Your Track Vault Pick of the Week

To go with this week's Runner's World retrospective on the 2000 Foot Locker Cross Country, I give you this 2001 article about Alan Webb and Dathan Ritzenhein by Tim Layden.

Two high school runners. One is a pure miler named Alan Webb, a muscular senior from Reston, Va. He's strong and fast, with an insatiable appetite for swift training and a gift for stretching his speed over the four laps of his chosen race. The other is a pale waif named Dathan Ritzenhein, a willowy senior from Rockford, Mich. He has an elfin build and a fearsome ability to run for miles at the edge of collapse. The year is 2001, and these two young runners are linked across generations to Ryun and Lindgren. "They are," says 30-year-old Bob Kennedy, the U.S.-record holder for 5,000 meters, "the best two high school runners to come along together in a long time."