No Racing Allowed

July 15, 2009 (part I)
Forgot to write one up last night, wish I could say I was trying to concentrate on the race, but when I concentrate too much I end up running poorly, I’m the kind of guy who needs to have fun racing…however, when I woke up this morning, I found out that I was not. There were some misread texts and as it turns out, I am in the HEUSDEN 800 this coming Saturday, which is both scarier and cooler. It is a much bigger meet, called the “KBC Night of Athletics” (I imagine it being said in a big boisterous voice), and it is going to be fast and fun. (Flotrack will also have someone there taping the races.)

I am still going to try to make it to Liege because my good friend from Columbia, Erison, is racing there. He’s a 400 runner and ran at Beijing last summer for is secondary country, Dominica. Ever since we roomed together at NCAAs his senior year, when he took 3rd in the 400-meters in 45.40 seconds, he has hated me. Spending a week with someone can do that…and I think I am only kind of joking when I say he hates me. But it should be good to see him, he has been based out of the UK for a good month now, so I think he needs to see some familiar faces.

But now I have to go do a workout since this race thing didn’t work. I have an 800 in 2’30”, 5×200 in 30, 29, 28, 27, 26 with 2’ rest and then a 400 in 75 to get the lactic acid out of my legs. Won’t be easy, but not something I haven’t done a tone of times. Finishing up my coffee then will be on my way.

July 15, 2009 (part II)
A day of not racing. So as stated earlier, I thought that I was going to race today. Lo and behold, I was not. But, as it turns out the Heusden race is probably the biggest meet in Belgium, so I am pretty syked for it.

I did go up to the meet today. Got to hang out with Delilah and watch Erison race. Erison ended up winning his race, a 300 in 32.8, and supposedly won some serious prize money along with it, although he wasn’t sure how much. He hadn’t seen anyone he really knew in about six weeks, so he was glad to see us.

Delilah and I were standing on the railing to the track watching a race, and some guy comes up behind us and says: “Yo, did you see that guy who won that 300? He was rooooolllling.” It was Erison.

He’s going to take a little bit of time off from racing now since he is running at the World Championships in Berlin…he also said that he will be overseas racing until September, pretty crazy.

It is kind of fun being at a meet with Delilah. There was a group of runner nerds (and runner nerds are one of my least favorite types of people…they constantly compare workouts, diets, but mainly talk about other runners as if they are gods and most likely post on message boards about what Alan Webb should be doing differently) and they were trying extremely hard to hang out with Delilah, but she is pretty content just chilling on her own, or in this case, with me. I felt as though I was pretty cool, although I am pretty sure that most people thought I was just her personal assistant.

The meets are also really cool. They have a huge bar/café where a lot of people sit and watch the races. The beer flows and a lot of people actually show up to watch us run. It’s a little different than your average invitational with family and friends showing up…although its not nearly as cool as Penn where for some reason 46,000 Jamaicans show up and scream their heads off. But the weather was perfect for running and now I’m looking forward to finally getting my feet wet on Saturday…boo yah.
In one sad piece of news, they do not have Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in Belgium (at least I have not found any so far)…more on that in my next post.