Hall is watching his step as he prepares for the Olympics

Ryan Hall has made it, the dream is all his and he’s not going to do something stupid and lose it, such as acting like an ordinary person not watching where he steps.

He watches where he steps; a sidewalk crack could become the Crack From Hell if he hit it awkwardly. He doesn’t run on trails that are rough and rocky. He doesn’t pick up anything heavy. “I don’t move a television around,” he said. When Hall drives in a car, he limits himself to short distances and applies the cruise control whenever possible because “my legs really get tight” if they remain in a fixed position. He doesn’t play basketball and avoids all contact sports.

About the only time Hall throws caution to the wind is brushing his teeth.

No marathoner has ever missed an Olympics because of an overly aggressive thrust of a toothbrush bristle.

Such is the life for an U.S. Olympic marathoner who found out 10 months before the 2008 Summer Games he was an U.S. Olympic marathoner. In town Monday with his wife and former Montgomery star Sara Bei-Hall, Hall won the U.S. Olympic qualifying marathon last November.

That’s the good news. America’s premier marathoner, Hall now can eat, sleep, run and train for one andonly one race, and have a potato chip without getting depressed.

That’s also the bad news. As an official, board-certified U.S. Olympian, Hall has become a point of early focus on the Beijing Games. While it’s impossible to stage any Olympic Games these days without the sword of controversy dangling over it, slicing up all that goodwill the Olympics are alleged to provide, Beijing has become a particular and peculiar flashpoint. Hall is someone to talk to about that.

Which leads to the most obvious question.

Ryan, how do you train for air pollution? Runners can prepare for altitude, heat, humidity, rain and snow but what about air the color of toast? Do you run 20 miles behind a city bus? Do you lick an ashtray before you go on a run? Do you camp next to a Los Angeles freeway?

“You can’t train for it,” said Hall, like his wife, 25 and a Stanford graduate.

The Beijing air is legendary, if I may use that word. Just recently Beijing’s air was tested and the levels of ozone and particulate matter from diesel engines remain five times as high as maximum standards set by the World Health Organization.

“We’re going to have a marathon summit in a couple weeks,” Hall said, “and we’re going to be brought up to date.”

Hall is likely to find out he’ll be wearing a specially designed mask over his nose and mouth from the minute he arrives in Beijing to the minute he leaves, taking it off only for competition and showers, I assume. According to a New York Times story, Randy Wilber, the lead exercise physiologist for the USOC, will be urging all American athletes to wear a mask.

From a practical point of view, the masks make sense. From a political point of view, however, some U.S. officials are worried the masks may be more noxious than the air. It would not be good public relations and might create a global disturbance to see American athletes walking in masks in a country that’s trying to show the world it is cleaning up its environment. Not that we should give a tinker’s toot what the Chinese think, some would say.

“I wouldn’t want the true meaning of the Olympics, world unity, to be compromised by politics,” Hall said.

When was the last time a Summer Olympics escaped germ-free, free from controversy, tension and a general all-around disquiet? Maybe it was 2000 in Sydney and then all the way back to 1964, the Tokyo Games. Maybe in four months Beijing will smell like spring-time in the Rockies and the sky will be bluer than Paul Newman’s eyes. But until then we have this.

Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie, the world record holder in the marathon, said he will not compete in his specialty because of Beijing’s air quality.

“I am in a different situation than Gebrselassie,” Hall said.

That would be the two Olympic gold medals that Gebrselassie has won in the 10,000 meters. That would be appearance fees that reach six figures when Gebrselassie decides to run in a marathon. Hall may have Asics as his primary sponsor but it is no shocking revelation American athletes do not have the padded lifestyle of a Gebrselassie.

“My degree is in sociology,” said Hall of his Stanford education.

So it can be assumed Hall is clearly aware of human rights issue violations such as the one in Tibet or, for that matter, the reluctance of a Chinese citizen to speak out against the government. But would Hall talk about a Free Tibet? Sorry, this isn’t 1968 when rage was all the rage and Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on that podium in Mexico City with raised, clenched fists.

“Sara and I are members of World Vision, dedicated to fighting for children in poverty,” Hall said.

So I just bet Hall has some strong opinions on China. I just bet in a quiet room with friends and family he has voiced them as well. But consider what’s on his plate already: He’s a premier athlete preparing for bad air, high humidity and burning heat, in the Olympics’ most torturous event, in a country known for inhumane treatment.

Who very well may have to lift up the bottom of his $25 bad air-filtering face mask to eat his Wheaties in the morning.

Yep, he’ll keep his political views to himself.

And oh yes, bad air is not discouraging him. Nothing will stop him from competing in the marathon except for just this one little thing.

“They are going to have to cancel the event for me not to run,” said Hall who has the fastest marathon of any American, 2:06.17.

Hall already has had six months to think about this stuff. He has another four months to go. It’s like he’s running a marathon but he is running this one in place. The scenery never changes because the questions don’t change. He has to watch out for cracks, in the sidewalk and in his comments. Yes, it helps he’s a long distance runner, for he knows how to be patient, pace himself and avoid any ankle-breaking steps or harmony-disrupting statements.

Ryan Hall is an athlete, not a political tool, and it’s easy for him to remain so. All he has to do is think like an athlete.

“When I get to the marathon summit,” Hall said, “I want to know that if it’s hot, is it better to throw water on my head or just perspire?”

The answer should be simple. Oh, that the 2008 Summer Olympics could be the same.

You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.