Land of the Kiwis A runner in New Zealand

2010 Debut

Woke up today feeling unrealistically good at 9AM, bade farewell to our fantastic New Years hosts (I failed to mention earlier that we crashed for the night in an incredibly conveniently located flat owned by an (ex?) runner named Clive. Interesting note: his gf is from NYC and they're going strong after 9 months and amazingly they find time to get together every 2 months or so. Good news for a couple love birds I know... This is pushing the limits of parens...), and started to shuffle around the once again thriving beach town.

So at this point, only thing on my plate is the 3k Cary and I have been planning to run. Obviously, race prep up to this point hasn't been ideal, and we continued to have no regard for our bodies as we basked out in the sun (still in jeans) while we waited for Ian to come pick us up. It wasn't until 2PM we made the connection (I'm guessing Ian's new year celebration was pretty epic as well. He's saying 3AM bedtime for himself. Understandably took him a little while to get going the next morning), so I'm talking a good amount of sun too. However, we did get a shower and a good 3 hour nap before rising at 5:30PM for our date with the track.

Once we got to the track I began to feel like a runner again for the first time in a while. Honestly, I haven't really felt the fire of competition on a track since last spring. But this was a legit meet with all regular events and a couple hundred fans in the stands. I actually didn't know how legit it was until I got there, and once there I was a bit repentant for the abuse my body had suffered in the previous 24 hours. That said, I didn't actually feel that bad and I had hydrated pretty well for the last 3 hours, so I was hopeful for a decent performance.

The 3k had a bunch of good runners in it, including a few fellows from the 5k in Christchurch, and some Ramblers with good PBs ( = PRs). Oh and of course Nick Willis. He ran the 800m about 45min earlier in a sit a pretty even split 1:52 (57,55). I did a good 12 minute warm up with a minute tempo toward the end of it. Legs felt pretty fresh after the day off. Abbreviated stretching routine and 1 set of strides. The short warm up was once again due to the fact that there was no woman's 3k beforehand. I don't really understand why they split up the schedule like that. Maybe fans can't handle two LD events in a row? Anyways, toed the line with about 25 other guys (packed) and interestingly enough we weren't assigned any order on the line. "Fast people in front." and I just took position 7ish on the line.

Gun went off and we were into it. I fell really nicely into 2nd place and was amazingly given breathing room as well. I think a lot of other people enjoyed New Years to at least the extent we did because the race ran a cautious 71 and 2:22 for the first 800. Cary took over at that point and dropped 69 69 69, leading me around for another 1200m. It was really fun to have us American's 1-2, that is until 1000m to go when Willis decided to disrespect us. He took over aggresively with a great move going into the back turn. Forcing me to wait until the end of the turn to get around Cary. I took off after him staying about 7-10m behind for much of the next 600m. With a lap to go Nick put it into casual overdrive and started on what I bet was about a 61. It would have been quite optimistic to assume I could have stayed with him, and I had promised Mitch I would take it easy with a 90% effort. So I cruised in maintaining 65 pace for what I believe was about a 8:31. I know I was 7:59 at the 200m-to-go mark and I'd like to think I maintained pace. We'll see if we ever get results. We're 30 hours out from the meet and for a $15 entrance fee, you'd expect a little faster service. Oh well.

I don't usually put my competition on a pedestal (other than Peter Kosgei), but it was an honor to warm down with an Olympic silver medalist. Hope to be equals someday.

I went on to run 5x200m in 30,31,30,29,29 (last two with Cary). I was just trying to maintain form at speed. Felt pretty easy and I like today as an overall effort. Cary also ran well, running 8:39.55 by his own watch. He also took 5th in the race.

I did some drills and stretched a whole lot before coming back home and icing the achilles.

Ian spoiled us once again with a Chaffee family reunion favorite of corn on the cob. He soaked it in butter and Cary and I each had 2 ears. What a day.