“What awesome scenery. That was the thrill of a lifetime. I wish I had had my phone so I could have taken a selfie.”
The Air Force Marathon celebrated its 20th anniversary this weekend with 15,500 runners in four different races and one very honored guest, the 41-year-old Keflezighi — the most celebrated American distance runner of this generation.
His fame affords his first name recognition — “Meb” is all his race bibs often read – like Adele, Bono, Cher, Prince and Sting.
He’s a four-time Olympian and the only person to win an Olympic medal, the New York City Marathon and the Boston Marathon.
The latter victory came in stirring fashion in 2014, a year after the deadly bombing bloodied the race and scarred the nation. His win made him first American to do so in Boston in 31 years and the impact still resonates today.
At the Air Force Marathon’s Breakfast of Champions on Friday morning at the Fairborn Holiday Inn – where Meb spoke to a rapt, sold-out crowd of over 200 people – a woman runner stood and told him she had been back in the pack in 2014 when spectators began to hold up signs that said “Meb Won!!!”
She told how the news inspired the others American runners and how proud – and relieved – she had felt.
“You took back the race rather than having it blown up by someone,” she said to a room that had gone silent before filling with applause.
That day in Boston, after he’d crossed the finish line and the nation anthem played, tears spilled from Meb’s eyes.
It is because of moments like that – and there are many across his career – that the Air Force brought him here.
“I can’t think of a better person to join us this year,” said Col. Bradley McDonald, the wing and installation commander at Wright Patterson AFB. “Meb is a great representative of our country.”
In this time when some politicians try to tell you otherwise, we are a nation of immigrants and Meb is an immigrant success story. He represents everything America aspires to be.
“It is an American Dream story,” he said softly.
Yet, for all that he has gotten from this nation and his sport, he gives back even more. That was evident here all weekend.
After speaking for some 50 minutes to the Holiday Inn on Friday morning, he headed to the race’s Sports and Fitness Expo at the Nutter Center in the afternoon, spoke to another crowd and drew an autograph and photo line that snaked through the arena. That night he wowed the crowd of 900 at the annual Pasta Dinner at the Air Force Museum.
A last-minute decision had him enter Saturday morning’s 10K wearing a brand new red, white and blue Air Force marathon T-shirt.
“I wasn’t planning on racing, but the more you talk to people here the more you understand how special this race is,” he said. “I definitely couldn’t have done a marathon today, but I wanted to be part of the event.”
And was he ever.
He ran first with the marathoners before they broke off, then joined various groups of 10 K runners – taking up their pace and encouraging them – all while acknowledged the waves and cheers of the spectators. And he still managed to finish 10th in 40 minutes and five seconds.
After his medal was draped over his neck, he went out of his way to shake hands with each of the 18 airmen who were greeting the runners. Then he posed for photos with the medical staff, other runners and even went to the fence to chat with spectators.
Later, he handed out medals in the full marathon.
Today he heads to New York City, where the United Nations has asked him to speak. After that he comes back to Akron for a marathon, then goes on to an event in Chicago, another in Los Angeles and finally to the White House where President Obama will host the U.S. Olympians from the recent Rio Games.
After two weeks on the road he’ll return to his home in California, where his wife and three young daughters await.
In so doing, he comes back to the state where his American saga began in 1987 after he and his family fled Eritrea in northern Africa.
They ended up in San Diego, where, in less than a year, Meb found himself in Dick Lord’s PE class at Roosevelt Junior High.
“My dad used to wake us up at 4:30 every morning to get us to learn English before we went to our 7:30 classes,” Meb remembered. “He’d take out the dictionary and go word by word. He wanted us to have success in our new country. And he knew education was the key.”
So that set the stage for the big challenge in Lord’s PE class.
“He had us all do a mile run,” Meb said with a smile. “He said if you worked hard you’d get an A or a B and if you goofed around, you’d get a D or an F. You had to run a 6:15 mile to get the good grade and a new T-shirt.
“My parents expected me to do well, so I gave it my all and to my surprise and everyone else’s, I ran a 5:20 mile.
“My teacher said, ‘You’re going to be in the Olympics. You’re going to be really good one day.’
“But I had grown up in a world without electricity or TV, so I had no idea what the Olympics were. So I was like, ‘OK….so where’s my t-shirt?’”
A Family and Country Left Scattered
Eritrea – a tiny county in the Horn of Africa that’s on the Red Sea – endured a 30-year war with neighboring Ethiopia that killed 150,000 Eritreans and left 500,000 refugees scattered around the world.
Meb’s father, Russom, was a proponent of independence from Ethiopia and that made him a target.
