Meb Keflezighi, shown here winning the Rock 'n' Roll San Jose Half Marathon earlier this year, is back to try and win a third straight title in San Jose.

San Jose, CA – The streets of San Jose will be alive with music and the excitement created by running fans watching two of America’s premier distance runners during Sunday’s Dodge Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon. American marathon record-holder and 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor headlines the elite field, running her first half marathon since giving birth to her daughter, Piper, earlier this year.

“The Dodge Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon has really been my focus since coming back from maternity leave,” said Kastor, who trains with the Mammoth Track Club in California. “I am looking for my fitness to peak in January for the Olympic Trials, but this is a big stepping stone to get into longer marathon training. The Half marathon distance is my favorite distance to race and I am particularly excited race in San Jose. My Mammoth Track Club teammates Meb and Jen Rhines have both run well in San Jose, so I look forward to following in their footsteps.”

Kastor, 38, is a two-time Rock ‘n’ Roll champion winning the inaugural Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach Half Marathon in 2001 and the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona in 2010. She made U.S. half-marathon history in 2005 in Philadelphia when she shattered Joan Benoit Samuelson’s long-standing U.S. record by 41 seconds with a time of 1 hour, 7 minutes and 53 seconds. The three-time Olympian later bettered her time at Berlin in 2006 (1:07:34), and the record has stood since.

World-Class All Around: Exclusive Interview With Deena Kastor

“Right after the birth of Piper, people told me how fit I looked and the reality was that I had lost a lot of muscle and fitness, so I was merely skinny,” Kastor said of her maternity leave. “It has been fun to slowly climb back and feel my body adapt to the training. I’m not where I want to be, but I’m a much better athlete than I was 6 months ago.”

Kastor recently finished 2nd at the Great Cow Harbor 10K in 33:20. After her Olympic bronze medal, she became the first American woman to ever run a marathon under 2:20 when she won the 2006 Flora London Marathon in 2:19:36. In 2002, the Arkansas graduate set a then 5K world road record of 14:54 at the Carlsbad 5000.

“The Olympic Marathon Trials will be the most competitive trials we have ever seen on both men’s and women’s side, so I have to be on top of my game come January,” added Kastor. “Since I didn’t run for a majority of my pregnancy, I have had to be patient with my fitness returning. I look forward to testing my fitness in San Jose and possibly competing in another Rock n Roll half marathon before the end of the year. There are so many great cities in this series and I’m looking forward to racing another half again to measure my progress before Houston.”

She will be challenged by a strong local field with several women looking to run under the Olympic Trials qualifying standard of 1:15:00 or better. Heading the group is Bay Area Track Club member Clara Peterson, a five-time collegiate all-American at Duke where she placed second in the 10K at the 2006 NCAA Outdoor National Championships. Peterson, 27, ran her half-marathon PR this year at the Giants Race in San Francisco. Also in the field is University of California-Berkeley graduate Brooke Wells, who was the youngest qualifier for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials at the age of 22.

Leading the men’s field is 36-year-old Meb Keflezighi, who has won an impressive 20 USA road, track and cross country titles during his illustrious career. Keflezighi, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen upon his graduation from UCLA in 1998, finished second in the marathon at the 2004 Olympics, becoming the first U.S. medalist in the event since Frank Shorter won gold in 1972 and silver in 1976. After his performance this Sunday, Meb plans to run the ING New York City Marathon on Nov. 6 and the U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon on Jan. 14 in Houston.

Keflezighi will be joined by fellow American Sergio Reyes, who won the 2010 USATF National Marathon Championship at the Twin Cities Marathon in Minnesota. A two-time NAIA and NCCAA All-American in cross country and the 2002 NAIA champion at Cedarville University in Ohio, Reyes ran personal best marks in the 5,000m (13:52.39), 10,000m (28:29.70), 10 miles (48:32) and marathon (2:14:02) in 2010. In September he represented the Team USA at the IAAF World Championships Marathon in Daegu, Korea, finishing 45th overall.

A sub-four minute miler, UC Berkley graduate Bolota Asmerom returns to race in San Jose where he set his half marathon personal best in 2006. Asmerom, a three-year letter winner in track for Cal, owns a track PR over 5,000m of 13:15. While still in college, his duel citizenship allowed him to represent Eritrea in the 5,000m at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games.

