Meb’s U-T San Diego Sportsman of Year

By Chris Jenkins, U-T San Diego

Turning off Park Blvd., the vehicle brakes to a speed slower than Mebrahtom Keflezighi had run each one of the 26 miles in winning the most gut-wrenching, important of Boston Marathons.

Eight months have passed since the stirring race through Beantown that made Keflezighi, then just two weeks shy of his 39th birthday, a marvel among the globe’s greatest distance runners. More significantly, his fist-pumping, arms-raised triumph lifted the spirits of not only that battered city and its tragedy-marred event, but his entire country.

“OK, make a U-turn here and stop,” Keflezighi says from the passenger seat. “Right there.”

Keflezighi points to a spot on the backside of Roosevelt Middle School, located on the northern edge of Balboa Park. “Right there” was where it all began, the very spot where Keflezighi first ran just for the sake of running, and it was a beautiful thing to behold.

Read more at: U-T San Diego