Sprinting seven miles down a 9,000-foot mountain and then running back up to do it again may not appeal to even the most self-punishing of athletes, but Ryan Hall believes it is the kind of “experimental workout” that transformed him into the fastest American distance runner in history.
It is also the kind of extreme training that is now driving him to abruptly retire, two decades into an audacious career that produced national milestones — his time of 2 hours 4 minutes 58 seconds at the 2011 Boston Marathon is by far the fastest for an American runner — but never a victory in a major race.
Hall, 33, who was one of the last remaining hopes for an American front-runner in this summer’s Olympic marathon, is succumbing to chronically low testosterone levels and fatigue so extreme, he says, that he can barely log 12 easy miles a week.
“Up to this point, I always believed my best races were still ahead of me,” said Hall, who has faced a series of physical setbacks since the 2012 London Olympics. “I’ve explored every issue to get back to the level I’ve been at, and my body is not responding. I realized that it was time to stop striving, to finally be satisfied and decide, ‘Mission accomplished.’”
Testosterone is vital for optimum athletic performance, but that hormone’s levels can drop over time with extreme training, similar to how some female runners or gymnasts experience decreased estrogen levels. Hall, who at 5 feet 10 kept his weight consistently at a spry 130 to 140 pounds, said he learned of his low testosterone levels when he turned professional after college, and initially managed to hit top times nonetheless.
Supplemental testosterone is a banned substance, but Hall would be eligible for a medical waiver if he wanted to try to boost his levels. He said he had decided against that because of potential side effects (including dependency and infertility) and ethical concerns (some athletes use testosterone illicitly as a performance-enhancing drug). Natural remedies like the altering of his diet and lifting weights have not restored his strength, he said.
“As an elite athlete, when you get a bummer diagnosis about your physiological limits, you have two choices,” said Lauren Fleshman, Hall’s teammate when they were college track champions at Stanford. “You can adapt your approach or forge ahead as usual, hoping this time the giant chink in your armor gets missed by all the swords.”
Hall has generally forged ahead, aggressively, keeping his weekly mileage steadily above 100 miles and constantly pushing the boundaries of sustainability.
In retiring, he leaves behind an American track and field establishment in tatters from chronic allegations of widespread doping and internecine politics. There is a dearth of emerging talent. The top contender heading into the United States Olympic marathon trials is Meb Keflezighi, who is 40.
It is a striking contrast to 2001, when Hall was at the fore of a promising crop of high school runners, including Dathan Ritzenhein and Alan Webb, whose sub-four-minute-mile record in high school still holds. They were heralded as the future of American distance running.
“The three of them changed Americans’ expectations for our capacity to compete at the highest level of sport,” said Mary Wittenberg, the chief executive of Virgin Sport and former race director of the New York City Marathon. “Their rise coincided with the groundswell of interest in cross-country and track that resulted from the explosion of the Internet and the first class of high schoolers that could really watch each other online, and not have to wait till results were in print. Kids across the country were talking about these guys; they wanted to be them.”
Hall handled his career differently from many professional runners, avoiding Internet forums rife with gossip and critiques, which he dismissed as distractions from practicing and excelling at his sport.
His wife, Sara, also a professional runner and former teammate at Stanford, handles his social media accounts and helps serve as a filter between Hall and the world outside.
“Ryan’s identity is secure,” she said. “Others might be running because they want fans and praise. But his approach is natural, similar to earlier running in this country, when the top runners were training hard and racing in isolation — they were running for the passion, not the recognition. And they were excellent.”
An immediate standout
Hall began running when he was 13 and immediately stood out. He was a national champion in the 5,000 meters at Stanford and then flouted traditional career progressions by moving up to the marathon and its attendant high training loads almost right away, with characteristic bravado.
“When I was getting into the sport, jumping into the marathon, people told me to wait and hold out; I needed to work up to it,” he said. “I said, ‘Whatever, that’s not true. I’ve been running 100 miles a week since I was 17, in high school, and I’m ready.’ But training at that level for so long takes a toll on your body for sure.”
He achieved early success, setting the American record for a debut marathon at London in 2007 with a time of 2:08:24. He attributes his current fatigue problems to that early training load and to unconventional training strategies throughout his pro career. Before the 2012 London Olympics, for instance, he did three weekly workouts at world-record marathon speed — a 4:42 pace per mile — pushing each session for as long as he could.
It is impossible to know for sure whether Hall’s extreme approach helped or hurt his performance. Would he have run even better times if he had not demanded so much from his body? Or did he have to train that way to find his peak? Regardless, he was the rare American marathoner who challenged the sport’s dominant athletes from East Africa. His landmark time for an American runner was achieved in an uncommonly fast Boston Marathon field. On a course ruled ineligible for an official record, he led most of the race at blistering speed until he was beaten at the end and finished fourth.
