RPCV Peter Hessler on New York Marathon Winner Eritrean Meb Keflezighi

Check out The New Yorker on line today and the piece by Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) who is also a serious runner, writing about the surprise winner of the New Yrok Marathon on Sunday, an American named Meb Keflezighi who happens to be from Eritrea.

November 2, 2009
Last year, Meb Keflezighi’s Olympic dreams ended on the Fourth of July. Nobody would have predicted that a year later he would win the New York City Marathon. At the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, where I interviewed him for my article on American long-distance runners, he finished thirteenth in the ten thousand metres, nearly a full minute behind the winner. Eight months earlier, at the marathon trials in New York City, he had also failed to make the team. He was thirty-three years old, and he suffered from nagging injuries; most people in the sport believed that his best races were behind him. (read on at:http://www.newyorker.com

Peter also has an article “Chinese Barbizon” in the October 26, 2009, issue of  The New Yorker. It is a section from his next book on China–his third–entitled Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory. This book will be published in February 2010.