The Olympic Marathon Trials are next week on Saturday January 14th and it is looking to be a pretty great day in Houston as both the Men’s and Women’s races will be run to determine who will represent the USA in the Summer Olympics in London this year. NBC will show a 2 hour telecast starting at 3 ET. If you want to watch it live at 8:15am I am sure it will be streaming live on Universal Sports. The top three finishers in each sex will go to London. The course will do a 2.2 mile inner loop through downtown Houston and then on to a 8 mile outer loop three times to complete the 26.2 marathon course.

For the Men, Ryan Hall has qualified as the fastest three times for qualifying and I am sure will put up a pretty good race considering he pulled off a 2:04 marathon this past April in Boston. The big question is whether the risk of running the NYC Marathon just this past November will hurt or have no effect on Meb Keflezighi who has posted the the next four fastest times after Hall’s first three. He took a big gamble by running so close to next weeks event. Dathan Ritzeheim is running strong and should put up a good fight. It could be anybody’s day next week between these three.

The Women’s race seems to be a matchup of last April’s duel in Boston between Desiree Davila and Kara Goucher. Desiree beat her down the stretch but I am sure Alberto Salazar, who coaches Kara Goucher, will have some tactic to secure a spot either on top or in the top three. It will be a great race here between these two.

See you in Houston!