On Sunday, Stride Nation had a chance to chat with Dathan Ritzenhein in the wake of a disappointing finish at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston. We say "disappointing" in the most qualified of senses since Ritzenhein finished with a personal best 2:09:55. Yet that was only good enough for a fourth-place finish and missing the cut for London by eight seconds.

The race marked a remarkable comeback for Ritzenhein who underwent sugery on his Achilles Tendon after the 2010 ING New York City Marathon and complications from that procedure sidelined him from racing for a full year. To augment his recovery and jump-start his training for the Olympic trials, Ritzenhein partnered with Gatorade and employed their Sports Science Institute (GSSI) to focus on the nutritional aspect of his performance. The good folks at Gatorade were kind enough to set us up with this interview.

Stride Nation: How are you handling the outcome of the race Saturday?

Dathan Ritzenhein: It’s just a tough time you know since it’s basically three really happy people and everyone else is a little disappointed. Fourth place is probably the worst place to be. I bounced back and my body feels great at least. I’ve had so many hiccups and injuries over the last year that I’m really just happy that I was able to come back and finish strong. Now I’ve got to really turn my focus to try and qualify for the Olympic Games on the track, hopefully in the 10K.

SN: How do you rebound mentally from a disappointment like that?

DR: It’s tough a lot of times when you do this for a living and it’s your identity you tend to lose sight of the triumphs like that. It was still a personal best but at the same time I learned more things about what I can change for the future and it gives me time to re-focus and I have that great strength background now going into the track which will really be beneficial when I really have to focus back in on some speed. I’ll have that real endurance base.

SN: Is there a lesson there for the amateur runner?

DR: That’s the beauty about running; it’s a universal experience from someone who is an elite runner to someone who is maybe doing their first marathon to someone just trying to get into running. You judge for yourself your successes and failures and there isn’t one without the other.

For me there has been a lot more failure than there has been success but that’s really what makes those really big moments important and special so you have to really take those bumps on the road and use them in a positive way. For me it’s been really easy to re-focus after something hard like that. There is always those initial moments of disappointment but you have to either quit or move on and that’s what I’m doing now. It’s kind of the good thing about running; anybody can have a bad result but still use that as motivation for the next time.

SN: It seems a great deal of the outcome also hinged on the quality of the competition this year.

DR: The state of American distance running has gotten so much better. Depth-wise we’re probably the best in the world with the exception of Ethiopia and Kenya. We’ve got guys that are able to run under 13 minutes for 5K and 27 minutes for 10K and in the marathon it’s the same thing. Those guys ran incredible yesterday. I didn’t have a bad race, they just had incredible races.

SN: That's a nice change for the sport, no?

DR: There were some dark times for American distance running in the 90s and early 2000s. In 2000 we only qualified one person for the [Olympic] marathon because we didn’t have people who could run fast enough. Now we are turning people away because so many can perform up to that standard.

It’s really great to have connection between people like Alberto [Salazar, Ritzenhein's current coach] and Frank Shorter and the time when they really dominated. Now it’s a different world. There is so much science involved. Nowadays you can’t just train hard. In the 80s they used to just train like crazy but now you have to have everything exactly right in order to compete on that specific day.

SN: You've struggled with injury issues quite a bit recently. Can you tell us a bit about that?

DR: I had a couple of surgeries on my Achilles and various other health problems related to the surgeries. So that’s why I can’t be too disappointed with fourth, either. I was off for six months when everyone else was out training. I wouldn’t have even though six months ago I would have been on the starting line this weekend. You gotta take that as it is as well.

Usually when I’m injured I’ll do a lot of cross training and things like that but I was really sidetracked because I had complications from surgery; a wound that wouldn’t close and subsequent infection. I couldn’t work out at all. It was a lot of time of just sitting on the couch not doing a whole lot.

SN: How long was your break from racing?

DR: It was 364 days. I finally did a 5K in November. That was the first race I’d run since the New York City Marathon last year.

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The 2012 U.S. Marathon Olympic Trials in Houston on Saturday feature two ridiculously fast races. In the men's race, Meb Keflezighi ran a personal best -- his second in 69 days -- to win in 2:09:08, beating Ryan Hall, Abdi Abdirahman and fourth-place Dathan Ritzenhein. All four went under 2:10, which was completely improbable coming in.

In the women's race, the top four finishers beat the previous Olympic Trials record. Shalane Flanagan edged Desi Davila for the victory in 2:25:37. Kara Goucher finished third and Amy Hastings held on for fourth.

Here are the full U.S. teams for the Olympic marathon.

Men's:
Meb Keflezighi
Ryan Hall
Abdi Abdirahman
Alternate: Dathan Ritzenhein

Women's:
Shalane Flangan
Desi Davila
Kara Goucher
Alternate: Amy Hastings

The women's marathon in London will be held on August 5. The men's race will be on August 12.

NBC will be broadcasting the Trials beginning at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday on a condensed tape delay.

Shalane Flanagan beat Desi Davila to claim first place in the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston at Saturday, finishing in a Trials record 2:25:37. Kara Goucher finished a close third to make the team. Davila drew heaps of attention in the 2011 Boston Marathon, finished second place by just two seconds at 2:22:38, the fastest women's finish in Boston history. But Flanagan is has now beaten Davila all six times the pair have raced against each other.

