Sunday, May 24, 2009

Race Report Tomorrow

I'm back from the race, and it was a very cool experience.  I didn't know it beforehand, but there were several Olympians competing there today.  (we saw this one lady there competing in the Triple Jump and it looked like she was jumping a mile - none of the men there were close to her.  We later found out that she was in the '08 Olympics . . . gee that would explain it)  

I got to chat it up w/ a couple of the pros on the infield, the atmosphere was very relaxed and everyone there was very supportive of the other athletes.  The top athletes in the 800 field all hung out together before the race and warmed up together even though they were about to go head to head.  

Just to give you a feel for how great our 800 field was - Timothy Bayley (he took 5th in England's Olympic Trials last year) was there and he wasn't even the #1 seed!  That honor went to Tetlo Emmen who was in the US Olympic Trials (an injury earlier in the season kept him from running near his best at the trials)  Tetlo had a seed time of 1:46.04!

We also had a 4-time Olympian there in the High Jump and the Olympic gold medalist in the discus.  Like I said, a lot of top athletes came to this small college today - and I got to be on the infield and jog alongside them during warmups.  Tim Bayley even congratulated me after my race and talked w/ me for a minute or two (we did have 2 heats so his heat was long over when I finished)  

Also, my friend Juan (the Masters sprinter from my gym) was competing so I had someone to pal around w/ while I anxiously waited for my race to start.  My family was there and a friend of mine showed up to watch as well.

Great experience, very glad I chose this meet - I had a lot of fun.  I'm off to bed, so I'll post up the race report tomorrow - 

Training:

Thurs, 5/21:  30-minutes @ 6:55 pace

Fri & Sat, 5/22 and 23:  Off

2 comments:

Ewen said...

Sounds like it was a great day Mike. Very cool to be hanging out with such great athletes.

Looking forward to the race report!

bricey said...

sounds like you had a great time. Looking forward to the report .. the suspense is killing me!! :)