A Thin Yield In The Fields Of Play by Toni Reavis

There is a held-breath quality before a major marathon, as fields ripened with talent proven and talent yet untested inspire visions of a bumper crop of racing excellence. Expectations are especially high in a post-Olympic year, when risk becomes the norm and abandon flows like warm springs along the crowded banks of the world's marathon routes.

In the final days, questions abound through the languid hours spent surveying athletes padding silently to and from anxiety-siphoning workouts: Is everyone healthy? What will so-and-so do in his/her first outing? Anyone hear the long-range forecast? Did you see the results from overseas? Do you think there is a chance for a record?

Even in the sorry state the sport of running finds itself trapped, these importunings alone keep the sport and its followers truly alive. With Boston being the last starter in April's annual marathon triad, there was a building tension born of the excellence preceding Patriot's Day. Already in the spring of 1997, London's 2:07 blitz brought great expectations. Then Rotterdam's 2:07s boiled the blood further. But the seeds planted in Boston's initial second-century field were every bit the equal of its European counterparts, and the forecasters were spinning the potential of ideal weather as well. Anything was possible!

Antonio Pinto's 2:07:55 and Stefano Baldini's 2:07:57 at London - leading to a ninth place 2:09:30 - redefined marathoning depth. Then, just the day before Boston, Rotterdam bettered that with Domingos Castro's 2:07:51 and Alejandro Gomes' 2:07:54, preceding its ninth of 2:09:13. And Tegla Laroupe ripped history's fourth fastest women's time ever in 2:22:07 in the blustery Holland flatlands. The Boston bunch had trained with and raced against these same athletes. With that cross pollination they had no choice now, did they? They had to let it go.

Fourteen Kenyans and five Mexicans dominated the men's seeds at Boston, while the most top-heavy women's field in Boston history had mouths slavering for what might lie ahead.

But great expectations are often difficult harvests to bring to market. Last year three-time champion Cosmas Ndeti had hurled himself against a steady east headwind in a foolhardy attempt to run a world record on Boston's centennial. That he managed to finish third behind countryman Moses Tanui's 2:09:16 was a testament to his conditioning. That he even made the reckless attempt under those conditions was a testament to his hubris.

Boston's hallowed course is defined by its early downhill miles. Its very first mile falls precipitously 100 feet from the 490-foot start elevation in Hopkinton. Kenya's first Boston champion, Ibrahim Hussein, had gone 4:24 through that first mile in the early days of Kenyan suicidal pacing. Though no longer as rash, today's fields always define their intentions with their very first split.

"First mile," came the report from out on the course. "5:01."

5:01? Look again. Can't be 5:01! That first mile is a free fall out of Hopkinton. No way they could run 5:01 if they tried. Gotta be a mistake!

But look. The pack is 60 deep. Hell, the master's men are in the front row. If they don't watch out, the women are going to catch them.

They'll get running soon, though. You watch.

But 10K came and went in a unimaginative 31:23, four seconds slower than woman's co-favorite Elana Meyer ran her last Boston tune-up in Charleston, S.C. Okay, the wind is obviously to the head from the east. Damn. But it ain't that bad!

But once the yield began to come in thin, there was no denying it: from pre-race record expectations to 'Waiting for Godot.' 43 year-old Mexican master, Martin Mondragon, was co-leader at 10 miles in 50:25. Joan Samuelson had gone through 10 in 51:38 back in 1983 for the women. As one pundit put it: "The world's most endowed marathon with a master's runner leading at 10 miles!?"

Even the 1997 women were languishing a bit. Olympic champion, Fatuma Roba, who spoke without fear the week before the race that she would win, quickly took to the point for the women, hitting five miles in 25:55. Roped to her pace came 1993 World Champion Junko Asari of Japan, South African favorite Meyer, countrywoman Colleen DeReuck, three-time champ Uta Pippig, and Mexico's Maria Carmen Diaz. Roba had run close on the heels of Laroupe at the Lisbon Half Marathon in March. If Laroupe could run 2:22 in Rotterdam by herself (with a slight headwind as well), there had to be an outside shot at the world record (dare we say sub 2:20?) at Boston.

But the split at 10 miles read 55:43 and like the men, the women would now be running for place, not time. Not until three-time London champ (and Boston rookie) Dionicio Ceron of Mexico became embarrassed with the 1:06:11 first-half split did any racing begin up front. Juma Ikangaa had gone through with friends in 1:02:01 in the insanity of 1990. Not that that made any sense, either. But 1:06:11? This wasn't just the wind. That would have caused a 1:04:30 or a 1:05 flat. Not 1:06:11. On a good day they could run 58:00 in an open half marathon on that route!

But the wind was there. Not a gale, mind you, but enough to chasten the natural instinct of the crowd to whom winning at Boston was a much greater prize than winning at Rotterdam or even London. Those events required speed to attract attention. But to join the ranks of Boston champions, now that was a goal worth racing intelligently for. Time be damned. I can always go to Rotterdam for that.

The forecasters had promised westerly morning breezes with the frontal system turning the area's weather around from the east by mid-afternoon. Even at the start, the Stars and Stripes were fluttering back against the field from its perch on Hopkinton green beside the World War One statue of a doughboy. So the wind was against them. And last year Ndeti had defied similar gusts only to fade in the final 5K as Tanui pulled away to his 2:09 clocking.

