“I don’t have anything to lose,” Khalid Khannouchi repeated several times to media eager to judge the comeback status of the two-time former marathon world-record holder the day before his return to racing at the Healthy Kidney 10K on May 15.

It was a unique, and perhaps enviable, position for a professional runner to be in before a big race—like the non-elite participants, Khannouchi wasn’t expecting to win. Rather, he entered the race to test his body mechanics and endurance. 

Khannouchi, who still owns four of the top five fastest times on the U.S. marathon list, including his American record PR of 2:05:38 from the 2002 London Marathon, hasn’t raced competitively since 2008, when he placed ninth at the Steamboat Classic 4-Mile. The previous fall, he’d just missed making the U.S. Olympic marathon team—racing then in new orthotics, he came in fourth (2:12:34) at the Trials in New York. Representing the USA in the Games remains an unrequited desire of Khannouchi’s, and one of the driving forces behind his comeback attempt.

Once one of the greatest marathoners in the world, the 38-year-old Moroccan-born American has spent the majority of the past eight years rehabbing various injuries and not performing to his potential when he has been able to race. Plagued mostly by ankle and foot problems, Khannouchi has undergone four minor surgeries and one major surgery to correct a recurring problem with his left foot. The most recent major surgery, which occurred in the spring of 2009, was to remove a bone spur on his left foot. He made the decision to have the major surgery because he could no longer run for longer than 30 minutes without extreme pain. After the surgery, his podiatrist created custom orthotics, which Khannouchi inserts into his running shoes—he’s forsaken all other types of shoes even for daily wear.