This is the type of sacrifice, hard work, and commitment that Keflezighi was exposed to during his formative years. These were the lessons he and his siblings absorbed about trying to get ahead and stay ahead.

In 1987, when Meb was 12, the Keflezighis moved to San Diego, California, where Keflezighi’s career would germinate. Initially, his athletic passions lay in soccer, a game he and his brothers had discovered and embraced in Italy. Gradually, though, soccer evolved into running.

“T didn’t speak English,” he explains, “and running became a friend.”

Keflezighi’s two oldest brothers also demonstrated a gift for running while at San Diego High School, but it was their younger sibling’s talent in the sport that began to shine brightest.

Ron Tabb, a 2:09 marathoner, recognized the youngster’s abilities when Keflezighi was still in his early teens.

“He told me after my sophomore year in high school that I was going to be a great marathoner someday,” Keflezighi laughs now, recalling a track-side conversation. “I said, ‘What are you talking about? I’m going to be a miler!’”

By the time Keflezighi graduated in 1994, virtually everyone else who had seen the youth in action had begun to understand the wisdom of Tabb’s prophetic assessment. The high school star had captured a slew of titles and records in both track and cross-country, much in the manner of another of the area’s standouts, Mark Davis. And, as a senior, Keflezighi finished second to Adam Goucher at the extremely competitive Foot Locker National Cross-Country Championships.

Whether his future would lie in the mile, the marathon, or some distance in between remained to be seen.

One thing, though, was quite clear: Meb Keflezighi was an exceptional athlete.

THE MAKINGS OF A PRODUCTIVE RELATIONSHIP

Another admirer of the young Keflezighi’s abilities was Larsen, who was head coach of UCLA’s vaunted track and field team.

“T just liked the way he looked,” recalls Larsen of his initial impressions. “He ran with courage.”

But UCLA, a perennial contender for the NCAA Division I title, was not in the habit of offering full scholarships to distance runners.

“You only have 12 [scholarships],” explains Larsen. “We had better chances of winning the NCAAs with sprinters and throwers because they could score as freshmen. With distance runners, it takes a bit longer to develop.”

That line of thinking for the veteran coach, though, changed after a short recruiting trip to San Diego.

“You could just see the determination in the family and in Meb in general,” says Larsen. “You just felt that this was something special.”

Larsen’s hunch turned out to be right. Not only did Keflezighi score as a freshman at the NCAA Championships, but he would go on to become the most successful distance runner in the school’s history. In 1997, as a junior, Keflezighi captured the NCAA Indoor 5,000-meter title and the men’s cross-country championship. He followed that up with a rare 5,000/10,000 double at the outdoor NCAA meet.

A year later, Keflezighi, in addition to receiving his U.S. citizenship, was honored as the first recipient of the Carl Lewis Award for the nation’s top male track and field athlete.

As the size of the running stages grew, so did Keflezighi’s performances.

In 2000, he won the U.S. Olympic Trials in the 10,000 meters, and in Sydney, despite battling the flu, he earned a 12′-place finish with a gutsy 27:53.63 PR.

Keflezighi has been at or near the top of the United States distance-running renaissance ever since. He has been equally tenacious on the track, where he is the current American record holder in the 10,000 meters; on the roads, where he captured, among other things, two USA 15K championships; and off the roads, where he earned a pair of U.S. cross-country titles.

TEAM RUNNING USA

As Keflezighi was completing his stint in Westwood, so too was Larsen, who coincidentally was retiring from collegiate coaching.

The two discussed how they could continue working together, and they came up with a plan to use the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, not far from Keflezighi’s home in San Diego. As an added bonus, there was also the geographic feasibility of mixing in some altitude training at Mammoth Mountain.

“Most of our programs are collegiate based, and only a couple of those are located in altitude,’ Larsen explains, describing one of his frustrations while at UCLA. “I thought, here Europeans and even Africans are using altitude in the United States and our own athletes aren’t because all of the coaches are based at their schools and can’t get up to altitude.”

The problem, though, was finding enough high-quality runners to make the commitment to Chula Vista and Mammoth worthwhile.