Maybe that was part of it. They knew right away they could not go 2:07. The London and Rotterdam standards could never be met. So why push it? Besides there was a new element the Kenyans had to deal with as well.

Put enough good athletes on the line together and the chemistry changes. Rather than inspiring one another, the talent restricts its counterparts. No one wants to be the one to set the table for others. Ndeti's futile front running performance of 1996 wasn't lost on the 1997 gathering.

The presence of five tough Mexicans - three of them big-time, big-race performers - seemed to enervate the Kenyans rather than energize them. In the past it had been the Kenyans by themselves, with perhaps one Mexican, a Tanzanian, or a Korean as a challenger. With those odds they could overwhelm the competition with sheer numbers. Last year the top five finishers were Kenyan, and seven of the top ten. Kenyans had won six straight in the Hub. That singularity seemed to open a freedom in attack, because there was every assurance that a Kenyan of some sort would prevail.

But in Boston 101, the new classmates swelled the ranks. Not only Andres Espinoza, the 1994 runner-up to Ndeti in 2:07:19, but three-time London Champion Ceron was looking for his personal grand slam. Having won London, Rotterdam, and Fukuoka, Ceron was now trying to add Boston to a singular resume. Add two-time New York City king German Silva, with his bulging Seko-DeCastella quads, making his initial run over the venerated course, and 2:09 man Isidro Rico. The Mexican presence had the Kenyans thinking. So they tucked in and waited. As did we all.

There were the inevitable surges coming home: the attacks, counterattacks, ripostes and parries. At one stage coming through the hills in Newton, Ceron ran up alongside defending champion Tanui (reduced by race week bronchitis) and stared at him for a good thirty seconds before the glare was returned. When Tanui finally met his gaze, Ceron cleared a nostril on him, then pulled up to talk alongside countryman Silva. Blew snot on him! It was like Roberto Duran stepped into the race.

By Cleveland Circle at 37K the lead had reduced itself to five: Ceron, Silva, Tanui, Joseph Kamau, and Lameck Aguta. But Ceron, who had pulled the pack into racing at half-way, had used up too much fuel in that leading. As did tiny Kenyan Kamau, third in last year's New York City after a nine-race win streak on the American roads. With as much as a 20-meter lead near 20 miles and no pressure applied till the half, too many had too much left to be so easily dismissed. The names you never heard were the ones to consider now.

Finally at 40K, two-time fourth-place finisher Aguta mustered the winning edge over Kamau and Ceron, as Silva and Tanui did the slow fade. Aguta's preparation back home at his Kenyan training camp - which included track world-record holders Moses Kiptanui and Daniel Komen - boosted his confidence while increasing his speed. And as his coach Dieter Hogan stressed over and over, "Wait until the final two kilometers." That is exactly what he did.

Yet though there was tension, somehow there was a lack of passion, at least from the perspective of the expectations. While in 1996 Ndeti had thrown caution to the winds as well as his training, in 1997 he finished in 27th place in 2:22, off pace as soon as the running turned its first sub-five-minute mile.

The combustion never became spontaneous. Roba solidified her Olympic gold, taking apart the strongest women's field in Boston history with the seeming ease of a Sunday long run, though at the gun there was no telling that lay ahead. Meyer had come in as fit as any female had ever arrived at Boston with her 1:07:36 half marathon world best in Kyoto the month before, and a PR 31:19 at the Cooper River Bridge 10K in South Carolina two weeks following. DeReuck put a 31:29 10K on her shield also and led Meyer and Roba resolutely over Heartbreak Hill.

But Meyer's slight frame proved too fragile for the bruising downhill course. Even she realized the futility. "It's time I run another marathon now," she confessed after her second, second-place finish (she took third in 1994). And DeReuck's high-knee style was destroyed by Boston's final downhill miles, leaving Roba at ease all the way to the line.

Maybe all this was inevitable after last year's centennial celebration. Maybe it was the headwinds. Maybe it was the strength of the field and the London and Rotterdam times. Maybe it was the lack of rabbits. Who knows? Even the lobby of the Copley Plaza Hotel seemed less crowded through it all. What might have been a grand harvest was, in the end, stunted by a scouring wind and diminished by too grand a forecast.

But there is a solace to be taken from Boston's less-than-expected 101st. Almost every other event not only wants, but in most cases needs, a great race with speed. Sponsorships depend on it. Reputations require it. But Boston, with its century of tradition, can withstand a tactical year every three or four years - even with great fields in place - and still create legends.

There were those (this reporter in particular) who wondered if the John Hancock Financial Services/Boston Athletic Assocation arrangement was well considered when JH took on the public role of inviting the elite athletes, creating the media events, and largely managing the press effort after coming on board in late 1985.

The marathon wasn't about selling financial services, and if JH ever decided to get out of the marathon sponsorship game - or more specifically cancel its lucrative clinic program that supplies talent to the starting line - Boston would be right back where it was in those terrible mid-1980s.

But JH executive vice-president David D'Alessandro's constancy at the top through the last 12 years has made any concern a moot point. He not only hasn't gone anywhere, he's on his way to the very top of the John Hancock's 60 stories in Copley Square.

And so maybe next year the bumper crop will come in. That's the real beauty of Boston anyway. There is never a doubt that there is always next year's crop.