Probably the most anticipated event at the 2001 Penn Relays, the Olympic Development 5k, wasn\'t all that we had hoped for, but it was certainly good enough...for the spectators at least. For Ritzenhein, things could have been slightly better. While his time of 13:51.69 gave him the second fastest high school 5k time ever, it didn\'t give him two other pivotal things. One of these things is a berth to the USATF national meet. He missed the qualifying time by a heart wrenching .19 seconds. The second thing is a new national record. The record did, and still does stand at 13:44. A mark set by Gerry Lindgren in 1964, and the second oldest mark to still stand.
Many people though that the record was Dathan\'s, with news of Teg (Matt Tegenkamp) running a 13:51 5k at the Mt. SAC relays. He won by a good margain, and had to push himself a great deal. Seeing as how Dathan beat Teg at the XC World Meet in March, everyone figured he\'d be fully capable of hitting the 13:44 mark, or lower. But it seems that on this Friday evening in Pennsylvania, that was not the case.
From early on, Ritz was slightly off pace. He went through the 1400 in 3:55, and continued through the 1800 in 5:01. At this point he was on pace to run a 13:56, but was still right at the top of the pack. When the 2200 mark rolled around Ritz was in 2nd place, with a split of 6:08. He was hitting the 400\'s pretty consistently, in about 66-67. He hit the 3200 mark in a blistering 8:52, on pace at that point for a 13:52. And from there on the pace pretty much stayed the same. With only the bell lap left Dathan needed to run a 58 last 400 to tie the record, but he was unable to do so, and finished off his performance with a 66 second 400.
While Ritzenhein will be leaving with some hopes left unfulfilled, he still ran a tremendous race, and a great time. Congrats on a fine race, Dathan!
Dathan\'s Splits
400 - 70 (?)
1000 - 2:49
1400 - 3:55
1800 - 5:01
2200 - 6:08
2600 - 7:14
3000 - 8:19
3200 - 8:52
3400 - 9:25
3800 - 10:31
4200 - 11:40
4600 - 12:46
5000 - 13:51.69