Track and Field Blogs - Reid Coolsaet

Worlds coverage starts tomorrow night and I have to say IÂ’m getting pretty excited for it. I filled in my fantasy team on IAAF.com and spent the $4.95 to get the WCSN.com coverage (thankfully Eliterunning.com put up a schedule of the distance events so I donÂ’t need to add the 13 hours for every event I want to watch). CBC will have TV coverage here in Canada on the weekends and Mark will surely have some good interviews here on Flotrack. Yes, it would be safe to say IÂ’m a big track fan, and, IÂ’ll admit, a bit of a stats geek to boot.

In 2001 when the Worlds were held in Edmonton I figured it would likely be the only chance IÂ’d ever get to see the big show. I was a 14:28 guy at the time, I knew I was still improving but, I wasnÂ’t even sure a sub 13:45 was in the cards. With the help of my parents I flew across the country to see it firsthand. I went for the last 5 or 6 days of competition and pretty much saw every distance event I wanted to. I also got to the front row every day by moving into empty seats on the backstretch. Four years later I was on the start line in the 5000m heats, even better than the front row for a track fan, haha.


When I went to Edmonton Reebok was giving out these ”SULLY” t-shirts and I was quick to pick one up to show my support (heck, I would of taken any free T at the time). A few years later when I made a National team I would wear the shirt every chance I got when I was around Kevin. Then we thought it would be funny to take some pictures… you can see that Sully really enjoyed the photo shoots too…

Now its time to sit back, watch the action and see what the Bloggers over in Japan have to say.

[I took this pic of the final at worlds in 2001. Hicham is sitting behind his "pacemaker". The other pic is four years later when I ran the 5000m heats. Man I want to be back there! Even though I'm not I'm still very happy with where my running is this summer.]