Potential challengers include Hansons-Brooks Distance Project teammates Drew Polley and Robert Scribner. Polley finished second to Keflezighi at the Dodge Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Half Marathon in June. Scribner recently won the Bayshore 1/2 Marathon in a personal best 1:04:52, which qualified him for the 2012 Olympic Trials.

The Dodge Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon is also home to both of the current California state half-marathon records: 1:00:22 Duncan Kibet (KEN), 2006, and 1:09:17 Silvia Skortsova (RUS), 2006.

California’s fastest half marathon starts at 8:00 am on Sunday.

Race Results

Check out MyFinisher Center for results from the Dodge Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon!

Race Photos

Pre-Race Coverage

News

• Kastor, Keflezighi Ready To Rock San Jose — Meb returns to try and win his third straight Dodge Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon.
• World-Class All Around: Exclusive Interview With Deena Kastor

Training Tips

• The Running Doc’s 10 Commandments Of Marathon Running — There’s nothing common about common sense.
• Race Fueling Made Simple – Staying hydrated during races isn’t as complicated as you might think.
• Ask The Running Doc: How Can I Train & Race In The Heat? – Use these tips to stay cool on race day.
• The 48-Hour Pre-Race Countdown — Training, nutrition and gear tips for the days leading up to your big race.
• Top-5 Tips For Rock ‘n’ Roll Race Week — Use these 5 simple strategies to make your Rock ‘n’ Roll race-week experience less nerve-racking.

Videos

Fresh off her second-place, 1:13:31 finish at this past Sunday’s Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon, Linda Somers Smith has been named the USA Track & Field Athlete of The Week.

Finishing 1 minute and 36 seconds seconds behind 2008 U.S. Olympian Blake Russell, Somers Smith, who represented the U.S. in the marathon at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, shattered Colleen De Reuck’s pending U.S. 45-49 age group half marathon record by almost three minutes.

For More: USA Track & Field

Meb Keflezighi wins the race in 1:01:00. Photo: Ollie Neglerio/Lester Cacho

Perfect Running Weather and Fast Course Provides a Fast Race for 4th Annual Bay Area Event

Click Here For Photos

California’s fastest half-marathon lived up to its billing Sunday as American Meb Keflezighi set a new U.S. 20k record and bettered his personal best by 25 seconds winning the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in a time of 1:01:00. Keflezighi’s 20k split of 57:52 broke Ryan Hall’s standing 20K record of 57:54 set in 2006.

“The other runners looked like they were struggling with the 4:30 pace early on, so I decided to leave the pack and go on my own,” said Keflezighi, who pulled a way from the pack just after mile 3, competing in a showdown against the clock. “It was a great atmosphere out there today; I just wanted to maintain a solid pace through 10 miles and then see what I had left. I ran a personal best by 25 seconds and I’m 34, so I am very excited with my performance.”

A 19-time U.S. Champion, Keflezighi’s half-marathon time ranks him number three all-time on the American list for a record standard course. He sits behind only Mark Curp’s 1:00:55 from 1985 and Ryan Hall’s American record 59:43 from 2007.

“As Roger Craig said ‘I did it today’ and it’s just nice to be healthy. I’m ready for New York and look forward to continuing my marathon training,” added Keflezighi, whose pending 20k record reclaimed the title he held before Hall. “My long term goal is London 2012 and I still I have a marathon PR in me and today’s race proved that age doesn’t mean a thing.”

Belainesh Gebre took the women's title. Photo: Ollie Neglerio/Lester Cacho

The women’s race was led by Belainesh Gebre of Ethiopia who crossed the line in 1:11:24. Bay Area resident Magdalena Lewy-Boulet, who made her Olympic debut for the U.S. in Beijing, finished a close second with a new personal best of 1:11:46. Her previous half-marathon best of 1:11:47 was set in 2008.

“Last week was a high mileage week and I didn’t feel that great out there,” said Lewy-Boulet, who is training for the ING New York City Marathon. “I skipped the World Half Marathon Championships to run here in my backyard because I wanted to support our local race. I set a personal best which is great, and I’ll be back next year.

