It's Beyond Belief That Shay Was Betrayed By His Own Body

Nov 04, 12:00 AM

Current Headlines: NEW YORK _ Ryan Shay died doing what he loved. He died wearing his racing shoes.

Yet it seemed the cruelest of fates that Shay, one of the fittest athletes on the planet, competing in a sport that demands a physiology honed to the leanest, hardest edge, would be betrayed by his own body.

There was a death in Central Park on Saturday morning. But it had nothing to do with a mugging or a car accident. It was the unlikeliest of deaths. It happened while Shay was trying to make the U.S. Olympic team in the marathon.

Shay, 28, was just 5-{ miles and about 30 minutes into the race when he veered off the course lined with thousands of fans clutching coffee cups, cowbells and American flags. Shay collapsed. He was rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, and pronounced dead at 8:46 a.m. EDT. No cause of death has been announced.

Marathoners think of their race as a near-death experience. They run a fine line between exhilarating rhythm and total depletion.

The event is a re-creation of the journey of Phidippides, the Greek soldier who ran 26 miles in full armor from Marathon to Athens, delivered news of victory over the Persians and died on the spot.

Marathoners take masochistic pride in their chosen form of torture. It's a search for their limit. It's their way of taunting death.

Shay was a supreme sufferer. He awed other runners, including former training partner Ryan Hall, who won the trials in 2 hours, 9 minutes, 2 seconds. "Seeing his effort day in and day out inspired me," Hall said.

Shay was known to collapse during treadmill tests because he pushed himself off the cardiovascular charts. He asked his coach, Joe Vigil, for punishing workouts.

"He encouraged me to challenge him," Vigil said. "He never had any problems, and he was running at 8,000-9,000 feet."

Shay trained himself to bend time to his will. In running, it's a pure game of beat the clock. On an autumn morning in Central Park, the clock beat Shay. In a split second, everything went wrong.

"This shows how we're here such a short time, and the extremes of being on a high and then something completely opposite happens," said Sara Hall, Ryan's wife.

She was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Shay and Alicia Craig on July 7. On Friday, she and Alicia, former Stanford teammates, ran together and talked about how they calm their husbands' nerves. They talked about the Halls' 5-month-old baby. On Saturday morning, Alicia became a widow.

Shay grew up in the prettiest part of Michigan, near East Jordan, an area marbled with lakes and trails. He was one of eight kids, all runners. Their parents coach at the high school. Shay's mother and father weren't in New York because they were at the state cross-country meet.

Now Shay's family and friends ask if running killed him. On a patch of ground at the boathouse, where Shay took his last breaths, there were no clues on Saturday afternoon, only yellow leaves.

Two joggers passed by. But they weren't talking about the death in Central Park. They were talking about the sub-five-minute-per-mile time of the winner, and how fast and far a human can go, if his heart allows him.

"Tough as nails, those guys," one said. "What they do is unbelievable."

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