Larsen contacted Joe Vigil, who was entrenched in Alamosa, Colorado, training the likes of Deena Kastor, and urged him to come to California to get a sense of what he was envisioning. At first, Vigil was skeptical. After getting a feel for the Mammoth community, though, and seeing firsthand the extensive network of running trails in the mountain environs, he became a convert.

The two coaches joined forces in 2001, and this was the genesis of Team USA California, which has evolved into Team Running USA.

“It’s a very positive environment,” says Keflezighi. “It’s like a college, but you don’t have to go to classes. You just take care of what you have to accomplish with your running.”

The program, needless to say, has already produced some impressive results, including placing three of its athletes on the six member 2004 U.S. marathon team—Keflezighi, Kastor, and Jen Rhines. Ten-thousand-meter specialist Elva Dryer and 1,500-meter star Carrie Tollefson are two more group members who ran their way onto the Athens squad. Top it all off with Kastor’s bronze medal and Keflezighi’s silver medal, and it’s clear that there is something to be said about the combination of training at altitude and doing so in numbers.

“Meb’s been a motivating factor for me since we started training together,” explains Kastor. “The real highlight was at the Olympic Trials in the 10K in 2000. The men’s race was directly before the women’s. I was on the side of the track lacing up my spikes, and I watched him blaze his last mile. It gave me no option, really, but to go out there and try to do the same thing since he and I had been doing so much of our training together up to that point.”

It’s obvious that after watching Kastor’s inspiring Olympics run through the Greek countryside on television while he was still at training camp on Crete, Keflezighi was similarly moved to produce something special.

“To see her do it the way she did it—it was just dramatic and I was so proud of her,” says Keflezighi. “It was the perfect race. I was trying to use the same strategy.”

Whatever Larsen and Vigil have been doing in the remote corner of California’s Sierra Nevadas, it’s working. And the United States hasn’t experienced this much excitement with the sport of distance running in quite some time.

For his part, Keflezighi is enchanted by the beautiful ambience Mammoth affords, and he considers himself very fortunate to be able to live and train there.

“T love it and I get a lot of satisfaction out of it,’ Keflezighi says.

© Photo Run

A An emotional Deena Kastor realizes her Olympic medal dreams as she nears the finish line.

A FAMILY LIKE NONE OTHER

When you speak to Keflezighi, it soon becomes apparent that he is uncomfortable talking about his running or his accomplishments. He would prefer to tell you, instead, about the pride he takes in his family and especially the achievements of his siblings. The words flow more freely when he is discussing the sister who is finishing medical school at UCLA or the one who is enrolled in the same university’s distinguished law school.

Query him about the highlights of his still-young life, and Keflezighi will most likely bypass all the national championships and records and instead describe the trip he made to Eritrea in fall 2002, after his debut in the New York Marathon. He hadn’t been back to the country of his birth in 17 years.

“Tt meant a lot to me,” he says, his voice softening at the memory. “I was reunited with a lot of cousins and relatives. It was pretty emotional.”

Eritreans turned out en masse to welcome back their native son. There was a police escort. Thousands chanted his name. But what seemed to please Keflezighi most about the entire affair was that he brought smiles and a sense of hope to many people.

“Anybody who knows Meb loves him,” says Larsen, whose unique relationship with Keflezighi is now going on a decade. “He’s one of the most likeable guys around.”

Kastor goes to great lengths to detail her teammate’s selflessness and his underplayed leadership qualities.

“Everyone in the family is like that,’ she says, “and the credit goes to his parents. They’re amazing people. To have come from such extreme conditions and such a hostile environment, and to somehow be able to raise children as strong, independent and educated as they are, is pretty incredible.”

The Keflezighi family’s implausible journey is clearly a motivating factor in Keflezighi’s success.

“T don’t lose sight of the fact that this can all be gone tomorrow,” Keflezighi says of his running. “I never take things for granted when I get a chance to run.”

STEPPING UP BIG TIME

Keflezighi, surely buoyed by the successful 2001 marathon debut of teammate Kastor, chose to make his marathon debut in the New York City Marathon a year later.

“T thought it would be a good time to test the waters to see what I was capable of,” he says simply.

Keflezighi was 27 years old and on a major roll. The year before, he had broken Mark Nenow’s long-standing American record in the 10,000 meters on the track