The three will compete at the 2012 London Olympics in August. It'll be an Olympic debut in the marathon for all three, though Shalane won the bronzed at the 10K in 2008. Goucher finished 10th in that race. Houston was just Flanagan's second marathon ever; she finished the 2010 NYC Marathon in 2:28.

Amy Hastings ran a great race, bounding back to the front every time she fell off the pace until she had no juice left. Deena Kastor also hung for a long while, but dropped back late.

Meb Keflezighi, running his best marathon time ever, beat Ryan Hall to take the win at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston on Saturday with an unofficial time of 2:09:07. Hall finished second to join Meb in the 2012 London Olympics. Abdi Abdirahman finished third. This is the first U.S. Trials in history in which three men finished under 2:10, and according to Runner's World the first time since the 1983 Boston Marathon three men have gone under 2:10 in the same event.

Meb, 36, had never won the Trials before, but won silver at the 2004 Olympics in Athens with a 2:11:29. He set a personal record at 2:09:13 just two months ago in the 2011 NYC Marathon.

Dathan Ritzenhein, who finished No. 2 behind Hall in the 2008 Trials, finished fourth, falling off late before surging back to push Abdirahman. All four of the top runners finished under 2:10, unofficially. The men's runners began with a ridiculous pace, regularly popping off 4:50 and below miles in the first half on the way to a 1:03:25 split. But the lead pack began falling apart around Mile 15, where U.S. Half-Marathon champ Mo Trafeh fell back and dropped out.

With 21 miles in the books, the three American runners who will compete in the marathon at the 2012 London Olympics appears set, as Ryan Hall, Meb Keflezighi and Abdi Abdirahman have opened up a 30-second lead on fourth-place Dathan Ritzenhein and a two-minute on the chase pack. The three have been in the lead from the start, and will run positive split after a blazing 1:03 first half. The pace has trailed off some, as five-minute mile splits have become the norm.

It appears that both Meb and Abdi will have a chance to set personal records if they push it, which is very strange for a U.S. Marathon Olympic Trials. Few were predicting that the Trials would even feature three sub-2:10 performances, let alone three 2:08s.

Mo Trafeh had been running with the lead pack until he dropped back and eventually out at Mile 15. He has still never completed a full marathon; he is the reigning U.S. Half-Marathon Champion.

The women's race at the U.S. Marathon Olympic Trials -- run for the first time ever on the same day and city as the men's competition -- couldn't have been more different at the start. While a group of the men racers blazed off in some wild attempt to peel off a pace no one expected, the women's race started slowly and only began to separate into a clear lead pack after a few miles.

But it did eventually string out, and left in the lead pack at the half are expected contenders Desi Davila, Shalane Flanagan, Deena Kastor, Amy Hastings and Kara Goucher. Serena Burla began to drop off the back of the lead pack approaching the midway point. Of the lead five, Kastor, an American racing legend, has dropped back a bit from the lead three, but there's a lot of race left. The lead pack hit the halfway point at 1:13.

The top three finishers will advance to the 2012 London Olympics. Davila and Flanagan came in as overwhelming favorites.

Something's got to give, because four men are not going to finish the 2012 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials below 2:08 ... right? The lead pack of Ryan Hall, Abdi Abdirahman, Dathan Ritzenhein and Meb Kefleghezi blazed through the halfway mark at 1:03:25. If anyone in the pack runs an even or negative split, that means we'd have a sub-2:07 Trials finish. Before Saturday morning, it seemed inconceivable that multiple runners would pull that off.

The 13th mile did drop the pace a bit, down to 4:55, and the split on Mile 15 was 4:56. Mo Trafeh, who won last year's U.S. Half-Marathon Championships in Houston over Hall but has never finished a marathon, dropped off the pack before the 15-mile mark, and may drop out according to media reports from Houston. He had said before the race that he planned to run a hard, 1:03 first half -- which he did -- but it's likely he didn't expect Hall, Meb, Ritz and Abdi to come along for the ride. Holding on against the crew in your first marathon must have been too daunting, even for someone as talented as Mo.

Ryan Hall and four runners in the 2012 U.S. Marathon Olympic Trials in Houston kept up their insane fast pace through 10 miles on Saturday, with the pack hitting the mark at 48:10, on pace for a 2:07 finish. Given that all runners but Hall would be question marks to break 2:10 in a Trials race, this is really, really fast.

The runners with Hall are Abdi Abdirahman, Dathan Ritzenhein, Meb Kefleghezi and Mo Trafeh. All are contenders, but Trafeh -- who warned he planned to go out blazin' in the first half -- has never finished the marathon distance. Trafeh likely expected to have some alone time when he said he'd go out in 1:03-1:04 in the first half.

Here are Hall's unofficial split times:

Mile 1: 4:51
Mile 2: 4:51
Mile 3: 4:48
Mile 4: 4:49
Mile 5: 4:43
Mile 6: 4:50
Mile 7: 4:47
Mile 8: 4:48
Mile 9: 4:48
Mile 10: 4:52

Stay tuned for more coverage of the Trials.