Hall — the Big Bear, CA athlete who was adopted by the Underground because he fly fishes and runs like a bonefish — stunned track & field geeks in his marathon debut a little more than a year ago, and his recent performance suggests he’s become a medal contender.

ESPN certainly thinks so; they recently ponied up a long, Hall-focused article (oddly, they didn’t mention the Underground):

A little more than a year ago, Hall had never entered a marathon. Now, this modest, devout 25-year-old who grew up testing his legs in the pristine, wooded landscape and thin air of the San Bernardino Mountains has run three, each more impressive than the last, establishing himself as a medal contender for Beijing and one of the most promising homegrown American men ever in the event.

Read the rest of the article here (and don’t forget to send them an email demanding to know why the anti-jounalistic louts left the Underground out of it).

In the meantime, we’ll stick to the Ryan Hall story like a hungry brown trout on a streamer.

See you at the start/finish, Tom Chandler.

Meet Ryan Hall — the fastest American-born marathon runner ever. Not only was he the top finisher in the US Olympic Marathon Trials, he’s also a diehard fly fisherman.

That’s right, buddy boy; the Big Bear, CA-based Hall runs faster than your average bonefish for 26.2 miles, and still has energy left over to fly fish a little.

While I’m not a fan of fly fishing’s tendency to gush over celebrities who also happen to fly fish, but what the heck — we’re officially adopting him, which means the Undergrounders send him Powerful Underground Positive Vibes (and maybe drink the beer he can’t because he’s training), and claim partial credit when he scores heavy.

We get to cheer on a homeboy who’s making good, and suddenly, we’ve got a little skin in the Olympic games.

You can read all about him on Wikipedia, and he’s got a blog here. I’ll post updates, the first of which goes right here: a week ago he placed 5th in the ultra-competitive London Marathon with a time of 2:06.17 — fastest time ever by an American-born runner.

See you at the opening ceremonies, Tom Chandler.

p.s. — here’s Hall winning the US Olympic Trials in New York (listen to the crowds):