6/26/08

The gold medal rests next to his bed as a reminder. "On days I don't want to run, I look at it," said Ed Moran, the native of the Dayton section of South Brunswick who won the 5,000-meter run at last year's Pan-American Games in Rio De Janiero Brazil.

Moran insists that he is still the same person he was before winning that gold medal. He still coaches and trains at his college alma mater, William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. The one difference is his standing in the running community. He is now clearly one of America's best distance runners.