Running with a greater purpose

As a precocious eight grader, Hall was determined to run around Big Bear Lake in California with his father Mickey, an accomplished triathlete. Although he completed the 15 mile trip, the experience left him gassed physically and emotionally.

In the moments Hall struggled to regain his breath, he began to ponder what was it exactly that made him want to do this in the first place.

"I came home and collapsed on the couch and I really felt like God was telling me, ‘One day, you're going to run with the best runners in the world,'" Hall recalled over lunch in Manhattan recently, "'but the reason I am giving you this gift is so that you can help other people.'"

In the 14 years that have elapsed since that very first long run, Hall has realized the great promise he showed as a teenager and is unquestionably one of the best American distance runners to have emerged in a generation.

He has set the American record in the half marathon; ran the fastest debut marathon ever by an American in London in 2007; won the U.S. Olympic Trials marathon in New York in record time; finished fifth at the 2008 London Marathon in 2:06.17; placed 10th in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics; and finished third at the Boston Marathon in April.

As Hall prepares to run in the ING New York City Marathon on November 1, he is queried at every stop about whether he is the man who will take American distance running to the next level by beating the East African runners that dominate the sport.

But while Hall does aspire to supplant his foreign rivals on the podium, he envisions himself becoming more like them off the roads.

"A lot of people have been asking me about competing with the Africans and when are we finally going to be able to compete with these guys," Hall said. "I've been inspired by many of the African runners, where they take their prize money and go home and do something good with it. They transform their communities through their success in running. As Americans, we should be doing the same thing.

"You see the resurgence of American distance running. It's happening because Dathan (Ritzenhein) is breaking 13 minutes, and now Teg (Matt Tegenkamp) is breaking 13. That's all great. But now let's start to do that not only with our running but how we're going to use our running for a greater good."

Late last month Hall and his wife Sara, herself a successful middle distance runner, announced the formation of The Hall Steps Foundation, a charitable initiative seeking to fund programs aimed at creating a better life for impoverished youth in the U.S. and abroad. The Hall Steps Foundation is a function of Fun 4 Kidz, an organization that acts on behalf of professional athletes to provide opportunities for disadvantaged children.

Sara Hall has already donated the $2500 she won for her third-place finish in the Fifth Avenue Mile on Sept. 26 to the foundation and Ryan has pledged all of his winnings from the New York City Marathon, which could total as much as $170,000 should he win the race -- $130,000 for winning the marathon plus $40,000 for winning the U.S. marathon championship. Hall is sponsoring one school in each of the five boroughs on race day with $2,500 going to fund New York Road Runners Young Runners programs in each school.

"I want kids to not only see athletes as people who take and receive and get fame, but as people who are giving back," Hall said. "In the U.S., athletes feel less of a draw or less of a responsibility to do good with the platform they have or the money they receive from the gifts that they have. There are athletes out there who do a lot of that, like Lance Armstrong.

"I look up to him for his foundation and everything he has done for cancer, and I want to do the same thing for global poverty. I think we need more role models in our sport. I've certainly had some great role models and this is my opportunity to be one of those role models. I'm like, ‘Let's be more like a lot of these guys I'm competing with, who do so much with what they've been given.'"

African inspiration

Many of the world's great marathon runners hail from places of meager means.

World-record holder Haile Gebrselassie was born in Asella, a predominantly agrarian city in the Arsi zone of Ethiopia that has fallen on hard times. Gebrselassie's enormous success as an athlete has enable him to employ countless workers across his various business interests, fund clean-water projects as well as AIDS awareness programs and other children's-related charities.

When Hall competed in his first marathon, in London in 2007, he spoke with other African runners who told their stories of charitable work.

Among them was Paul Tergat, who in 2004 was named a United Nations Ambassador Against Hunger and the following year began a foundation to help disadvantaged Kenyan sportspeople. Lornah Kiplagat told Hall about her foundation, which funds a boarding school in Iten, Kenya for 300 female students and educates Kenyan youth about HIV and AIDS through sexual health lessons.

"I've gotten the opportunity to learn from them," Hall said of Tergat and Kiplagat. "They've been such great ambassadors, not only for the sport but also to use running in a positive way. For me, the inspiration goes back to my first run. For Sara, it goes back even farther than that. Since she was a little girl, she has always wanted to work in developing countries to help the needy."

Charity begins at home

Growing up in Santa Rosa, California, Sara Hall never subscribed to the same aspirations as other children. She never fancied herself becoming a doctor, or high-powered attorney, or even a star athlete. Her aims were always more altruistic.

"You know when you draw a picture in fourth grade of what you're going to be when you grow up, I always drew myself in Africa doing AIDS related stuff," Sara said. "That's just something God put in my heart."

