The Making Of A Marathoner

In his short career Dathan Ritzenhein has beaten world-class rivals run thousands of hard miles and overcome pain and injuries. But not until mile 22 of last year's New York City Marathon did he understand what the making of a marathoner involved.

March 1, 2007

In some circles, Wetmore has been criticized for his demanding training methods. Simply read Chris Lear's Running with the Buffaloes, a wondrously detailed account of Wetmore's 1998 cross-country team's season, and it's easy to predict which runners will go down with illness or injury. But Wetmore, though a fervent disciple of Arthur Lydiard's long mileage, has moderated his regimen in recent years. His system builds aerobic stamina with considerable mileage in the breathtaking (in both senses) Boulder area. In a typical week, Ritzenhein would log between 75 and 85 miles, with his long runs coming on Sunday and sometimes kicking off at 8,000 feet.

Ritzenhein hammered as good as he got on Colorado's brutal, revered routes, but in 2002, a right femoral stress fracture forced him to miss his sophomore season of cross-country. Remarkably, he then developed an equal and opposite injury in his other femur, and redshirted that spring's track season.

Still, he became known for regaining fitness fast. Consider the November 2003 NCAA Cross-Country Championships in Waterloo, Iowa. Ritzenhein had been running seriously for only six weeks, and on race day–a blustery, 20-degree day–he was not feeling well. "But he ran and won, outkicking Stanford's Ryan Hall," Wetmore says. "He staggered through the chute and lay down on the ground in the tent, trying to speak. He was incomprehensible." Wetmore pauses, thinking back. "I know of few who can go where he did."

Yet Ritzenhein, away from such moments, doesn't radiate an urge to dominate. "It is very well hidden," says Wetmore, "that strong, strong desire to win. I've had a few athletes who rightly had big dreams, big potential. The rare thing is how invisible it is in Dathan. If you were to fly home from Europe with him and didn't know him, he might not mention running."

"Dathan's a caring guy," says Erik Heinonen, Ritzenhein's teammate at Colorado. "When I first got here, he played along with the team's grab-ass ways, acting crazy, even though that's not him at heart. And he would set aside his professional aspirations and take one for the team." After Ritzenhein got the Olympic A standard at the Stanford meet in 2004, "Dathan came back and could have said, 'I'm shot,'" Heinonen recalls. "But he won the 5000 for us in the Big 12 meet."

Such energy expenditures may have contributed to the fracture that made his Athens experience so miserable. In any case, the cradle of democracy was where Ritzenhein realized that there had to be a better way.

Even before the Olympics, Ritzenhein had planned to turn pro and give up his remaining college eligibility. He did so with Wetmore's blessing. "You've outgrown this program," the coach told the runner. But after the Olympic debacle, Ritzenhein called Brad Hudson, a private running coach based in Boulder whom he only knew slightly. They agreed to talk in the fall, to look at his training with fresh eyes.

Hudson's history hardly suggests a moderating influence. He grew up in New Jersey, began running at nine, and was coached at the time by none other than the omnipresent Wetmore. "I did my first marathon at 12," says Hudson, "and in high school ran 140 miles a week. I ran a 2:17 when I was 19, before going to Oregon." (Wetmore, when asked later why on earth Hudson ran a marathon at 12, yells, "He had an idiot for a coach!" Everyone has absorbed lessons in this journey.)