I think way too much is being made of Meb's lay-off after New York and the hypothetical impact on his race at trials.
Yes, he is running trials 69 days after New York. And no, by his report he wasn't able to run for four weeks after NYC.
But come on, now. How did he spend, say, the 16 weeks leading up to NYC? Building up to a lifetime marathon PR on a rolling course, that's how.
Let's say, conservatively, that Meb was properly training for 16 weeks leading into NYC. Even being unable to run for 4 of the 10 weeks between NYC and Houston gives him ***26 weeks training out of the 30-week window*** leading prior to trials.
The guy has been training and competing pretty much continuously for ***over 20 years***. As the brojos say in their preview, he has ridiculous lifetime miles in his legs...and just PRed. He has been pretty damn consistent in the marathon in well over ten races in the past decade. Four weeks on the bike vs running (weeks when he would have been recovering from NYCM anyway) will not have a major impact on his trials race. Hell, it might help.