After a week of waiting, Ryan Martin and I finally got to race today. It’s been a while... since the two Canadian circuit meets for me, and even longer for Ryan from USA’s. I think the mutual opinion was that it was great to be on the track racing again. Time-trials and workouts meant to simulate racing do help you to prepare, but really aren’t the same. The stadium is awesome, and there are plenty of pictures I’m planning on sharing in a final wrap up blog once we’re home (the internet here really just can’t handle uploading more then text). It was refreshing to shake the rust off today, but tomorrow will be the real start of the meet for us.

We just saw the heat sheets last night, and that’s when it started to sink in that this was a pretty high level meet. Among a slew of 1:45 guys, there were two that stood out with lifetime bests of 1:44, but also some that stood out with PR’s in the 1:55-1:58 range. At the end of the day, all the main players advanced to the semi-final but it sure was a strange way to get there. It was not prelim racing as I’m used to.

Generally most of the heats went out fairly comfortably and the main few in the heat advanced in a 1:49-1:50 effort, making their moves in the last 200 or so of the race. Ryan was in heat 4 and stayed up with the leaders, getting through feeling pretty good afterwards. The first half of his race wasn’t anything crazy and the Lithuanian, Lachlan Renshaw and Ryan got the job done. Then there was heat 3 and 7... complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

In heat 3, NCAA indoor champ Fred Samoei (running for Kenya) took the race from the gun, soloing a 1:46.2 wire to wire. He came through in 51/1:18 and led a few other guys under 1:48 for easily the quickest prelim of the day. I didn’t get a chance to catch up with him but Fred’s a great racer so I’m sure he has a strategy in mind.

My heat however was determined to be the slowest heat of the day. I think even including high school, today was my slowest opening 400 ever. I took it easy over the first 400 hanging around last place, not usually my style, and when I checked the clock and saw the leaders through in 57 I almost laughed. I guess in my effort to just stay relaxed and fall into a rhythm I didn’t even realize we were running so slow. A little after 300 to go I made a surge to the leaders and down the homestretch I was content to let the top two guys battle it out for the win and just make sure I took third. I always joke with Robby about how he gets the easy prelims (besides 2010 NCAA’s) but I think this one takes the cake, we’re even bud!

The most exciting part about today is getting the opportunity to run the evening session tomorrow. The stadium looks like a huge circle of green crystals, and at nights the lights go on and put on a show. The crowds are bigger and it’s a lot more exciting then the morning prelims. There are 3 semi-final heats tomorrow, I drew heat 2 with Samoei, and two other 1:45 guys from Russia and South Africa and Ryan is in the final heat of the night. Top 2 from each heat and 2 time qualifiers will advance to the final on Sunday evening. The racing was pretty hectic today. There were people making moves at the most seemingly random stretches of the race, veterans who wanted to be safe and run from the front or trusted their speed from the back, 1:55 guys who wanted their 10 seconds of fame surging up to the lead, and ages ranging from 18-28 with PR’s from 1:44-1:58. But thankfully at the end of the day, we both got it done and have lived to race another day.