Hosting Track Nationals = awesome. The amounts of free stuff you get are ridiculous. So far, I've racked up 2 t-shirts, a polo, a draw-string bag, a water bottle, and some other assorted crap. I also bought some other shit as well. Again, not every day you host nationals. Working Track Nationals, especially during the down time = frackin boring. I have never been as bored as I've been in my life. We essentially had to stay in the muddy hospitality tent with shitty views of the track waiting for our next assignment, which I could have to wait an hour for. Eventually, I got so bored that I went and ran errands, and it's a good thing cause the skies opened up and let forth a hell of a downpour while I was gone. And, I wasn't there. Winner = me.
Oh, yeah, there were races, throws, and jumps as well. 5 OWU athletes competed on Thursday. Cara DeAngelis ran in the 1500 preliminaries, and was unfortunately 2 spots from making the finals, finishing with a time of 4:37. The 4x400 team of Sean Patrick, Matt Martin, Ethan Freet, and Silas Jolliff finished 14th out of 16 with a time of 3:17, a disappointing end to the season after claiming All-America honors in Indoor (good news though, 3 out of 4 of them return next year). Freet also ran in the preliminaries of the 400 hurdles and finished in the 4th fastest time of 52.57 seconds, making it to the finals on Saturday.
The race of the day yesterday was, of all things, the men's 10k. I know, you're thinking "how the hell can 25 laps be interesting, especially laps 3-22?". Of course, being a distance runner helps. But, I seriously couldn't turn my head away from this race. From the outset, Eric Kleinsasser of Occidental took a large lead for the first 7 or 8 laps. Of course, common wisdom of 10k says that "he who takes a large lead early in the 10k will die hard". And, what do you know, he dies and the pack catches him! The pack remains pretty much intact until about 3200 meters to go (or so), when Mike Spain of North Central and Thomas Breitbach of Wisconsin-Eau Claire break away from the field. Now, usually the winner of the 10k is usually settled with 1200-2400 meters to go. Not today folks. The longest race on the track, 10,000 meters, 25 laps, is settled...
IN THE LAST 200 FRAKCIN METERS!
Yes, a sprint down the last 200. Mike Spain won with a time of 29:58 (which is not even his fastest). Being in the stands and watching, it was ridiculous.
Day 2 of Nationals coming tomorrow!
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