AM:(8 miles, 1:14:51 (38:13/36:37). Pretty sluggish today, maybe feeling the effects of Thursday's run or maybe because we had a monsoon come through yesterday (so there is lots of water in the washes) so it was pretty humid - 84% which is super high for us! (though blissfully cooler at about 80F). PM:(4 miles). I am actually hoping to get up to my favorite running spot, if I can get out of work before it is dark and if it isn't raining (since the washes will be flooded and this run runs through a bunch of washes). Today is new student orientation, so I am at work all day ... here in the morning it is talking with the new students and in the afternoon trying to get my lectures finished for next week. I did, finally, get their first homework written, and more importantly, got the solution set finished. Last night was nail-biting middle distance racing! Christine Wurth-Thomas ran a gutsy exciting 1500 leading for about 600 meters and finishing easily in the top 5 even though the race was super fast (2:10 at the 800 I think)! The race with Anna Willard and Shannon Rowbury was just edge of your seat action. It was a super slow race, I want to say 2:20 for the first 800. This was not good, since the top 5 finishers and two fastest times in both races advance to the final. This meant that both Anna and Shannon had to get a top 5 finish because the first heat was much faster so the top two time finishers were going to come from that race. Both of them were boxed in at the bell lap ... luckily they showed their racing maturity by waiting it out and Shannon ran out to lane 3 in the last 10 meters and Anna (this was really nerve-racking) stayed on the inside and trusted her speed and was able to get an opening within the last 5 meters. WHEW! The men's 800 semi-finals were equally as exciting, in different ways. Three men went down in the first 400 meters - pretty much the favorite to win (Sudanese runner Abubaker Kaki who has run the fastest time in the world this year) got clipped and when he went down he took the other two leaders with him (he ended up not finishing the other two will likely contest and get in the final). Nick Symmonds ended up running in front and taking one of the three automatic qualifier spots. Depressing second heat -- it was the "whos-who" of 800 meter runners, I mean this heat really looked liked like it could have been the finals ... so the American Khadevis Robinson did not make it through to the final. It was a great race though with Yuriy Borazakovsky showing the world that he is not done racing yet (even though he had a tough year last year). Bummer that the US men were DQd from the 4 x 100m relay for a bad pass -- they passed too soon. Happy Saturday bloggers.
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