The 41st Day

Ryan Hall? Always a story, especially in the US.

Then 2007 showed up in Houston in January,

and he ran 59:43, first American under 60 minutes

for the half marathon.

I must admit I was very skeptical. I,

I immediately thought, "Short course.

How's he doing it? Is that real?"

And of course, he was the real deal.

Ryan Hall right now is on the cusp

of becoming the greatest American distance runner ever.

He has the fastest half marathon by an American ever,

he's run the fastest marathon by an American ever,

and he's had success at every distance he's tried.

He's a natural front-runner,

and he loves to bury the field.

Six times Ryan Hall has finished in the top five

in major marathons throughout the world,

and he's made to Olympic teams to boot.

He's just Mr. Consistent.

Clearly you can't put in what God left out,

and Ryan has got an awful lot of talent.

The guy is very much the real deal.

Growing up in Big Bear was just a huge blessing.

You know, a small resort town in Southern California,

right around 7,000 feet, pine trees everywhere.

It just kind of was perfectly suited for me

because I love to be outside

and I love to just be in God's creation.

When I was growing up I had big dreams

about being a professional baseball player.

I wanted to follow my dad's footsteps.

He played baseball at Pepperdine University,

was drafted to play in the Major Leagues.

He decided not to go to the Majors,

um, he felt like God was calling him

to do a teaching exchange program in Australia.

My dad was always at the helm of our family,

was a very strong leader and we all kind of

just followed his lead on things.

The thing that probably

most sticks out in my mind

is the energy level that he had.

Everything that he did was in high gear.

And then he would collapse.

His elementary years were filled

with a lot of hiking, a lot of basketball.

Even when he was in elementary school,

there was a competitiveness there

that would come out when he was out on the field,

not necessarily in the classroom.

Middle school started with Ry really being involved

in a lot with all kinds of sports.

But, at the end of every school year,

they would bring all the kids together

in junior high and have a track meet.

He got picked to run the mile on eighth grade,

and he was running against a kind named Gilberto Santillion

and they had an epic race.

And, as they came into the last lap,

they both had this look on their face, both of them,

like, "You're not going to beat me."

And as they came down with 100 meters to go,

Ryan pulled ahead of Gilberto

and just beat him right at the end.

And I think for Ryan, that was the first time

he might've thought like,

"Hm, maybe I'm a runner."

After the school-wide track me, my dad,

he told me, he's like, "You know what? You could be

a great runner if you wanted to be."

And, you know, I looked at him, and I remember thinking,

and just saying, you know, "That's cool,

but I don't want to be a great runner." Like,

"I want to play baseball like you played baseball."

And then one day

while he was playing eighth grade basketball.

And it was during that basketball season,

I would say that was the first time

I really experienced God speaking to me

in a super-tangible way.

I was traveling down to a basketball game,

and I was just kind looking out at the lake

in my hometown, "So you know what," like,

"I'm just being hit with this thing right now

where I just really have this huge desire

to try and run around the lake in my hometown."

He got home, it was Friday night,

and he came to me and said, "Dad,

I'd really like to run around the lake."

And I was really grateful that my dad didn't just,

you know, gun down the idea and say, "You know what?

That's like biting off way more

than you should right now."

It's about a 15 mile run around.

And, I talked to Ryan for a while

and tried to discourage him.

And he was saying, "No, I really want to go."

And so, I said, "Okay, no whining, no crying."

So, we, we started out early in the morning, about seven o'clock.

I just remember that run just taking in,

it seemed like an eternity to me.

But my dad was with me every step of the way.

He was doing fairly well going through the six mile mark.

But when we got to Fawnskin, which is nine miles,

I noticed he was starting to struggle.

And I was saying to him, "Come on, Ry, we're on the bike

path, we can just stop and we'll walk, and."

"No, Dad, I don't want to walk, we're going to run."

And so when we got about a mile from home,

we stopped at the AM/PM and we got something to drink,

and Ryan was saying, "Dad,

I think this is something I can do."

You don't normally run 15 miles

and feel like that makes you feel like

it's something you want to do.

Come home, collapse in my couch, just dead tired.

The run itself actually inspired him.

God hit me again and started speaking to me

for the second time in a very tangible way.

And I really felt like He was telling me, like,

"I've given you a gift to run with the best guys in the world,

but I've given you that gift so that you can help other people

and love other people."

And, uh, I didn't really understand

the second part of that vision at the time.

After that, Ryan was all in to running.

I had started running every day with my dad.

My dad was my coach. He wrote up workouts for me on a weekly basis.

He really poured into my life.

And that was really important for me at that time

because I was struggling with friendships at school, like,

because I wasn't doing baseball,

basketball, and football anymore,

I kind of lost like all of my friends.

So, you know, I remember during my freshmen year,

walking across the quad and just seeing all the kids

at lunch hanging out with each other, eating lunch,

laughing, having a good time, I'd take my lunch

from home and go in my dad's class

because he taught special ed at the high school,

and I'd just go and have lunch with him.

One day I was walking through the quad

and just feeling that kind of loneliness come on me and,

um, I just remember at that time just asking Jesus,

I was like, "Man, I really need You

to be my friend right now."

You know, it was during that time of asking Jesus

to come and be my best friend

that things really took off for me,

in terms of the faith becoming my own.

So after that, it was more about trying

to get him to relax and not take it quite as seriously.

Big Bear High's Ryan Hall is one of the top three

distance runners in the country.

His resume has been growing

ever since he first burst on the scene

as a junior in last years' Masters Meet.

Ryan won the mile in 4:05,

second fastest in the country.

When he ran that 4:05 at Mt. SAC,

that definitely changed his life.

But for him, it didn't change a lot

except for he was super excited about what happened.

And then I think he started saying,

"Going under four is definitely possible."

Only one high schooler has gone sub-four

in a mile since Jim Ryan, 30 years ago.

Ryan Hall thinks he'll be the next,

so much so that he put his goal in concrete

right next to the family's home.

The point is I love to run

and I'd run whatever event I was best at.

But I really do believe I'm a miler

and I'm really passionate about the mile.

Ryan was thinking I want to go under 4:05,

and for him, there's always that,

"Yeah, I won the race but I want to go faster."

Well, I see myself running in the Olympics

and when I'm training, I see myself running

with El Guerrouj and those guys.

And my friend Tyree, he made a picture for me

and put me in the race where...

The finishing picture of the Olympics,

so I have that hanging above my bed and I'm in front of them.

You know, I didn't have quite the year I was hoping for,

um, my senior year. And I had a good chance

of breaking four minutes.

I remember in that last race it was a mile race

and they'd kind of set it up for me to try and break four.

You know, I was really hoping that this would be

my day and I could break four, but I was way past

my peak and already tired at that point

and ran a really bad last 800.

Done with high school, ready to get after college

and the college thing was a very difficult decision for him.

He'd always wanted to go to UCLA,

and Stanford was the running place for guys at the time.

That was also a big decision that came down to the end

when him and his mom finally drove to Stanford a second time

where he went in the chapel,