On a perfect fall morning that dawned with clear blue skies, the 4th annual Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon kicked off one California’s fastest road races, the site of both the men’s and women’s half marathon records for the State of California.

Runners from 44 states and 11 countries participated in the race, including a group of California’s fastest runners, who competed in the event’s first California Cup. Three-time Super Bowl Champion Roger Craig completed his fourth straight San Jose race in a time of 1:48:27. He was followed by soccer star Brandi Chastain running for her third straight year in 1:59:03.

All race participants enjoyed a wide variety of entertainment along the tree-lined course, with bands and cheerleaders at each mile to keep the energy high. The Finish Line Festival at the Plaza de Cesar Chavez in downtown San Jose kept the party atmosphere going with free MGD 64 for all of-age participants and a headliner concert with Grammy-winning blues and jazz artist Jonny Lang.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon will celebrate its 5th Anniversary in San Jose on October 3, 2010. For more information, please visit www.runrocknroll.com.

For Full Results Click Here

2009 Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon Results
Men (Place, Name, Location, Time)
1. Meb Keflezighi, Mammoth Lakes, CA, 1:01:00
2. Bolota Asmerom, Oakland CA, 1:03:06
3. Charlie Serrano, Chico, CA, 1:04:20
4. Luke Humphrey, Sidney, MI, 1:05:03
5. Chris Chavez, Menlo Park, CA, 1:05:13

Women (Place, Name, Location, Time)
1. Belainesh Gebre, Flagstaff, AZ, 1:11:24
2. Magdalena Lewy-Boulet, Oakland, CA, 1:11:46
3. Jenny Wilson, Discovery Bay, CA, 1:22:38
4. Dena Evans, Redwood City, CA, 1:22:50
5. Tracey Freyre, Oakland, CA, 1:23:00

Meb Keflezighi is ready to run fast at Rock 'N' Roll San Jose. Photo: PhotoRun.net

The favorite to win Sunday’s Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon shares some of his training secrets and his hopes for the future.

Written by: Matt Fitzgerald

Mebrahtom “Meb” Keflezighi, 34, of Mammoth Lakes, Calif., will compete in—and is favored to win—the Rock ‘n’ Roll San Jose Half Marathon Sunday. Born in Eritrea, Meb was schooled in San Diego and Los Angeles, became a naturalized US citizen in 1998, and won a silver medal for his adopted homeland in the 2004 Olympics. He has won 19 national championships on the track, on the roads, and in cross country, and holds the American record at 10,000 meters (27:13.98). Meb is part of the Mammoth Lakes Track Club, whose other members include Deena Kastor and Ryan Hall, and he is coached by Bob Larsen.

Competitor: What is your goal for the San Jose Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon?

Meb: First of all, to finish the race would be nice. In the inaugural race in 2006 I started pretty good and tried to go for the American record, which was 1:00:55 seconds at the time [it has since been lowered to 59:43 by Ryan Hall]. I was on pace at mile 11 but then my hamstring cramped up and I had to stop. It was not a good feeling not to finish the race. In the previous week I had put in 121 miles trying to get ready for New York.

I’m in the same situation now [Meb will compete in the New York City Marathon on November 1.] My training has been going good and my times indicate that I have good fitness. I’ve never run this many miles in my career. For the past three weeks I’ve been at about 130 miles a week. This week I’m taking an easy week and then I will try to hit a fast time in San Jose. After that I will take a couple of easy weeks and then try to peak for November.

Will you start off at a certain pace or just go by how your body feels and ignore the stopwatch?

I’m definitely concerned about the watch. Otherwise I would stay home and keep training hard. Part of racing is the competition, which makes you faster. And you want to utilize the training and be very productive. I’m hoping to start at 4:38 [for the first mile] and maintain that or go faster. I like to take it easy in the first two miles. I’m up at altitude in Mammoth Lakes and I will be racing at sea level. It will be nice just to settle in and let the body warm up and then crank out anywhere from 4:38 to 4:33 [per mile]. Is it going to happen? We’ll have to wait and see. I’d like to give it a try.

You mention that you are running the highest mileage of your career. What is the rationale for increasing your training volume now?

