Last week was a very hectic week. Every day there was a different hurdle. Monday my car go towed. Cass and I spent all Tuesday afternoon at the animal hospital because she was a really sick puppy. Wednesday my friend Ian Gray stopped for the night on his way to the final four. After traveling all day on Thursday I worked with Dan Taylor (the ISU athlete that I was traveling with) trying to find a quality race for him the next day. I spent Friday in bed, trying to match my 14 hours of sleep the night before my last 5k pr. I didn't quite get there, but it was enough that with some Starbucks I made it to the track feeling ready to go. When the race started I got myself in pretty good position near the front of the pack, but in the next two laps I raced horribly and found myself in dead last place. It didn't really worry me, but I knew that it wasn't a place that I could stay for long. I started moving up through the pack and didn't really stop until the last 400. I'm not sure of many splits, but I'm pretty sure that my first mile was right around 4:30 and I was about 9:00 at 3200. My split at 3400 meters stuck in my head and it was 9:34, which would make my last 1600 right at 4:24. I owe a thanks to Greg Hipp at Missouri State and his two athletes Ashley Sanders and Carrie Vestal for cheering me on and getting some of my splits. In addition to the old SMS gang I got to see some of the Florida State crew, including a good chat with Coach Braman and a nice cool down with Andrew Lemoncello, so with the new personal best it was a good night. The next day Dan and I got a good long run in downtown San Francisco, including a trip across the Golden Gate Bridge (fun once, but probably not twice). After a trip to the Stanford track to see my friend Ed Gordon and a trip to the Chabot College track (in Hayward, CA) to thank the coach there, Dan and I did some of the typical tourist stuff in San Fran and then caught the red eye home to Des Moines.
