MEBATHON
NYC Marathon celebrating Keflezighi
Meb Keflezighi is 42 now, still 5-foot-5 and, at first glance for one London couple at his midtown hotel this week, unrecognizable as a road race rock star. “They said, ‘Are you running the marathon?’” he says. “I said, ‘Yeah, yeah.’”
The couple asked how he believed he would do. Keflezighi told them he would do alright. He informed them that it was to be his 26th and final professional marathon. He mentioned finishing second, third and fourth before noting that he won the New York City Marathon in 2009 and the Boston Marathon in 2014.
“They said, ‘You won?!?!’” he says. “You never know the reactions you will get.”
The forecast this year calls for light rain, cloud cover and extended applause for Keflezighi. Sunday’s NYC Marathon is being billed as one last “Mebathon” by New York Road Runners. It is to be his 26th and final professional marathon. He is not ruling out a return to run for charity — he is a long-time ambassador for Team for Kids — in the future, but family will welcome him into retirement at the finish line in Central Park. It will be the 47th running of the New York City Marathon and the 11th time that Keflezighi has taken to the 26.2-mile course across the five boroughs. He will wear his inimitable bib — the one marked simply as “Meb” — before organizers retire the option of racers going only by their first name.
“It is bittersweet for us,” NYRR president Peter Ciaccia says. “It is going to be very emotional when we see Meb cross the finish line.” Keflezighi is one of 11 siblings. They