Men's Marathon Trials: The Meb Keflezighi Story

by Amby Burfoot

This Sunday--Oct. 21, 2007--Meb Keflezighi and family will celebrate the 20th anniversary of their first day in America. Meb's isn't the most harrowing out-of-African exodus story among Men's Marathon Trials qualifiers; that title goes to Macharia Yuot, one of the "Lost Boys of the Sudan," who ran 2:21:42 at Grandma's this year to get his qualifier. But the Keflezighi story is brimming with family and American values--parental sacrifice for the next generation, the importance of education, working your way up from the bottom, and many more. And of course, we can't forget Meb's silver medal in the Athens Olympic Marathon.

So, happy anniversary to all the Keflezighi's! Here's a basic review of their amazing story, with a focus on Meb's running.

Meb was born in Eritrea, Ethiopia's tiny northern neighbor, on May 5, 1975, the third son of Russom and Awetash Keflezighi. At the time, Eritrea was embroiled in an often-brutal 30-yr war for liberation from Ethiopia (Eritrea finally achieved independence in 1993), and Russom was a liberation supporter. This meant that he sometimes had to leave his home in Adi Beyani to escape Ethiopian soldiers and their brutal massacres. Meb recalls that his childhood included regular encounters with death and dismemberment of his Eritrean friends and neighbors. He didn't see a car until he was 10 yrs old. Thinking it a death machine, he took flight. "That was one of the races I lost," he once told the NY Times.