Every four years, the governing body of running in the USA stages one sudden-death opportunity to secure a coveted spot on the men's Olympic marathon team. And so, on November 3, at 7:35am, with Rockefeller Plaza as a starting line and St. Patrick's Cathedral as a backdrop, approximately 130 of the qualifiers for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials-Men's Marathon will start out on their grand tour of Manhattan, all hoping to be one of the first three to pass by every landmark on their way to their final stop in the famous, historic Central Park.

The draw of New York City is undeniable, and the novelty of running in the city is at an all-time high. With a record 98,000 applicants for this year's ING New York City Marathon, the event has become the highest revenue generating single-day sporting event in the country. Higher than the Super Bowl.

The New York Road Runners presented the bid to the USATF selection committee, who considered several cities in their selection of the trials course. The evaluated bids based on minimum requirements, such as prize money, but the final decision came down to what else the bidding cities had to offer.

"New York had all the nuts and bolts in place," says Jim Estes, the Long Distance Running Programs Manager of USA Track & Field. "But they were a step above on what they were willing to offer as far as media and public relations."

NYRR is lead by CEO Mary Wittenberg, a woman who has headed up the organization for the last two years and has already made great transformations in the sport of running in New York City.

"The New York Road Runners have such an efficient means of educating the public on the sport of distance running," says Estes.

So, in a weekend that Wittenberg is calling "Sports Spectacular," the NYRR has generated an unprecedented media buzz around the event, which will increase the exposure to a level never before seen.

"It's like the Oscars and the Tony's in the same weekend," Wittenberg says of the two day event: the U.S. Olympic Team Trials on Saturday followed by the ING New York City Marathon on Sunday.

Events begin on Thursday with a special athletes-only reception at Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the Mayor of NYC. On Friday is the Run With Champions, where NYRR Foundation kids will get to run with several of the Olympic hopefuls. Running at the same time as the U.S. Olympic Team Trials on Saturday morning is the Continental Airlines International Friendship Run, featuring the ING New York City Marathon's 15,000 international entrants, and Sunday is, of course, the 38th running of the five-borough ING New York City Marathon.

"I hope we look back on this as a pivotal moment in promoting our top athletes in the sport among fans, especially with kids, so we can take a big step forward in building our fan base around the American men," says Wittenberg.

The Course

Starting at the corner of 50th Street and 5th Avenue, the men will first head west past Radio City Music Hall, which was opened to the public in 1932 and was declared a City landmark in 1978. The pack will then turn left on 6th Avenue and right on 44th Street where they will enter the iconic Times Square.

Largely known for its bright lights and billboards, Times Square displayed its first electrified advertisement over 100 years ago, in 1904, in the time that the Square was first becoming the center of Manhattan. The men will head north up 7th Avenue with the highly recognizable 1 Times Square at their backs and make their way up fifteen blocks to Central Park.

Just before entering Central Park, on the corner of 7th Avenue and Central Park South, the men will pass by the New York Athletic Club, which has been housed at that location since 1927. Since it's inception in 1868, 214 Olympic medals, 123 of which are gold, have represented the NYAC. The club, which staged the first ever USA outdoor track and field championships, has supported recent running greats such as Eamonn Coughlin, Matt Centrowitz, Tom Fleming and four-time discus gold medalist Al Oerter.

Upon entering Central Park, the men will begin the last 24 miles of the race, running clockwise loops in a criterium-style course that will create an optimal stage for spectators to watch the men at many points along the way.

Central Park

Central Park takes up 6% of the borough of Manhattan, spanning over 843 acres. It has 58 miles of pedestrian paths, more than 6 miles of vehicle drives, and nearly 5 miles of dirt bridle paths. It was opened in 1859, at a time when people were starting to realize that New Yorkers needed an escape from the ever-expanding urban landscape. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1963, and with nearly twenty-five million visitors each year, is the most visited city park in the United States.

Thousands of runners wend their way through the park each day, starting as early as 5:00am, when New York's Governor Eliot Spitzer kicks off most of his days with a pre-sunrise loop around the Reservoir, and concluding well after dark, with the New York City's ever-expanding late-working population.

