Even the Best Suffer from the Blues

I do take some solace in knowing I am not the only one going through a rough spell at the moment.

Ryan Hall (pictured <--), arguably the premiere distance runner in the United States has withdrawn from the Chicago marathon after a poor performance at the Philadelphia half marathon.

He makes a comment below where he states if he is not at his best, he does not want to line up for the race.  I agree with him. I don't want to race if I don't have a chance to do my best.

Ryan Hall's goal for his Chicago Marathon debut was to break the U.S. record. That isn't going to happen this year.

Following a disappointing performance at the Sept. 19 Philadelphia Half Marathon and some poor workouts over the past week, Hall said Tuesday he will not run the Oct. 10 Chicago race.

"It has been a rough last couple months for me,'' Hall said in a Tuesday interview with the Tribune. I've invested everything in my training, and sometimes things do not turn out the way you had envisioned.

I was very excited to run the Bank of America Chicago Marathon but my workouts haven't been good. I'm very much a guy that when I show up at the starting line, I believe everything is possible, and I go after things with my whole heart, so if I'm not ready to go, I'm not going to show up and have a performance that doesn't reflect that.

Hall, the leading U.S. marathoner since 2007, finished 14th in Philadelphia, four minutes slower than his career best time for a half marathon.

In a posting on Facebook the day after the race, Hall said, I was pretty bummed. It's not easy to still really believe anything is possible on days like today when I raced half the (marathon) distance slower than I typically come through halfway in a marathon, and I have only three weeks left until Chicago.

Hall, 27, was the 2008 Olympic trials winner and No. 2 U.S. finisher (10th) at the Beijing Olympics. His time of 2 hours, 6 minutes 17 seconds at the 2008 London Marathon made Hall the second fastest U.S. performer behind Khalid Khannouchi, who set the U.S. record of 2:05:38 at London in 2002.

"It's been a long time since I have been in a paced race on a flat, fast course like Chicago, and I was looking forward to seeing what (time) that translates to,'' Hall said. That adds to the bummer of not being able to go.