Ritzenhein Plans to Run with Leaders at Chicago Marathon

Published by Runner's World on October 8, 2013

“I’m going to go out with the lead pack,”Dathan Ritzenhein, who returns to the Chicago Marathon on Sunday, told Runner's World Newswire last week.

It’s the next bold step forward for Ritzenhein, who clocked a 2:07:47 in Chicago in 2012, a personal best by more than two minutes and much closer to the kind of time he and so many other followers of marathoning had forecast for him for so long.

Still, when he went through the halfway split in Chicago last October in 1:03:25, he was a half-minute behind the lead. Now, after a year of improved 10K and half marathon performances, Ritzenhein said, “I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to run that pace,” and that a 1:02:55 at the half would have put him with the front pack in 2012’s race.  “It’s easier said than done. But I’m going to go for it,” he said, and after a pause, added, “I’m sure it will be hard at the end, obviously.”

“I just want to run better than last year,” Ritzenhein siad, which means a swifter time unless “it could be windy or it could be hot, you never know. If that’s the case, I’ll try and get as high as possible,” higher than last year’s ninth. “Going to go out at 2:06 flat pace, that gives me the chance to run faster [in the second half] if I’m feeling well. But I don’t think it’s so fast that I’d completely blow up.”

It’s the pace worked for Ethiopia’s Tsegaye Kebede in Chicago last fall – he opened with a 1:02:54 and blitzed through some of the later miles to shatter the course record with a 2:04:41. Anxious to see the likes of that again, and now ready to keep with it as long as he can, Ritzenhein said, “I hope they don’t go through [halfway] in 62:00. I don’t think that would be good for anybody.”