To run high mileage you have to be healthy, and I have been healthy. When you stay healthy you get to do a lot of things—your body can do some incredible stuff. My goal is [the Olympics in] 2012. I still believe that I can make the team and be a contender. There are stepping stones that will help me get there, and one of them is the San Jose Half this weekend. Then the New York City Marathon, and we’ll go from there. I haven’t done a lot of miles for a long time—really since 2002, when I started doing marathons. I believe I still have more PR’s in me in the marathon and half marathon.

There are a lot of marathon runners who routinely run 130 miles per week. Why did you wait so long to take your mileage to that level?

Part of training is to be smart. What other people do isn’t always going to work for you. My body wasn’t able to take it. Part of being smart also is to run on soft surfaces. Once or twice a week I run on asphalt, but all of my other running is on dirt. It’s all about knowing what your body can and cannot do. I’m 34 for and some of the workouts I’ve done recently have been the best workouts I’ve ever done, so that tells you something.

How did you determine the training methods that did and did not work for you? Was it mainly injuries that told you what you could not do?

Some of it was injuries. When you have aches and pains you can’t do the double days, so your mileage is minimized. So what I did in the past was a lot of biking and some swimming. You want to win, and you want to push, push, push, but at the same time you don’t want to overdo it. I’ve been in this sport a long time and I try to always make the wise move. Sometimes it’s better to take the afternoon off than to do a 30-minute run and pay for it for the next week. Thirty minutes might not make a big difference but a week of training will.

Have you learned things from some of your injuries that have helped you train better afterward?

It’s good to look back at your training logs and review them. After San Jose in 2006 I looked back at my training log to see what my body was able to do on 121 miles the week before. This year I’m definitely not doing that! Those training logs are there for a purpose. I make notes about what I learn form each race. Then I look back at those notes and try to apply them to my next training.

Over the course of your career, have you been able to identify some specific training practices that really seem to work especially well for you?

Oh, yeah. That’s why we’ve gone back to what I did in 2004. That was five years ago and we’ve modified it a little bit because of my age, but at the same time I’m running faster in my tempo runs now than I did then. We have a routine where Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday are my crucial days. I do long runs twice a week, a tempo run and intervals. That’s four days when I’m pushing the body to the limit and looking for small progress yet seeing what the big vision is. It’s a work of art, and some days it comes out right and other days it doesn’t.

Do you plan your training in detail far in advance?

I usually work backwards. Coach Larsen is a great mentor and has been helping me out quite a bit. Eventually I will probably go into coaching, so I kind of tell him what I want to do and he’ll help me fix it up. For this training [cycle] I wrote up a training plan of what I want to do and what it’s going to take to win New York and I gave it to him and he confirmed it. One of the decisions we had to make was whether to run the [US] 10-mile championship [to be held in Minneapolis-St. Paul on Sunday, October 4] or San Jose, and we decided on San Jose because of the distance and less travel. It works perfectly, so we decided to go that route.

Written by: John Mendelsohn

Many past visitors agree that by far the most enjoyable thing to do in San Jose is rent a car and drive up to San Francisco. But don’t imagine that the city, the tenth most populous in the country, remains the Dullsville suggested in the 1960s hit in “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?”; the enterprising visitor will find a wealth of things to see and do, provided he doesn’t stay too long.

Modern San Jose’s best-known tourist destination by far (because you start seeing signs advertising it as far away as Saskatchewan) is the Winchester Mystery House. The late Sarah Winchester thought her abode had come to be haunted by the ghosts of persons killed by the famous repeating rifle invented by her husband, William Witt Winchester, whose initials predated the Internet by over a century. Where you or I might have hired an exorcist, or moved to Santa Cruz, Sarah allowed a medium to convince her that she would confound the ghosts by hiring a succession of contractors to come in and construct 13 staircases to nowhere, for instance.

Over the course of 38 years of this, during which her digs came to comprise 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms and 10,000 windows, we must assume Mrs. Winchester came to savor the smell of sawdust in the morning — to believe that it smelled likes victory. Today, the Winchester Mystery House is San Jose’s principal tourist attraction, found boring and expensive to view by some, but pleasurably eerie by others.

