Marathon runner dies during Olympic trials

NEW YORK -- Five-time U.S. distance running champion Ryan Shay collapsed and died during the men’s U.S. Olympic marathon trials Saturday, leaving race winner Ryan Hall mourning the loss of a friend and former training partner whose wedding Hall had attended four months ago.

“I can’t think about the race right now,” Hall said. “I’ve trained with him, and he has inspired me. I will dedicate my race in Beijing [the 2008 Olympics] to him and Alicia [his wife] and his family.”

Shay, 28, collapsed in Central Park less than 30 minutes into the race, at the 5.5-mile point, New York Road Runners President Mary Wittenberg said. He was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan and pronounced dead on arrival about 45 minutes later at 8:46 a.m. EDT.

Shay is believed to be the first elite-level U.S. runner to die in a race.

No cause of death was immediately released.

Joe Shay, Ryan’s father, told the Associated Press that his son was first diagnosed with a larger than normal heart at age 14. He also said his son was cleared for running this spring by doctors but was told he might need a pacemaker when he was older.

And years ago, after Ryan was in a car accident as a 16-year-old, Joe Shay said doctors re-evaluated Ryan’s heart and determined it had gotten even larger. Each time, he said, they believed it was because Ryan was a runner.

“But he never complained about it,” Joe Shay said.

Hall won the race in a trials-record time of 2 hours 9 minutes 2 seconds, more than two minutes ahead of Dathan Ritzenhein of Eugene, Ore. Brian Sell of Rochester Hills, Mich., was third.

“I’ve been dreaming about this moment for 10 years,” Hall said. “As great as this moment is, my heart and my thoughts are with Ryan Shay.”

Said Ritzenhein: “Any of us would give up our spot on the Olympic team to have Ryan back.”

According to people who saw Shay collapse, several spectators attended to him, administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation, before an emergency medical services team arrived.

Shay, whose marathon personal best was 2:14:9, was considered a long shot to earn one of the three places on the Olympic team.

He was among the favorites going into the 2004 Olympic marathon trial but wound up 23rd after struggling with a hamstring injury.

Shay’s wife, the former Alicia Craig, was a Stanford teammate of Hall and his wife, Sara, who was a bridesmaid in the Shays’ wedding July 7 in Jackson Hole, Wyo.

“Alicia thought he was going to have a good race today,” Sara Hall said.

Shay, from Central Lake, Mich., had been living in Flagstaff, Ariz.

He won the 2001 NCAA 10,000 meters, becoming the first Notre Dame runner to win an individual national title. Since college, he had won five U.S. road racing titles: marathon in 2003, half-marathon in 2003 and 2004, 20 kilometers in 2004 and 15 kilometers in 2005.

Shay’s younger brother, Nathan, also is a Notre Dame graduate and a former runner for the Fighting Irish.

“He was the most tenacious competitor I have ever seen,” Notre Dame track Coach Joe Piane said of Ryan Shay.

Piane recalled that his team won the 2000 Big East Conference cross-country championship because Shay ran on an Achilles tendon so sore that “he was virtually a cripple.” Shay’s fifth-place finish in that eight-kilometer race gave Notre Dame the points it needed for the team title.

“A great team man, and a fine young man,” Piane said in describing Shay. “The poor kid just got married.”

Shay and his wife stayed at Piane’s Michigan cottage for the two weeks before leaving for the marathon trial so he could re-acclimatize his body to sea level after training at 7,000 feet in Flagstaff.

Last Sunday, Piane said, he went to the cottage to give a wedding present to the Shays.

“He looked fine,” Piane said.

Ryan Shay and Ryan Hall trained together in Palo Alto and Mammoth Lakes, Calif., in the late winter and spring of 2006.

“He was a workhorse,” Hall said. “He had a lot of passion. He introduced me to the marathon a little bit. You kind of saw the marathon mentality in him day in and day out.”

Sara Hall said she had seen Shay push himself to the point of collapse when he did oxygen-capacity tests on a treadmill.

“He had an incredible ability to tolerate pain,” she said.

In 2006, according to the website of Runner’s World magazine, Shay was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue syndrome, manifested as total fatigue. He eased up his training after that.

“That was quite a shock -- an eye-opener,” Shay told Runner’s World in September. “It told me that maybe I used to push too hard.”

The Halls and the Shays, all professional runners, had worked out together Friday. The men ran about four miles as a final warmup for the marathon, and the women did a longer run.

“We all are devastated over Ryan’s death,” said USA Track and Field Chief Executive Craig Masback. “He was a tremendous champion who was here today to pursue his dreams. The Olympic trials is traditionally a day of celebration, but we are heartbroken.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Ryan’s wife, Alicia, and all of his family. His death is a tremendous loss for the sport and the long-distance running community.”

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Philip Hersh covers Olympic sports for The Times and the Chicago Tribune. Tribune reporter Brian Hamilton contributed to this report.