Ryan Hall’s race didn’t go as planned

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BEIJING -- Ryan Hall had a plan heading into Sunday’s marathon. An aggressive one, he thought.

‘I was running three minutes per kilometer,’ said the Olympic Trials champion from Big Bear, who finished 10th in 2 hours 12 minutes and 33 seconds. ‘That was plenty fast.’

Fast enough to break the Olympic record by more than three minutes, in fact. But not nearly fast enough to remain competitive in Sunday’s race, which Kenya’s Samuel Wansiru won in 2:06:32.

‘’It was insane,’ said Hall of the pace.

The lead pack passed five kilometers in 14:34, fast enough to win last week’s women’s 5,000 meters on the track by more than a minute. Yet these guys still had 23 miles to go.

‘You’re just hoping the crowd will come back. Hoping that guys will drop out or something,’ Hall said.

Nearly a quarter of the field did. But most of those runners were behind Hall, not in front of him. So while he didn’t leave Beijing with a medal Hall, 25, still got a lot out of the race, which was just his fourth marathon.

‘I’m happy with the effort. I gave 100 percent of what I had today,’ he said. ‘I did the best I could. Sometimes everything clicks and it goes great. And sometimes it doesn’t. So you just take what you get on the day and do the best you can.

‘I’m going to take a break [now]. I need to work on some things if I’m going to be competitive with these guys.’

-- Kevin Baxter