NYRR produces approximately 65 races every year, varying in length from 1 mile to 60 kilometers, and holds races in Central Park roughly 30 weekends out of the 52 available. The famous outer loop, which follows the inside perimeter of the park, is just a hair over 6 miles. The park is then conveniently divided by transverses, allowing loops to be cut into 5 miles, 4 miles, and even smaller.

The 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials will follow a clockwise direction, and will first run one inner 4-mile loop, using 72nd street and 102nd street as boundaries, followed by four 5-mile loops, with the South Drive (approximately 60th street) and 102nd street as boundaries.

In all, they will pass by Tavern on the Green five times, the fifth being the finish, as they cross the same finish line that the more traditional ING New York City Marathon will use the next day.

"For a lot of reasons it's going to be a memorable race," says Estes. "The guys who make the team will always remember making the team, but a lot of the guys whose goal was just to qualify for the race will not only remember getting to run in the Olympic Trials, but they'll really remember running it in New York."

History of the NYC Marathon

The New York City marathon was first run in 1970 and concluded with only 55 finishers. The race was won by Gary Muhrcke in a time of 2:31:38 and consisted of four large loops plus a little extra around the large 6 mile drive of the park.

In 1976, Fred Lebow redesigned the NYC Marathon course so that it passed through every borough of the city, before settling in Central Park. The Trials criterium-style course is a throwback to that early 70's course, with some dramatic modifications.

Tom Fleming was the last winner of the criterium-style course, with a record of 2:19:27. That same year he ran 2:12:05 in the Boston Marathon. There are, however, some major differences between the course of the seventies and the course coming up this November.

"The course they're running is a hell of a lot easier than it was in 70, 71 through 75," says Fleming, he says of this November's Trials course.

The biggest factor is the absence of the northern hills of the park, which exist between 102nd and 110th street, a segment of the park that the NYRR chose to omit.

"I challenge anyone to go run sub-2:20, four times up the north hills," Fleming says.

Fleming also believes that the direction clockwise direction of the Trials course is easier than the counter-clockwise course of the early 70s. The counter-clockwise direction forced runners to run up the steeper of the two hills in the park, a hill known locally as "Cat Hill" because of a large statue of a cat where the hill crests. The men in the Trials will instead run down Cat Hill, and climb a longer and less steep hill on the west side of the park.

These factors promising, however, to fans who are more interested in seeing a large gathering of the USA's top marathoners on a brisk pace, than a brutal weeding out of the country's most promising athletes.

However, while the course may be easer that it could be, Bob Larsen, who coaches two major contenders for the 2008 Olympic team, Ryan Hall and Meb Keflezighi, the silver medalist in the marathon at the 2004 Olympics, actually believes that New York will be significantly tougher than the 2004 trials course, with "constantly changing elevations, not all sharp, but enough to get your attention."

"The qualifiers are going to have to be in shape for that course," Larsen says of New York. "Not only the quality of the field, but the difficulty of the course."

Larsen has also been to Beijing to view the venue for the 2008 Olympic marathon course, and has viewed video footage of the course since the exact route has been laid out. He observes that the Beijing course is "perfectly flat, with one underpass late in the race." The challenge of the hills in New York, then, will be replaced by the challenge of heat and humidity in Beijing.

The Field

USATF allows for three different means of qualifying for the Trials. The most traditional method is the open window for running a time of 2:22:00 or faster between January 1, 2006 and October 7, 2007, a feat which has so far been accomplished by roughly 125 athletes.

Additionally, there was a single-day qualifying opportunity at the 2005 USA Marathon Championships in Minnesota, a provision that added two qualifiers to the field.

Finally, USATF has allowed qualifying on the track, with marks of 13:40.00 for 5,000 meters and 28:45.00 for 10,000 meters, in an attempt to encourage more young track athletes try the marathon. This provision sweeps in roughly 35 more qualifiers, including New York City resident Anthony Famiglietti, who is still considering jumping on the line.

"You got a taste of what the young track athletes can do when you look at Ryan Hall," says Estes. The 24-year-old Hall ran 2:08:24 at the 2007 Flora London Marathon, the fastest debut marathon ever by an American man.

