#1: What kind of mindset did you have going into Beijing? Could you talk a little about the whole process of your race leading up to the event - the travel, the food, the routine in general?

Sell: "Going in to a race like the Olympics, you hope everything goes well, and that you have the best segment you ever had. That didn't happen for me, right out of the gate. I did a 2x4mile workout where I was supposed to run 4:50's for the first one and "go" on the second one. I barely hit 19:30 for the first one and ran about 21 minutes for the second. That kind of started things out on a sour note. It got a little bit better from there, but I was still behind where I would have liked to have been the whole segment. We went down to Florida about three weeks before the race, where I got some heat acclimation. Workouts there went pretty well, but I don't think I had the base behind me that I had in marathons past. I flew from Orlando to Washington DC to Beijing. I stayed one night in the village before flying to Dalian where I met up with Dathan and Ryan to train for the next 10 days. We then flew back to beijing about 4 days before the marathon. It took all of the 14 days in China to acclimate to the time change. I was able to sleep through to about 5am by the day before the marathon."

#2: Obviously the race played out differently than most people expected in terms of overall pace. Did that bother your focus during the race or did you believe your strategy would ultimately prevail? Did you feel comfortable with the environment in terms of temperature and humidity (and pollution)?

Sell: "The pace that...  Read More