“I remember Wesley Korir telling me after that race that the Kenyans were afraid of me, and I thought that was ironic; I’d never heard of a Kenyan being afraid of a white person before in the race,” Hall said. “I think it showed the level of respect they have for me. I love that it ruffles feathers with them, but I don’t see any difference between them and me. White people can race Africans.”
A respectful rivalry
Hall and Keflezighi established themselves as the best American marathoners of their generation. Training together in California, they developed a respectful rivalry.
“We’ve always been different runners,” Keflezighi said. “Ryan’s a time guy, and I’m a championship guy. But he has called me his older brother, in terms of guiding him. I told him my secrets, helped him to do the best he could. And I’m proud of what he’s accomplished.”
In the 2014 Boston Marathon, when Keflezighi pulled away about 10 miles from the finish in what became a historic U.S. victory the year after the Boston bombings, Hall said he worked with his fellow American Nick Arciniaga to slow the chase pack of East Africans, which could not catch Keflezighi in the final miles.
“Before that race, I said, ‘Some American needs to do something special here today,’ ” Hall said. “At the starting line, I hoped it would be me. But when I realized it wasn’t my day, I said, ‘Hey, let’s get out of the lead; if they want to stay close to Meb, they have to do the work to do it.’ And they didn’t do the work.”
He added: “In Boston, I felt like I shared that success. You can share in other people’s victories, but Americans don’t usually think like that. We’re more independent.”
Hall faded to 20th place in the last major marathon he finished, but said he embraced any consequences of risk in racing.
“I’ve failed over and over and over again throughout my career,” he said. “I know what it’s like to fail at the biggest stage, like the Olympics. It’s a bummer; I don’t want to go through it, but I’m not afraid of it. And if you’re not afraid to fail, you’re not afraid to run against the best guys, and you’re not afraid to lose. I have so many failures throughout my career. But I needed them to have the success.”
Faith-based training
For the past five years, Hall has lived as an Olympian hermit, tucked away in a valley in the mountains of Northern California with his family, where they can be close to their church, a charismatic evangelical Christian fellowship. Still supported by Asics, he withdrew from formal coaching and team training altogether, beginning instead what he referred to as faith-based training.
The approach has drawn skeptical respect from his peers.
“All elite athletes are hypothetically tasked to single-mindedly pursue their potential; his approach to his faith gives him the ideal setup to really do it,” said Fleshman, Hall’s former Stanford teammate. “And it also destroys him, repeatedly, like Job. Glory in suffering and all that.”
After initial success — he ran his fastest marathon right after starting faith-based coaching — Hall has finished short of his best times in every other race he has run since adopting the new training regimen. But he credits his strong religious faith with helping him endure the pain of athletic setback and, now, with easing his transition to retirement.
“If it wasn’t for faith-based coaching, I would have retired long ago,” he said. “And now I’ve reached a point in my career where God told me to take another path. I just want to be a good husband, a good dad, a good coach.”
In October, the Halls adopted four sisters, ages 5 to 15, from an orphanage in Ethiopia, where they spent several months training last year. The girls did not speak English, so to prepare for the adoption, the Halls took Amharic lessons, practicing the language with their Ethiopian running partners.
“We met them and fell in love and decided to adopt all four girls in a week,” Sara said. “It was a step of faith. Not many kids get chosen by their parents, and older children have a difficult time finding homes; it’s even harder for them to stay together. We asked them if they wanted to join our family, and they all said yes.”
The Halls let the girls pick English names, then enrolled the children in a small Christian school and supplemented their education with home tutoring. The girls had been raised Protestant and so were already in sync with the religious patterns of the Hall household. Sara said they wake up a half-hour before school to pray on their own, a practice they learned in the orphanage. “It’s crazy to me,” she said. “Sometimes I don’t even want to get up and do that.”
The girls already share their parents’ passion for Muscle Milk teff pancakes, made with a sponsor’s protein powder, an Ethiopian grain, baking powder and water. “They’re like a healthy brownie, a molten lava cake,” Hall said. “Every night when I go to bed, I can’t wait to get up and have my pancake.”
Hall said fatherhood would be a major priority for him, along with volunteering for the Steps Foundation, a nonprofit he started with Sara, which engages the running community to fight global poverty by improving health
For now, his main pursuit is coaching Sara, along with her other coach, Steve Magness, as she seeks her first Olympic spot at the marathon trials next month.
He also hopes to let his body recover from a lifetime of strain. (Since slowing his training, Hall has gained 20 pounds.)
“I started running when I was 13, in puberty,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever let my body come to baseline. I don’t even know what baseline is.”
When Hall spoke of his retirement, he displayed his race jerseys, all immaculately preserved on hangers, unwashed, and with their racing bibs still attached. He looked triumphant as he assembled them, but then his mood seemed to shift.
“This is the first time I’ve gotten a little bit sad through the whole process,” he said. “But it’s not a sad moment like I’m making a mistake. It felt like I was reliving a great race, one that you want to relive. But you can’t.”
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