Posted: September 24, 2004

Athletics: Injury Behind Him, Kennedy Prepares At Altitude For New York

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

At last July's U.S. Olympic Trials in Sacramento, Calif., U.S. 3000m and 5000m record holder Bob Kennedy knew that he was fit enough to make his third Olympic team, but there was a problem. Two weeks before contesting the 10,000m race there he felt a twinge in his right Achilles tendon doing a hard track workout.

"My older body was not able to handle the horsepower I was putting out," said Kennedy in a conference call with reporters yesterday from his training base in Boulder, Colo. "I was so fit," he lamented.

Less than ten laps into that race, Kennedy limped off the track, forced for the second time in four years to miss an Olympic Games. In 2000 he didn't recover fully from a back injury sustained in an auto accident two months before the Olympic Trials, and finished sixth in the 5000m.

"I obviously had disappointment at Sacramento," he said adding, "That's the way the cookie crumbles."

But Kennedy's decision to run the ING New York City Marathon on November 7, his first attempt at the distance, gave him a strong reason to get the Achilles rehabilitated rapidly and get back to training.

"I got healthy real quickly," said Kennedy, citing his medical support team at home in Indianapolis. He now says that he's running without pain and that he has nearly forgotten about the problem, tackling long runs up to 22 miles at about 8000 feet of elevation on a legendary dirt road called Magnolia.

"It's going well," he said of his training under marathon coach, Dieter Hogen. "The training is very different than anything that I've done."

Kennedy is running about 125 miles per week with Kenyan Timothy Cherigat, the 2004 BAA Boston Marathon Champion, and Tanzanian John Yuda, twice a bronze medalist at the IAAF World Half-Marathon Championships. Both Cherigat and Yuda will be running the marathon at New York with Kennedy, said Allan Steinfeld, New York Road Runners' CEO, who also spoke on yesterday's conference call.

"They've been challenging me to step up a level," Kennedy said of his African training partners.

He has put his full faith in Hogen's program, including diet and recovery. The German coach can now boast that he prepared the winners of the LaSalle Bank Chicago and Flora London Marathons (Evans Rutto) plus Boston winner Cherigat. "He has a clear mnderstanding of what he believes works," said Kennedy. "It's a life encompassing program."

Kennedy is particularly excited about the match-up between him and Olympic Marathon silver medalist, Meb Keflezighi, the top American entered in the men's race.

"I'm really happy for him," said Kennedy of Keflezighi's achievement. "I'm proud of him and proud for him."

Like Keflezighi, Kennedy values the great traditions in athletics, one of the primary reasons for choosing New York for his marathon debut. "New York is probably the most traditional, well-known marathon marathon in the world," said Kennedy. "That's a huge stage and I like to compete on a big stage." He then added, "I just know that it's going to be an awe inspiring experience when I turn on to First Avenue."

First Avenue marks the entry of the marathon's route into Manhattan, just past the 16 mile mark. The crowds are often more than ten deep along the roadway, cheerling so loudly they rival the volume of a major sports stadium.

Kennedy, who calls the marathon "a brand new challenge" will remain in Boulder right up until the race. He was reluctant to make any specific predictions about his potential in the event, but he did say this: "I would never toe the starting line unless there was a possibility that I could win."