Time is the only requirement for making it into the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. Run 2:19 (male) or 2:45 (female) or faster on a certified course, and you’re in. Which is how, in a roughly 300-runner field, an engineer, a professor, a full-time mom, a video-game designer, a medical director, and a geographic specialist will toe the line with the top American distance runners (see “Who to Watch,” page 64). These six unsponsored qualifiers squeezed in 90-plus-mile weeks around jobs and kids, aware of their slim shot of making the Olympic Team. It’s not a ticket to Rio that motivates them—it’s the satisfaction of achieving a hard-won goal. For them, Saturday, February 13, in Los Angeles just might as well be the Olympics.
PAUL PETERSEN
36, Fort Collins, Colo.
QUALIFIED…