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By David Monti, Race Results Weekly

NEW YORK (16-Feb) — A quartet of American marathon stars will open their spring racing season here at the NYC Half, the New York Road Runners announced today.

Desiree Davila, Kara Goucher, Meb Keflezighi and Dathan Ritzenhein will all take part in the March 18, race which has been expanded to 15,000 runners this year and will be contested for the first time on a record-standard course.

Davila, Goucher and Keflezighi have already secured their Olympic Team berths after the USA Olympic Marathon Trials in Houston last month.
Goucher, Keflezighi and Ritzenhein have all run the NYC Half before, but for Davila –who has a half-marathon personal best of 1:10:34– this will be her first.

Goucher, who has a half-marathon best time of 1:06:57, agreed. ”This will be my first race after making the 2012 Olympic team. I couldn’t imagine a better place to start my run-up to the London Games,” said Goucher through prepared remarks, who finished third in the event last year.

In addition to the Big Four, other top Americans –Scott Bauhs (1:01:30 PB), Janet Cherobon-Bawcom (1:10:59), Molly Pritz (1:11:05), Julie Culley (debut), Jeannette Faber (1:14:19), and Stephanie Pezzullo (1:13:12)– would also run the race.

This year’s NYC Half will be held on a modified course which will allow for both a 50% increase in the size of the field, and record-setting.

The race has a $100,000 prize money purse, the largest of any half-marathon in the United States, with $20,000 set aside for the race winners.