Bryce Miller: San Diego gem Meb Keflezighi braces for ‘emotional’ return to Boston Marathon

Ten years ago, Meb Keflezighi felt the raw emotion and crushing sadness of the first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing through every pore.

The San Diegan bent race-wear rules by writing the names of those who lost their lives in the devastating attack on his bib that day. One, Martin Richard, was a boy of just 8.

Keflezighi could not shake the jumbled thoughts of his oldest daughter, Sara, being the same age. It rattled him to the core. It also steeled his resolve.

He would run with powerful purpose.

He would ... win.

When Keflezighi crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 37 seconds for the most stirring moment of his decorated career, he rushed to Richard’s family to shake and kiss hands, forging an unbreakable bond with the family and the sport’s most revered race.

A decade after that day, he’s preparing to run Boston again.

“At speaking engagements, they’ll show the last three or four minutes of the race,” Keflezighi said this week. “It gives me chills every time. I still get goosebumps and get emotional. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years.”

Keflezighi returns to San Diego this week as part event owner and part ambassador of the Carlsbad 5000. The race, which dubs itself “The World’s Fastest 5K,” welcomes elite men at 12:30 p.m. and top women at 12:35.

A little more than a week later, on April 15, he will lace up for Heartbreak Hill again to benefit the MEB Foundation. He was 38 then. Fifty is around the corner now.

Why?

“Good question,” Keflezighi, a San Diego High graduate, said with a laugh. “I ask myself that when I’m training. Everybody’s like, you going to win? You going to win? I’m like, you guys have no idea.

“I’m shooting for about three hours or so. If I run 2:59.57, I’ll be happy. That would be a great day for me. It will be fun to celebrate with all the people there.”

The magic of April 21, 2014 remains vivid.

“It was a miracle,” Keflezighi said. “There’s a miracle on ice. That was a miracle on the road. That was a higher power. I contemplated retirement many times before that.”

Being motivated is one thing. The realities of the human body? Quite another.

“That day, man, I was in pain,” Keflezighi said. “I made it to Mile 17. I was in pain. Every step was torture. You do what you can to alter the mechanics or the way you land. People were getting closer. I was nervous.

“I prayed in English. I prayed in Tigrinya, (my native language in Eritrea). I don’t know how I got through it.”

Keflezighi ditched the plan he had agreed upon with legendary coach Bob Larsen. The plan was to hang back. Get comfortable. Get in a rhythm. Save plenty in the gas tank for the wilting final sections.

The guy connected to those elite legs decided to trust his gut.

“I wasn’t the fittest, but I made a calculated decision five miles into the race, against coach Larsen’s plan, but man did it pay off in a big way,” Keflezighi said. “I told him, ‘You’re not going to see me until the last 5K. Don’t worry.’ But the Kenyans were slowing down the pace.”

Keflezighi hit the gas, the riskiest of risky moves among elite long-distance runners.

“It was emotion carrying me through,” he said. “People chanting ‘USA! USA!’ or ‘Go Meb!’ Taking the city back in a way (after the bombing), it meant a lot. Doing the small things, the stretches, the drills, it all came in handy that day.”

The time Keflezighi posted that day was not bettered until five years later. No American has run a faster time since, according to Runner’s World.

What had he pulled off, becoming the first from the U.S. to win Boston since 1983?

The answer to that came the next day.

“I got a call from President Barack Obama from Air Force 1, traveling to Japan,” he said. “Then I understood the magnitude of it.”

Keflezighi already was wildly accomplished. He was a four-time Olympian, winner silver in the marathon in 2004. That ended an American drought of more than three decades.

In 2009, he won the presitious New York City Marathon.

When he added Boston, he became the first person on the planet — man or woman — to win those two marathons and an Olympic medal.

Running Boston on the special anniversary almost did not happen.

Keflezighi, who now lives with his family in Florida, returned to San Diego for Thanksgiving to visit his parents. He ruptured his quad playing soccer.

“When I got to Christmas, I wanted the gift to be running 20 minutes, out and back,” he said. “It was OK. I slowly got back my fitness.”

The work continued. Boston started to seem possible.

“I’m training my butt off, running four to six miles a day, five days a week,” said Keflezighi, who retired competitively in 2017 and recently competed a 22-mile run. “Will I make it? I think I can mentally, but you never know physically or with the cramping.”

Emotions, he expects, will remain fresh.

“My oldest who was 8 at the time, the same age as Martin Richard, she’s about to graduate and looking at colleges,” he said. “I think about that a lot. I don’t talk about it much.”

Still inspiring in more ways than one, a decade later.