With burly bouncers who look like the lead singer of the SJ-bred Smashmouth, but more intimidating, admitting only the gorgeous and well-heeled-looking to most of the chic nitespots in San Pedro Square, the ungorgeous and proudly proletarian gravitate to Gordon Biersch to guzzle indigenous brewskis and eat. Arrive early to get a spot in the patio, where you’ll find the highest concentration of enticingly bared midriffs.

Who doesn’t love German cuisine? No? Neither do we, truth be told. Nonetheless, Teske’s Germania Restaurant Bar & Beer Garden offers not only to-die-for bratwurst, but also traditional Teutonic music, and waiters in lederhosen.

San Jose is one of America’s safest big cities. Those who find drive-by shootings and the like exhilarating will want to head for the area bounded by Story, King and Capitol.

The Tech Museum of Innovation offers some 250 mostly interactive exhibits in four themed galleries, and a notable gift shop in which you’re sure to find exactly the right gift for the propellerhead in your life. The Hackworth IMAX® Dome Theater shows really big movies.

We pause to note that in the mid-60s, San Jose was actually where most of the Bay Area’s best bands were based. You’ve heard of Count Five, whose Psychotic Reaction was a Top 5 hit in 1966. You haven’t heard of the E-Types (who actually hailed from Salinas, down in Steinbeck country, and who probably regarded San Jose as The Big City), but should have, as they were fab, gear, and all the other pimply hyperboles. The Doobie Brothers formed in San Jose. Don’t pretend you’ve not heard of Smashmouth, if only here.

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum was one of the world’s first Egyptian museums. Founded by the Rosicrucians (sort of like the Freemasons, but even weirder) well over a 100 years old, the place is modeled after the temple at Karnak, and has the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities on the West Coast. You needn’t learn a secret handshake to be admitted.

The Richardson Romanesque portion of the architecturally schizophrenic San Jose Museum of Art downtown dates back to the late nineteenth century, while the other, golden-hued sandstone, half was built in the 90s. Employing state of the art temperature and humidity controls that allow it to share exhibits with New York’s Whitney Museum, the museum’s defiantly parochial focus is on the recent work of West Coast artists.

San Jose State University fields a football team that competes in NCAA Division IA and has produced a couple of notable NFL quarterbacks and head coaches. Stroll the same grounds a then-fresh-faced Stevie Nicks strolled before she changed the course of popular music in our time. While there, don’t miss the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies and Museum, the only North American institution devoted solely to the life and works and accomplishments of the Bard, or whatever he called himself. Enjoy original manuscripts, first editions, three fortepianos, a harpsichord, a clavichord, and a listening area.

Santana Row, a European-style pedestrian area filled with overpriced shops and restaurants, is a nice place for a traipse if you don’t mind the sort of antiseptic contrivedness you’d find at a theme park owned by the Christian right. Increase your pleasure by imagining that the area’s namesake is the Grammy-winning chicano guitarist. Increase it further by meeting the gal or dude of your dreams at one of the countless wine bars.

You needn’t schlep all the way up to the Napa Valley to sample wines. Do so in downtown SJ at J. Lohr. Once having done so, stagger over to Japantown for sushi, bearing in mind that there are also Chinese, Korean, Hawaiian, and even Mexican restaurants there, not to mention a big farmers market on Sunday mornings, and the oddly named Japantown Buddhist Church for your spiritual needs.

Your taste for the exotic thoroughly whetted now, you’ll delight in the knowledge that there are more persons of Vietnamese origin in San Jose than anywhere else in the world outside Vietnam, with the heaviest concentration of Vietnamese businesses located south of downtown along Story Road between Kelley Park and McLaughlin Ave. The Viet Museum, near the city’s Municipal Stadium, is surrounded by more restaurants than you’ll be able to shake a bowl of pho at.

Avoid the faux pho at all costs, as it is inauthentic.

San Jose, or any other California city, having a professional hockey team is approximately as loony as Utah’s professional basketball team being called the Jazz, but damned if the San Jose Sharks won’t be playing their NFL rivals Anaheim Ducks on their home ice, the HP Pavilion, the evening before the half-marathon. Exactly the sort of thing to put your adrenals on notice that they’re going to be needed!