When Sara Hall makes her marathon debut on Sunday at the L.A. Marathon, “belated” might be one way to describe the timing. That's because Hall had been planning to run her first marathon last fall, until her appendix burst in August. She was forced to take two weeks off from running, wasn’t able to eat much while on a heavy antibiotics regimen, and decided to postpone her debut.

But Hall’s debut, at age 31, might also be perfectly timed, because it could set her up to make the U.S. Olympic marathon team after unsuccessful attempts to become a track Olympian in 2004, 2008, and 2012. It's conceivable that she and her husband, two-time Olympian Ryan Hall, could both make the marathon squad for the 2016 Games.

If she excels at the marathon, it will be another distance conquered in an already varied running career. In college, running for Stanford University, Hall finished second three times in the NCAA 3000- and 5000-meter championships, and had a third place finish in the NCAA Cross Country Championships. Her range since turning pro has been even greater, from road mile victories to winning the 3000-meter steeplechase at the 2011 Pan American Games to outkicking Molly Huddle to win the 2012 USA Cross Country Championships.

In 2014, before her appendix burst, Hall attacked the roads. She finished second in the USA 10 Mile Championship (52:54), fourth at the B.A.A. Invitational Mile (4:45.9), third at the USA 1 Mile Road Championships (4:33.81), second at the USA 10K Championships (32:28), and second in the USA 7 Mile Championship (37:21) – and still managed to run a 9:42.10 steeplechase in May.

Hall has fallen in love with longer road running.

"I'm thankful for all my memories on the track and feel there are more to come, but there's something about the roads right now that has captured my heart," she says. It's almost a mirror of the progression Ryan made after college, though his transition to the marathon was on a much more compressed schedule. (He debuted in 2007.)

After her appendix setback, Hall first focused on simply being able to run, and then put some shorter races on her calendar as motivation.

She jump-started her recovery last fall by PRing twice: first at the Tufts 10K with 32:14 (eighth place), and then at the .US National 12K with 38:48 (fourth place). That was "miraculous," she says, given what her body had been through.

By November, she felt like she could handle higher mileage and start doing marathon-specific training. In December, she notched her fourth consecutive win at the Dallas Half Marathon in 1:12:26, another PR. She then smashed that time in January at the USA Half Marathon Championships with a 1:10:50 PR for fourth place. Her last race was a fifth-place finish at the USA Cross Country Championships on February 7, after which she and Ryan went to Ethiopia for altitude training.

"There are times I wondered if, in hindsight, I might have been able to pull off my original plan, but I didn't have the base I needed for a marathon," Hall says. She also knows that a fast half marathon isn't necessarily a good indicator of how she'll do in the marathon. "I have mainly been looking to my long workouts in practice to gauge my fitness," she says.

Ryan, who paced her for part of the Dallas race, will also run the marathon on Sunday. "We've been doing this pro running thing together for a while, so it's been fun to do something new together," Sara says. (The pair met while at Stanford.)

She's coached by University of Houston distance coach Steve Magness, and believes working with him and her husband has given her the best of both worlds when it comes to knowing how to train.

"Ryan knows the marathon really well and knows what key workouts I needed to hit,” Hall says. “And Steve brings his knowledge of science and current research and filters it all to create the plan. I feel fortunate to have both of their support."

She says that Ryan has also helped her with the mental aspect of the marathon.

"For so long, I've been doing middle-distance races, so I approach training pretty aggressively," she says. "I like to get to off the line in my [tempo runs] and go out hard, and he's teaching me to build as I go and what the right energy levels are."

In November, for example, she did a hard, fast 18-mile run after coming off a long, travel-delayed day. She came back into their hotel room and told Ryan, "I'm ready!" His response was that she wasn't yet, and to be patient. "Which is classically our personalities right there," she says.

Hall picked the L.A. Marathon for her debut for several reasons. The timing is good, she grew up in Santa Rosa, California, and the race is sponsored by her long-time sponsor Asics. Perhaps most significantly, Sunday’s marathon is this year’s national championship, and Los Angeles will be the site of the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials next February.

"With the Trials coming up, I wanted to get a feel for actually racing a marathon, not just being in a contrived rabbitted situation, but really competing," she says about L.A.’s separate start for the elite women. "I think there are some aspects of the race that will be challenging to me based on my strengths and weakness, but I hope that my fitness and the excitement and meaningfulness of the race overshadows them."

Adding to the race-for-place aspect instead of focusing on time is the forecast for extreme heat on Sunday.

"As of now, no,” Hall says about whether the weather will alter her race strategy. “Hasn't changed my goals! [I] just know it's going to feel harder."

When asked if she wishes she tried the marathon earlier, Hall says jokingly to check after Sunday.

"I've really enjoyed the training and feel it came naturally to me," she says, "so even if I don't knock one out of the park my first time out, I feel like I am capable of running a fast marathon at some point."

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io