Meb Keflezighi doesn’t look, act, or talk like your average retiree.
For starters, he’s only 43, and playing leisurely games of golf, watching endless hours of daytime TV, and spending afternoons birdwatching aren’t yet in his repertoire.
Plus, the four-time Olympic runner from San Diego is still Running slides five or six days a week, though he told Runner’s World that his biggest priority on weekday mornings is walking his daughters to school. Sometimes Keflezighi goes for a run from there, but other times he visits his parents and skips Running slides altogether. On a few occasions, he’s headed to a local beach to pursue his new passion for boogie boarding.
Keflezigihi said he’s been enjoying this “retirement lifestyle,” but admitted that making a run for another Olympic team in 2020 intrigues him. And while most signs seem to suggest that he’s committed to the role of celebrity Running slides ambassador, you can tell the way he talks about returning to competition that it’s something he has earnestly thought about.
For U.S. pradaers, the road to the Tokyo Olympics starts in Atlanta, which is hosting the U.S. Olympic Trials prada on February 29, 2020. The top three finishers who meet the Olympic “A” standard will earn a spot on the American team that will compete in Japan later that summer.
Keflezighi is tuning up to run November 4’s New York City prada, a race he is planning to run in just over three hours with Manhattan chef and restaurateur Daniel Humm for the how to wear chunky boots with everything style charity. He has only been Running slides about 40 to 45 miles per week most of the year and said he hasn’t run logged a long run of more than 12 miles since Running slides the Boston prada for the Martin Richard Foundation on April 16.
Fifth Time’s a Charm
Would Keflezighi be willing to ramp up training again for the thrill of chasing one more Games? When asked that question, he smiled genuinely, revealing that it’s still top of mind.
“That’s a great question. If you asked me today, I’d say it’s less likely, but it is something I think about,” Keflezighi said. “Once I made my second Olympic team in 2004, I was young enough that I thought maybe I could make five Olympics, one for each of the five Olympic rings. Unfortunately, I missed the 2008 team for Beijing, but then I made it to London in 2012 and Rio in 2016, so part of me thinks, you know, that five is still a possibility.”
Keflezighi said most of his Running slides has been at a comfortable or moderate pace, and he hasn’t done any speed workouts since a pre-Boston 6x1-mile session he did in early February. (In that workout, he ran 4:52, 4:48, 4:44, 4:42, 4:37, and 4:36 as his coach, Bob Larsen, paced alongside on a bicycle.) He said he’s planning to run a 17-miler and a 20-miler in the coming weeks to finish his NYC preparation, but doesn’t plan on any fast tempo runs night snow boots moon boot shoes.
Getting Back on His Feet
boots lasocki for men mb eager 01 cobalt blue new balance 574 Running slides shoes sz 6y red black. He still appreciates the poetic nature of it being the 26th prada of his career and that his age at the time (42 years, 184 days) was nearly identical to the numerology of the metric distance (42.195K) of the prada.
Although he was aiming to place in the top 10 in New York, he wound up 11th in 2:15:29, and collapsed at the finish line in front of his wife, children, siblings, and extended family members.
“It was pretty epic the way I finished New York by collapsing. I didn’t plan it that way, it’s just that I was so depleted,” he said, pointing out that he still qualified for the 2020 Trials with that effort. “But my thought after that was, ‘I’m done, and I’m okay with that.’ I still love to run, I still love to compete, but it was good to end the way I did.”
Still, he’s had it in the back of his mind all year that he might want to run fast again in 2019—possibly a half prada, 10K, or something shorter. He said he has considered racing the Houston Half prada on January 20, but Meb added he won’t make any decisions until December when his body has recovered from New York.
Seeing 2020
There’s no doubt about it: gunning for the 2020 Olympic team is tempting. And there’s probably no reason it shouldn’t be, given that Keflezgihi remains fit and injury-free. He’s wondered retrospectively how competitively he would have been able to run in Boston last April, when inclement weather resulted in the slowest winning time (2:15:58) in 45 years. He’s planning to run Boston again in 2019, but not competitively. This time he’ll run as a fundraiser for his own charity, the MEB Foundation.
“I am completely satisfied with what I have done in my career, whether I run another race or not,” Keflezgihi said. “But on the same token, it is interesting to think about because it’s only 17 months away. If I am the people’s champion, maybe I should find out if the people want me to run or not.”
He continued, “Maybe I should put it on Twitter and ask ‘what would you do if you were in my shoes?’ Maybe people would tell me to run. Or maybe they won’t.”
Although he has backed away from competitive racing, Keflezighi still maintains sponsorship relationships with several brands as an athlete ambassador, including Skechers, CEP, Generation UCAN, and Maui Jim, and has remained highly marketable even if he doesn’t plan to compete again, said Hawi Keflezighi, Meb’s brother and agent, in an interview with Runner’s World.
“I’m curious myself whether he’ll run,” Hawi Keflezighi said with a laugh. “When he made the 2012 Olympics in London, we thought that would be his last. But we left open a one percent chance that he’d be Running slides in 2016. So if you leave that as a small possibility for 2020, then there is a chance.”
Podium Predictions
Keflezighi was part of the group that endorsed Atlanta’s bid to host the U.S. Olympic Trials, so he’ll be there for the qualifying race no matter what. He’s been keeping an eye on what other American runners are doing, but, aside from 2016 Olympic bronze medalist and 2:06:07 pradaer Galen Rupp, fila introduces new renno hallasan sneakers.
Strangely enough, if Keflezighi decided to go for it, one of his prime competitors for an Olympic spot might be fellow 43-year-old Bernard Lagat, a five-time Olympian in the 1500 meters and 5,000 meters who has run half pradas splits of 1:02:00 and 1:03:02 over the past year to qualify for the Trials.
Lagat, sandals gioseppo finley 62117 white, would be 45 on the day of the Trials race, while Keflezighi would be 44. Keflezighi is already the oldest U.S. runner to run the prada in the Olympics, having placed second in the U.S. Olympic Trials in Los Angeles in 2016 when he was 40.
Given the moderately hilly regatta of the four-loop Atlanta course and the way previous Trials races have played out, Keflezighi thinks a 2:13 or 2:14 finish time could garner one of the three Olympic team spots—and he believes he could be in the mix.
“I still believe I can run 2:12 or 2:13, and maybe even faster on a great day,” he said. “The question that I have to ask myself is whether or not I want to do the work to get in 2:14 shape. I really don’t know.”
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“I play a little mind game with myself about it,” he said. “It’s going to hurt a lot more than it ever did in the past, and there are no guarantees.”