In high school, Sara traveled to Mexico every year over spring break. But these weren't trips to Cancun to unwind. These were journey's to the rural villages of Mexicali proper, where a high level of disease, respiratory illnesses like asthma, and other medical issues plague the local inhabitants.

"That was really transformative," Sara said of her Mexico trips. "I saw the poverty there and it really opened my eyes to global poverty outside the U.S."

When Sara met Ryan began dating during their freshman years at Stanford University, her selfless nature infiltrated their relationship and opened Ryan's eyes to a world he was not exposed to in Big Bear Lake, where the median home value was $560,515 according to 2007 census figures.

"I don't think there are too many homeless people in Big Bear Lake so I don't think it was something that Ryan thought about a lot growing up," Sara said. "I think I, maybe, exposed him to (poverty awareness), but his heart grew to have a huge compassion."

Ryan said some of his first dates with Sara were spent attending to the needs of the poor.

"We would go down to San Francisco and hand out bagged lunches to homeless people, or make pancake breakfasts for the homeless," he said. "It's something we would do once a month or once every couple of months."

"We would also did some tutoring in East Palo Alto and tried to stay involved within the nearby community," Sara added. "We cooked breakfast for homeless people once a week and would go out there and serve. We were involved in a lot of different things."

Helping abroad

Ryan's first brush with global poverty came during the summer of his junior year at Stanford when he and Sara traveled to Tijuana, where they visited an orphanage and spoke and ran with the children.

His awareness of global poverty was heightened after the Olympics when he and his wife went to Zambia with the Christian charity Team World Vision. Last winter, Hall said that he naively expected to see, "kids with flies all over their faces and crying and starving and people starving on the side of the road." They did not see that. But they did see people without means.

With an annual per capita income of $395, Zambia is one of the world's poorest nations. Approximately 68 percent of the population of Zambia lives below the recognized national poverty line, with rural poverty rates standing at about 78 percent. In 2007, Zambia ranked 117 out of 128 countries on the Global Competitiveness Index, which measures factors affecting economic growth.

"I read this book called The End of Poverty and the author (Jeffrey D. Sachs) said he believes we can see the end of poverty in our lifetime," Hall said. "There is actually something we can do about it and it's exciting. It's like preparing for a marathon. You can see the end result. When people ask me about New York, and stuff like ‘Do you think you can win New York?' I can see myself there. It's the same thing with global poverty. I can see change happening."

It was the trip to Zambia that solidified the Halls' desire to get their foundation up and running while also serving as an opportunity to witness firsthand some of the complexities involved.

"We saw some failed projects and learned why they went wrong even though there were well-intentioned people that went over there," Sara said. "We were looking at mainly the water projects. In some cases the wells were dug too close to the villages and the women didn't want to use it because they like to walk a certain distance to get water because it is their social time together. Putting a well too close to a graveyard will keep people from using what they have. Things like that you wouldn't know unless you're working with natives of the country. We also learned that having sustainability with leaders in those countries is key to maintaining those projects and not having them just go to rust."

Staying power

Hall said that the Hall Steps Foundation will not undertake its own projects initially but will instead partner with established organizations such as World Vision and International Justice Mission. Domestically, the Halls will undertake their own initiatives such as developing mentoring programs for at-risk inner city youth through running.

These are projects that most athletes save until their careers have come to an end. The Halls always envisioned that end and the start of their charity work coming sooner than later.

"I remember first meeting Ryan and asking him you how long he thought he would run," New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg said. "He was so clear that he and Sara were going on mission and running was just something that they were going to do for a brief period of time. My reaction was, ‘Understand that you two have a platform from which you can do so much good and you can achieve the good when running and the running will help you have that platform.'"

Today, Hall says it is the ability to affect change through his running that keeps him going strong.

"I think things like having a foundation makes you want to stay in the sport longer," he said. "Look at a guy like Lance. He's come back to (cycling) because he makes such a big impact. That's why Sara and I weren't sure at the start of our running career how long we would be in it. We wanted to make sure we were having an impact and touching people's lives."

So when Hall toes the line at Fort Wadsworth, his focus won't be solely on getting across the finish line in Central Park first. His mind will ponder the ripple effect that could have on the world.

"I was out there running and I wondered, ‘How many steps do I take training for New York City?'" Hall said. "I probably average 120 miles per week in the four months leading up to it. I dropped down to the track and counted how many steps I take to run 400 meters, then went home and did the calculations. And it was almost a half a million steps. I was like, ‘Whoa. That's a lot of steps.' I started thinking about the impact. One of those steps means nothing. But when you start putting them together, that's where you see a huge difference. We're trying to encourage people to take ownership of the communities they live in by coming together and taking these steps together."