Gault. Hicks and Mauri both real American record threats
A year ago one of them had never run a marathon and the other was unknown.
Jonathan Gault says Charles Hicks and Vinny Mauri are both legitimate contenders to break the American marathon record in Chicago.
That is the whole story in one line, and the line only lands when you remember where both men were twelve months ago. Hicks had never run a marathon. Mauri, by Gault's own description, was someone no one had heard of. Now they headline a US men's field that LetsRun.com calls possibly the wildest in decades.
How fast this turned over
Twelve months ago the American record had stood unbroken for 23 years, according to LetsRun.com. It fell last year. The question Gault is asking in his Chicago preview is whether it goes down again, for the second year in a row.
That is the part worth sitting with. A mark that was treated as untouchable for more than two decades is now something two men who were not on the radar last fall are both being handed real odds on.
The rest of the field
LetsRun.com's framing of the American men's race in Chicago is treadmill heroes, a torn hamstring and an American record chase. The torn hamstring belongs to Clayton Young, who earlier was reported to be racing Chicago with a 12-centimeter hamstring tear.
Gault's preview breaks down the American men's field in full.
What it actually means
This is a preview, not a prediction of a specific time, and nobody has run anything yet. What is new is the shape of the conversation. A year ago the American record was a one-name question. Now the two names most often attached to it belong to runners who were nowhere near that conversation last October, and a third American is lining up hurt and still being discussed in the same breath.
Brady Holmer landed in the same place earlier this month, naming Hicks or Mauri as his pick for the record in Chicago, which you can read in our earlier story. Two people who cover this closely arriving at the same two names independently is the signal here.
Sunday settles it.
One year ago, Charles Hicks had never run a marathon and no one had heard of Vinny Mauri.
Win the long run conversation
One email a day. Under three minutes. Marathon results, shoe fights and training arguments, settled.