Meb Keflezighi hopes his mental lapse won't cost him in Saturday's U.S. Olympic marathon trials.
The top American men's and women's distance runners are competing for three spots to make up the teams that will race in London this summer. A total of 113 men and 188 women will start downtown, then make three circuits around an 8-mile loop.
The 36-year-old Keflezighi is one of the favorites on the men's side, along with Ryan Hall, who won the 2008 Olympic trial in an event record time of 2 hours, 9 minutes, 2 seconds.
Keflezighi, the silver medalist in Athens in 2004, missed three weeks of training after the New York City Marathon last November because of a left foot injury he blamed on running with a nasal strip in his shoe.
It was there as part of his pre-race ritual. He was, however, supposed to remember to take it out and put it on. In New York, he just forgot it.
"I felt at Mile 1 that, 'Oops, it's not on my nose,'" he said.
Keflezighi still finished sixth in a personal-best time (2:09.13). But the nasal strip scraped open his left foot and caused an infection, delaying his training until early December.
Looking back, he thinks the injury may turn out to be a "blessing in disguise," because it kept him from overdoing it leading to Saturday.
"I was in great shape going into New York," he said. "I'm just going to rely on that, and on my 20-plus years of a running career. You don't lose the fitness and you're not starting from scratch."
The 29-year-old Hall, meanwhile, is back in the city he calls his "Land of Breakthrough" for good reason.
Five years ago, Hall won the U.S. Half Marathon championship in Houston in 59:43, becoming the first American to finish in under an hour.
The event returned to Houston last year and Hall finished second to Mo Trafeh. That race was a springboard to a fourth-place finish in Boston, where he recorded the fastest marathon time by an American (2:04.58).
"When you come to a place where you've had good races, there's just this calm, peace, relaxation that comes on you from the moment you step off the plane," Hall said Thursday. "So that's what I'm experiencing now."
Trafeh, a two-time U.S. champion at 15 kilometers, and 2008 Olympic trials runner-up Dathan Ritzenhein should also be in the mix at the end. Trafeh passed Hall late in the half-marathon last year, but Hall has the same aggressive strategy in mind for Saturday.
"I run my best when I'm me, and me is running hard from the beginning, taking risk, just going for it all, swinging for the fences," Hall said. "I don't do well when I sit in the back of the pack and wait for the pace to unfold."
The women's field is considered the deepest in history, with 2008 Olympians Shalane Flanagan, Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Deena Kastor joined in the field by 2011 Boston runner-up Desiree Davila and Kenyan-born Janet Cherobon-Bawcom, a winner in eight of nine marathons she's entered.
"On any given day, anything can happen, for better or worse," said Flanagan. "You could, hypothetically, be leaving home a medal contender. This is a really strong team that we'll be sending (to London)."
The 38-year-old Kastor is the wild card of the group. She won the 2008 Olympic trial, and she's trying to make her fourth Olympics just 10 months after giving birth to her first child.
Kastor didn't run at all during the last 5 1/2 months of her pregnancy, finished 25th in a 10-kilometer race in New York in June and wasn't sure if she could be ready in time for Saturday's race. But she surprised herself with how quickly she regained her fitness.
"Probably the most exciting points of my career have been these past six months," Kastor said. "When I started running at 11 years old, you see this slow development over the years. But after taking that time off, and really starting my career over at that point, to see progress so quickly was really exciting to me."
The weather should not be a factor, with the forecast calling for clear skies and temperatures in the mid-40s when the race begins.
The Olympic trials precede the Houston marathon and half-marathon Sunday.
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