I'm going to assume you are trolling a bit, but it's "cool" to care about the Boston Marathon again because last year some assholes tried to kill a bunch of people at the end of the race, and thus instead of the race being a blip on the national radar and a two minutes story on SportsCenter, it became THE national…

Your comments on "The Field" show exactly why the US has basically zero chance of winning the big marathons these days. Kenya and Ethiopia have, what, 200 men who can run under 2:10 in the marathon? Probably more. And if you take 200 very fast men and train the hell out of them, 100 of them might get a stress fracture…

Take a look at his quads in the picture- compare the size of his upper leg muscles to his tiny, tiny calves, and add in how long his legs are relative to his body, and you can see he was absolutely made to run the marathon. It's unreal.

In terms of accomplishments, I'd put Shorter, Salazar, and Rogers ahead of him...but like Ray Fontaine said, there were only dozens of East Africans running back then, not hundreds/thousands. Put Shorter, Salazar, and Rogers in the race on Monday in their primes and I doubt they do any better than Hall in his.

He won last year so he obviously knows how to do well in Boston...but did you see Kimetto in Chicago last year??? The guy is an animal. Anything can happen in 26 miles but my money's on Kimetto.

Thanks again for the running articles! It's nice to know there are at least several other people who give a shit about someone being able to run 26.2 miles at 4:45/mile.

"The marathon isn't an exceptionally long run for them, either by time or by distance."

A Ryan Shay reference on Deadspin? Amazing. Keep these coming, if for no other reason than it brings a little more attention to the marathon.

Former college distance runner here- had to stop competing at the collegiate level because of degenerative discs but opted against the surgery. 99% of the time, my back is fine and I can run 70+ miles a week and race marathons...and then all of the sudden in the middle of a run my back will explode and I will be stuck…

GREAT to see Track and Field getting some more attention, but....

Disagreed- just look at what Rupp did this year, 13:01 indoors when his PR is 12:58. If you step out on an indoor track, the turns aren't THAT sharp- they just look like they are when you watch a 400-800, or a 1500 where you have 15 people on the track. In a spread-out race, the turns don't slow you down.

My PRs in high school were all outdoors because I ran 95% of my races outdoors, and my PRs in college were mostly indoors, because I would either survive cross country season and run some decent indoor races before getting sick or broken for outdoors, or not even make it to indoors. I was a brittle, unsuccessful…

Great interview, and awesome to see an article on track on Deadspin.

Real runners wear matching $300-$500 dollar jackets.

Good girl.

A) Child-dog? Terrifying.

That looks a LOT like my dog, but I don't think it's actually my dog. My dog is a little bigger, and has some more brown on his coat. But that could definitely be my dog.

Runners should drink something when they are out for 15 miles in August, but they should plan ahead. Plan your route so you can stop at some water fountains. Stash some water bottles along the route beforehand. Anything so you don't have to carry a few extra pounds of water around- we worry about every little ounce in…

I've been reading Deadspin for years and have never created an account to comment until reading this. As a "real runner, definition 2", I love this. Especially this: