The Men’s Marathon Olympic Trials are set for November 3 at Central Park in New York City. The race begins at 7:30 and will be featured briefly throughout the morning on NBC, but will be streamed live at NBCSports.

A map of the course (pdf) and spectator guide are available at the NYRR site. The USATF describes the course as

… a criterium-style course in Central Park that will start in Rockefeller Plaza and finish near Tavern on the Green. The criterium loop in Central Park will be the reverse of the loop used when NYRR hosted the USA 8 km Championships from 2002 to 2004. Athletes will run the loop five times, with distance added to complete the full 42.195 km of the marathon.

According to a press release

2004 Olympic Trials champion Alan Culpepper (Boulder, Colo.), Olympic silver medalist Meb Keflezighi (San Diego, Calif.) and 10,000m and marathon Olympian Dan Browne (Portland, Ore.) lead a host of contenders who have officially made their bid to become the first members of Team USA’s Track & Field squad for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Also joining Culpepper, Keflezighi and Browne on the official entry list for the November 3 event are half-marathon American record-holder Ryan Hall (Big Bear Lake, Calif.), 2004 Olympian Dathan Ritzenhein (Eugene, Ore.), Brian Sell (Rochester Hills, Mich.) and two-time Olympian Abdi Abdirahman (Tucson, Ariz.)

As of 10/21 Khalid Khannouchi has the fastest qualifying time of 2:07:04 (4:50).  The slowest time posted is 2:22:02 (5:25) which is actually 2 seconds over the “B” standard.  The “A” standard which means that USATF will pay for your trials participation is a 2:20:00 (5:20).  You may also obtain the “B” standard by racing a 5K in 13:40:00 (4:23) or a 10K in 28:45:00 (4:37).

You can watch a video collection about the athletes, the event, and American running at New York Road Runner’s Chasing Glory site.  Runner’s World also has a large selection of information.

It looks like it should be a great race, especially the finish.  Who do you think will win this year’s Marathon Trials?

There actually is an Anderson connection to one of the runners, but I can’t remember who he is.  Anyone remember??

The Women’s Marathon Trials will be held April 20 in Boston.