“My dad had to leave behind a wife and six kids and walk 225 miles to save his life,” Meb said. “He only had a canteen, a bag of barley and a stick for protection from the animals. He had to sleep in trees at night, because if the hyenas came, it would be too late if he slept on the floor.”
Russom fled to Sudan where he worked two jobs and then joined relatives in Milan, Italy, where he worked equally hard to raise funds to save his family.
Back home, Meb said his older brothers and he sometimes had to hide in the bush to avoid soldiers looking to conscript young boys. He admitted eating moist dirt in hopes of finding nourishment and water and recalled one time how a friend found a land mine that exploded.
“We had to collect his body parts for a proper burial,” he said quietly.
Thanks to an employer – who was moved by his hard work and gave him $6,000 – Russom was able to add to his own savings and finally, after five years, get his family out of Eritrea.
For the young Meb, it literally was going to another world. He saw his first car when he was 10. His first TV at 11.
By the late 1980s the family – which would grow to 10 kids – was in Southern California. Along with the predawn dictionary lessons, Meb said his dad had them work on their physical well-being with push-up competitions in the living room.
Meb graduated high school with a 3.95 grade point average and received a full scholarship to UCLA, where he was a four-time All American distance runner.
“You know all about my racing accomplishments, but all but one of my brothers and sisters are university graduates and doing something positive for our society,” he said. “There’s a doctor, a lawyer, an MBA and on and on.”
Meb became a U.S. citizen in 1998 and said by then his dream was, “to represent the country and become an Olympian” because, “the U.S. had given us the opportunities to maximize our potential.”
He made it to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney in the 10,000 meters and then qualified for both the 10 K and the marathon at the 2004 Athens Games. Even though he came in ranked 39th in the world in the marathon, he finished second and took a silver medal – the first Olympic marathon medal for America in 28 years.
An injury kept him from making the 2008 Beijing Games. He said many people thought his career was over. He proved them wrong a year later when he won the New York City Marathon, the first American to do so in 27 years.
He finished in a surge at the 2012 London Games – going from 21st to fourth – and this summer he competed in Rio, where he didn’t have the finish he wanted, but provided one that was much talked about, especially this weekend.
The Boston Bombing and the Year After
The Boston Marathon, though, remains his signature moment.
An injury kept him from competing in 2013 when a pair of bombers set off explosives near the finish line and three people – plus another security guard later – were killed.
“That day I’d sat in the grandstand 4 to 4 ½ hours watching the race and left maybe five to 7 minutes before the bombing,” he said. “But the explosions took me back to growing up in Eritrea and that kid who was blown up.”
He said he spent a year getting healthy and thinking what he could do to honor the victims and celebrate the spirit of the event.
The night before the race he wrote the names of the four victims on the four corners of his yellow race bib.
While that was a thoughtful gesture, he said he got a better solution – he’s a devout Christian – from up above.
“God gave me the strength of those victims,” he said.
As he was running he suddenly got renewed energy and ran Mile 16 in an astonishing four minutes and 30 seconds. By Mile 18 or 19 he heard the spectators urge him on with chants of “USA!…USA!”
A cramp at Mile 22 went away a mile later as the chants for him got louder and he thought of winning.
He crossed the finish line with his arms outstretched and all of Boston and much of the nation rejoiced. President Obama called him soon after with congratulations.
“Boston was the most meaningful victory of my career,” he said this weekend. “It changed my life.”
As Rob Powers – the co-master of ceremonies of the Air Force Marathon, an army vet and founder of America300, which puts mentors with U.S. military personnel worldwide – put it: “We can’t ask for a better role model than Meb.”
And that’s not just because of Boston, but for races like Rio, as well.
Although halfway through the marathon he was on pace to make the medal podium, he soon began to struggle. He was sick to his stomach and was forced to stop seven times in the later stages of the race.
Soon his focus was just on finishing because his family was there and especially because, as Meb said, “I was wearing the red, white and blue.”
And as he approached the finish line – and what would be a 33rd place finish – he went to wave his cap to the crowd and he slipped on the wet pavement.
Just inches from the end, he pulled himself forward on his belly until he was halfway across the finish line and then surprised everyone with a couple of quick push-ups.
“I wasn’t planning on doing push-ups, but I was so close to the ground,” he said with a laugh and a quick flashback on those sessions his dad once conducted in the family living room.
“As a member of the armed services, to see him drop down and do some push-ups at the end of the marathon was a sight to see,” beamed Col. McDonald. “At the end, his focus was on finishing and he certainly did that.”
So this weekend that first run at Roosevelt Junior High resonated once more.
Again someone was singing Meb Keflezighi’s praises.
And, in the process, he left with a new T-shirt, as well.
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