as most others, were rooting for him), he was hardly considered a "darkhorse" going into the trials.

Men:

Hall

Meb

Gotcher

Ritz

Abdi