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Provo's Josh Rohatinsky never has run a marathon. He never had run even a half marathon, either, until just a few weeks ago.

Yet the former All-American track star at Brigham Young is hoping for a stunning breakthrough when he makes his marathon debut at the U.S. Olympic Trials in New York City on Saturday - a race that is being heralded as the most competitive American marathon in history.

"We'll go out with the pack and when someone makes a move, you have no choice but to go with them," Rohatinsky said. "If I last, I last. If I don't, I don't. But you have to take those kinds of chances, especially if you haven't done one before."

The 25-year-old Rohatinsky is among three Utahns expected to be in the 134-man field competing for the three marathon spots on the U.S. Olympic Team for the 2008 Beijing Games in China. But unlike Taylorsville's Teren Jameson and LaVerkin's Hobie Call - experienced marathoners, both - Rohatinsky is one of just eight runners who have been allowed for the first time to enter the marathon trials based on their performances on the track.

And that puts Rohatinsky in an unusual position.

Not only will be trying to cope with a grueling and, to him, unknown distance that can humble even the most experienced runners, but he will be doing it on the rolling hills of Central Park while trying to hang with some of the best marathoners in the world. The field includes four former Olympians - including 2004 silver medalist Meb Keflezighi - four men who have run under 2 hours and 9 minutes, eight others who have run under 2:15, and former world-record holder Khalid Khannouchi, who has run under 2:06 three times.

"Until you've actually run it, you don't actually know what happens to you at the end," said Ed Eyestone, the men's track coach at BYU. "That will be the biggest challenge for him."

To prepare for such a difficult debut, Rohatinsky has been training in Portland under the legendary Alberto Salazar as part of the Oregon Project, the Nike-sponsored enterprise that aims to develop American distance runners capable of competing in the world's elite marathons.

In fact, Rohatinsky was with Salazar when he suffered his heart attack on the Nike corporate campus June 30 - running to a nearby football field to get medical help.

"It was a scary experience," he said.

But Salazar hardly lost a step, Rohatinsky said, and continued to lend his pupil the wisdom of his experience even as he recovered. So did Eyestone - like Salazar, a former world-class marathoner who knows personally what it takes to run with the best in the world.

Together, the two veterans guided Rohatinsky through a "crash course" preparation that included 120-mile weeks at its peak.

"I just don't have enough confidence in myself to go out and kind of guess-work it and say, I need to do this and I need to do that," Rohatinsky said. "To have them tell you, 'This is what I did, and if you do this, you're going to be able to do the same things,' that just really helps build the confidence."

That was important for a runner who, despite his spectacular talent, is still growing accustomed to gauging his pace at longer distances, having been training specifically for the marathon for only the four months since his sensational college career ended.

Rohatinsky was disappointed with the 1:02:54 half-marathon he ran at the Great North Run in England recently - "I was too conservative," he said - but has been buoyed by his ability to complete the savage workouts his mentors have prepared, such as 18-mile tempo runs at 5-minute mile pace. He expects the trials race to start cautiously, before the favorites start to pick up the pace in the second half in order to thin the corps of contenders.

"Whoever qualifies is going to be someone who can relax and who has done the work and is ready for it," he said. Somebody who is "not going to be intimidated and not be psyched out by all the people and the hype about everything."

Rohatinsky hopes he can become one of those runners, by going out with the leaders and hanging on as long as he can - inexperience be damned.

"You can be a little fearless as a novice," Eyestone said. "That can have disastrous effects in a marathon, but in a marathon like this, where it's either the top three or nothing, it might not be such a bad thing."

AIMING FOR THE OLYMPICS

- The U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials are being held Saturday, the day

before the annual New York City Marathon, primarily on a 5-mile loop

around Central Park.

- Most runners had to qualify by racing a marathon in under 2 hours

and 22 minutes, an average pace of 5:25 per mile.

- LaVerkin's Hobie Call qualified by winning the Top of Utah marathon

in Logan in 2:16:39 in September, while Taylorsville's Teren Jameson

did so by running 2:19:32 to finish fourth at the Austin Marathon in

Texas in February.

- Provo's Josh Rohatinsky qualified with his personal-best time of

27:55 in the 10,000 meters on the track.