Thanks for the props, guys. What a fantastic meet this was. I went in with the realization that all was not right with my system, and I got my blood test back last week and it showed a "sports anemia"- iron levels which are way too low for an athlete (ferritin=24,crit=40 for you med types). This explains why I have been dragging in any race over 800 while my speed is getting better.
Anyway: Thursday our prelims were delayed several times so we ended up running an hour late, and we were all pretty cooked by too much warming up and standing around in the warm sun. Add in a 10+ mph wind (which was present during most of the afternoon events), and I was happy to come away with a low-2:11. The fields were the deepest ever in both the M45 800 and 1500. In the prelims of the latter, I ran conservative for obvious reasons, and managed to hold off three guys on my tail in the last lap, in a "Personal Worst" 4:43- same as two weeks ago Even with this slow time, I was the first non-qualifier to the final.
The highlight of the meet for my running (my honey Sarah was awesome-see below) was the 4x400 relay. I was the leadoff leg, so I ran a legit 56.8 out of the blocks for a lifetime PR! The "real" sprinters went flying by in the first 200, but I held even in the second 200 and ran the same time as our anchor, a hurdler who runs 55 for the 400. Over a three-second improvement in a few weeks, so I am really excited to run the 4/8 double next week in Vancouver.
Sarah ran a great finish to her season, although there was (mostly) a dearth of competition in her age group (W30). She ran 61.07, 2:16 and 4:52 to win all her individual events, and ran on the victorious women's 4x4 to pick up four golds. She was one of the most beautiful runners on the track- at least that's what everyone else kept telling me And I could go on for pages about soem of the other tremendous athletes competing here- it was an all-day extravaganza of track for four days!
Capped off w/ a few hours of beer, salad and pizza at the venerable Track Town Pizza with many Master's studs/Studettes (including Tony Young), it was pretty much a perfect weekend of T & F. I hope you guys get a chance to run in this meet when it's Eugene someday- it's a blast!