Both DNFed, does anyone know splits or what happened to either or both of them?
Both DNFed, does anyone know splits or what happened to either or both of them?
An account is needed to get in. Anyone who knows??
Marathon's tragic moment
SHAY'S DEATH COMES ON DAY OF HALL'S BIG WIN AT U.S. OLYMPIC TRIALS
By Elliott Almond
Mercury News
Article Launched: 11/04/2007 01:43:13 AM PDT
Ryan Shay called San Mateo's Peter Gilmore to go for a run on the eve of the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in New York City.
The friends, who trained together in the thin air of Flagstaff, Ariz., this year, met again Saturday four miles into the race as they chased their Olympic dreams.
Then Gilmore never saw him again.
Shay, 28, collapsed 5 1/2 miles into the marathon and died, casting a dark shadow over what was one of the most impressive trials in history with former Stanford star Ryan Hall winning in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 2 seconds.
"No one will be able to separate Ryan Hall's performance with the tragedy - they are forever going to be" linked, Gilmore told the Mercury News by phone.
Shay, who had an enlarged heart, died of an apparent massive heart attack, his father, Joe Shay, told reporters. "The thing that made him such a great runner may have killed him," he added.
Ryan Shay, a Notre Dame graduate whose widow is former Stanford star Alicia Craig, was pronounced dead at a Manhattan hospital after medical personnel attempted to revive him on the Central Park course.
The medical examiner's office plans to perform an autopsy today - the day of the prestigious New York City Marathon.
Hall, who once trained with Shay, led an impressive trio of new U.S. distance stars. Second-place finisher Dathan Ritzenhein, who like Hall was competing in just his second marathon, and Brian Sell also made the Olympic team. Ritzenhein,
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24, finished in 2:11:07 and Sell, 29, in 2:11:40.
Hall, who is part of the high-altitude training group in Mammoth Lakes, pumped his fist and wagged his index finger as he sprinted through the last mile.
"Ryan was just on another planet," said Gilmore, who dropped out after 16 miles because of problems with a weeklong sickness. "It was nothing we've seen in this country. It looked like he was jogging those last few miles."
Hall's celebration didn't last as word spread about Shay among the 131 who started the hilly, loop course on a crisp fall day.
"That just cut me straight to the heart," Hall, 25, told reporters. "It makes you forget what you just did."
Hall's wife, Sara Bei Hall, was a Cardinal teammate of Alicia Shay, and a bridesmaid in the Shays' July 7 wedding in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
"Ryan (Shay) had an incredible ability to tolerate pain and to push himself," Sara Hall told reporters. He is "Alicia's whole life. I'm just blown away. I don't know where to begin."
Gilmore, who broke down upon hearing the news, said "nobody will ever forget it."
J.T. Service of San Jose recalled passing Shay about 10 seconds after he collapsed.
"He was just lying face down in the middle of the course," Service told the Mercury News by phone. "I didn't know it was Ryan. You could tell something wasn't right - his hands were at his side and his face was in the asphalt."
A recreational runner died during last month's Chicago Marathon, the warmest in that event's history. But Shay's death gave Service, 27, pause.
"It makes it more real that it is one of the better runners in America," said Service, who was 45th in a time of 2:21:12. "If it could happen to Ryan Shay it could happen to anybody."
Joe Shay, who coached his son, said Ryan had been told he had an enlarged heart when he was treated for pneumonia at age 14. Further examinations showed it was getting bigger, the father said. A physician told Ryan last summer that he might need a pacemaker when he was older. The runner, however, was cleared to compete.
Family and friends said Shay never quit.
"Every day and every way, he pushed it so hard, that's all he knew," said Gilmore, a former Cal runner. "When he was supposed to back off he still pushed it."
Gilmore said Shay, the 2001 NCAA 10,000-meter champion, was a fanatic about proper nutrition as well.
"His whole life revolved around getting the most out of his athletic performance," he said.
Friends said Shay would have appreciated the athleticism of Saturday's outcome. In one of the most dramatic trials in memory, American record-holder Khalid Khannouchi, 34, was fourth in his final try to qualify for the Olympics. He was 56 seconds behind Sell.
Khannouchi's attempt to close the gap about an hour into the race led Hall to make a break at 17 miles that proved decisive.
"I looked up at the big screen and saw Khannouchi kind of catching our backs and I didn't want that to happen," Hall said. "Khannouchi's a dangerous guy."
Hall's push left race favorites Meb Keflezighi, who won a silver medal in the 2004 Olympic marathon, and Abdi Abdirahman, a two-time Olympian in the 10,000, in trouble. Keflezighi, who battled a stomach virus recently, was eighth in 2:15:09. Abdirahman did not finish because of hip pain.
But everyone's performance seemed secondary after one of their brethren had fallen.
"It puts the entire professional running and Olympic trials in perspective," Service said.
Mercury News wire services contributed to this report. Contact Elliott Almond, who reported from San Jose, at
or (408) 920-5865.