Additionally, the early time slot in New York allows athletes to maximize their efforts in the marathon, with ample time to step back and recover before the 2008 Track and Field Olympic Trials. This should allow for the most exciting and competitive field ever seen at the marathon Olympic Trials.

In all, there are just over 160 athletes qualified for the race, and Mary Wittenberg expects 130 to approach the starting line on the day of the race. The expected fallout of 20% of the field is largely due to many track-focused athletes still feel that a fall marathon will disrupt their shorter-distance training.

With the expanded field of first-time marathoners and Olympic track hopefuls, this race could also have an unusually high rate of attrition. Many runners will come to the realization during the race that a spot on the Olympic team is not within their grasp, and will step off the course to preserve their bodies for the upcoming track season or even a potentially lucrative spring marathon.

The phenomenal group of marathon Olympic hopefuls is lead by New York's very own Khalid Khannouchi. He enters the race with a nation-leading time of 2:07:04, which he ran at the 2006 Flora London Marathon. Khannouchi has run the third fastest marathon ever run in this world, with a best time of 2:05:38. Hall has the second fastest qualifying time, with his 2:08:24, and Abdi Abdirahman is right on his heels, having run 2:08:56 at the 2006 LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon.

On race day, Hall will be just 25 years old while Khannouchi will be 36. Khannouchi comes to the line with a decade of experience over the new wave of young hopefuls, such as Hall and Dathan Ritzenhein, who is just 24 and represented the U.S. in 10,000 meters in the 2004 Olympics at the age of 21.

Recently, Khannouchi has been fairly outspoken about the way the USA selects its Olympic representation. While other countries use not only their Trials, but also the athlete's season record, the USA prefers to employee a sudden death approach to picking the team. Therefore, an athlete's list of credentials doesn't matter. What really matters is who the three fastest marathoners are on November 3, 2007.

How it works

In order to represent the U.S. in the Olympics, athletes must have either hit the Olympic "A" standard of 2:15:00 and finish in the top-3 of those athletes who have run the that "A" standard by the cut-off date of April 21, 2008, or have hit the Olympic "B" standard of 2:18:00 and have won the qualifying race that the country has set up for selection of the team where no runners who have hit the Olympic "B" standard are competing.

There are thirteen USA men who have already achieved the Olympic "A" standard. The team will be selected from the pool of athletes who have hit this standard, based on their rank order at the finish of the Olympic Trials.

In the unlikely event that no athletes with the "A" standard compete, and the race is won in a time slower than 2:15:00, athletes will have until April 21, 2008 to achieve that "A" standard, or if the highest placing athlete to have hit the "B" standard will be the sole representative of the team. So far, thirty-one athletes have run under that "B" standard of 2:18:00.

NYRR has high hopes for the results of this race. Wittenberg expects the race to be won in well under the 2:15:00 Olympic "A" standard, ensuring that the representation of three athletes will be present for the USA at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

"The team will be too hard to make for the race to be tactical," she says. Schedule

NYRR has scheduled Olympic Trials press conferences at Tavern on the Green on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons.

Thursday night the athletes have been invited by Mayor Bloomberg to a special athletes-only reception at Gracie Mansion.

On Friday, athletes from both the Olympic Trials and the ING New York City Marathon will participate in the NYRR Foundation's Run With Champions event.

Saturday morning, the athlete's families are gathering at Tavern on the Green for VIP seating on the finish line.

The start of the race will be shown live on the Today Show at 7:35, and the entire race will be streamed live on NBCSports.com. The finish of the race will be shown on the west coast Today Show. There will be nation-wide coverage on NBC from 2:00-2:30pm, leading into the Notre Dame football game.

The top-3 will have an entire night of media and will hopefully be on the Today Show the next morning. They will also be involved as VIPs during the ING New York City Marathon on Sunday.

NYRR has been, and will continue to host course previews all summer. Brian Sell was out last winter, Dathan Ritzenhein in May, Ryan Hall in June, and Abdi Abdirahman, Peter Gilmore, Khalid Khannouchi, Jason Hartmann and Alan Culpepper will get a preview of the course when they compete in the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE in early August. NYRR also hosted a large contingency of athletes during the ING Marathon last year, and the USA 8K Championships in March featured 29 Olympic Trials qualifiers running the loop that they'll cover five times during the Trials.