Ryan Hall will return to the marathon on March 15 at the 2015 LA Marathon, the race announced this week.

The Los Angeles race doubles as the USATF Marathon Championships in 2015, ensuring a significant prize purse. Hall will run the LA Marathon for the first time. He’s from nearby Big Bear Lake, Calif.

As described below by Amby Burfoot, Hall has resorted to being coached by the well known Jack Daniels (no, not the whisky!). Over the past several years he has been coached by numerous people and methods. In the years leading up to 2010 he was coached by The Mammoth Track Club. He left them and resorted to faith based coaching where he followed his own methods. He then used Italian coach Renato Canova briefly before switching back to his faith based methods. Hall is now returning to marathoning after taking more than one year off after finishing 20th in Boston in 2013 with a time of 2:17. He holds the U.S. record for the marathon in Boston with a time of 2:04:58.

The point is that no one holds the answer to what works! Even the professionals who hold records can’t seem to figure it out!

In September, two-time U.S. Olympic marathoner Ryan Hall announced he would be coached by Daniels. Hall hopes to bounce back from several subpar years. “My dad and I first met Jack at a Jim Ryun Running Camp in 1999,” says Hall. “The next year, with our new training knowledge, I dropped to 4:05 in the mile. I’m confident he can get me back as a runner.”

How will Daniels do that? “The key is to help Ryan believe he still has the talent he’s always had. My job is to provide an environment where we don’t do anything stupid, and where we bring Ryan back to his full potential.”

Don’t do anything stupid. Wise words from running’s Einstein.

—AMBY BURFOOT