For almost a decade, Sara Hall has been one of the up-and-coming bright lights of American distance running. In high school, she became the first girl to win four California state titles in cross country, and capped her scholastic career by winning the Foot Locker national title. Moving on to the powerful Stanford program, the next four years were successful, but also a series of near-misses — four runner-up finishes in NCAA championships.
Now, in her first year out of school, she’s had to deal with the transition to professional running as well as married life following her September 2005 wedding to Stanford teammate Ryan Hall. 2006 was an up-and-down year for her, with peaks at either end sandwiching a rough patch in the middle.
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Hall found out the day after graduation she didn’t have a redshirt season of cross country. "It was kind of a surprise," she says. "We had to decide what we going to do pretty quick." Former teammate Alicia Craig was training with the Team Running USA group in Mammoth, CA, so Hall and her husband decided to join. "We wanted a team atmosphere, so we talked to them at USATF nationals and told them we were coming," she recalls. "We didn’t know they were selective about who they take, so we feel blessed they let us join."
The Halls arrived in Mammoth a few weeks after their honeymoon and began playing catch up. The crash course paid off when she placed third in the Boston Indoor Games 3,000 meters. "I was excited to be in the mix. It showed me I could make the transition from college to open running," she says.
In March, she ran the 4K race at the cold U.S. cross country championships in New York. "I was pretty disappointed," she says of her sixth place finish. "I was hoping to contend for the title, but I was very thankful to have made the team." She rebounded the following week in Boston at the U.S. Indoor Championships, placing second in the 3,000 to make the team for the World Championships in Moscow.
After that meet and World Cross, she took time off for a hamstring injury, necessitating another rush of training. After a seventh place finish in the U.S.Outdoor 5,000, she ran a few races in Europe, but felt tired in spite of setting two PRs. She figured on shutting things down, but then her training suddenly started to come around. "It was untimely how I started to feel good just when the racing season was almost over."
Hall entered the Fifth Avenue Mile, winning in 4:28.0, and followed that up a week later with her first national title at the CVSDowntown 5K in Rhode Island. Combined with her 14th place overall finish at Falmouth last summer, that earned her an eigth-place rank on our USARoad Racers of the Year.
"Overall, this was a learning, transition year, but it was a good time, with no championships or Olympics," she says. "My goal now is to make a team in the 1,500 or 5,000. I know I can be more aggressive in my training than I was in college, and I know I’ll have to be."
