While Cooling down my last workout I passed a UPS truck. Normally this would be a pretty ordinary occurrence but today I started sprinting after the truck. Luckily the truck stopped pretty quickly at a house and I was able to ask the driver if he had a package for me. That package contained my Passport that my wife over-nighted to me from Chico.

Now I am ready to go to Birmingham.

I know a lot of people are excited to see what Dathan Ritzenhein can do. How could you not be? This is his first race since he broke the American record in the 5k and he is reportedly breaking other US records in practice. I'm hoping people can get excited about the rest of the American team aswell.

Joining Ritz and me are Brett Gotcher, Andrew Carlson, and James Carney and we have a very good chance at being the best team that the US has ever sent to the World Half Marathon Championships. I have the slowest PR of the team at 1:03:04, a time that in some teams in the past would put me as the leader of the team.

While I don't have insight on the exact fitness of the rest of the team I am confident that everyone will be showing their A game in Birmingham. Each of us have been fairly consistent over the past year or two and have been on at least a couple USA teams. We have raced recently but aren't over-raced and we are all focused on this race rather than as a tune-up for a marathon.

I know the race is going to be tough. The Kenyan team is unreal, Tadesse is going to be back and so is the rest of the world. The race is at 9:30 UK time so unless you wake up at some obsurd time you should be able to check the results first thing when you get up. Don't forget about the women either, Amy Yoder is debuting and my teammate Amy Hastings is ready to roll as well.