7/5/08 Day Seven
Things are starting to wind down a little. Some spectators only came out for the first weekend, although new people are arriving as well. Mostly sprints and field events today, although the 20K race walk was held this morning and the winner, Kevin Eastler, was a graduate of the Air Force Academy, and lives in Aurora.
I spent most of the day talking to other runners and on email at the library, catching up with things back home. I also spent a couple of hours doing laundry, had to have clean clothes. I headed over to the track about 12:30 to meet Greg, the guy sitting next to me, and watch the high jump.
High Jump: Jesse Williams won the high jump with a jump of 7’6.5 inches. It was fun watching but the next events were quarterfinal in the hurdles so we went to the beer tent to have a microbrew and get back in time for the Men’s steeplechase finals. We got our beer and grabbed seats at a table with a couple of older guys, who we discovered had gone to Oregon and run for Bowerman, One of them (Red) had been the track coach at Fresno State and had coached Jamey Harris, who ran the 1500 at the 2000 trials. Jamey had run for our club in Reno on several relay teams. While we were talking and listening to Bowerman stories, Kenny Moore came up and talked to these guys for a minute.
We got back to our seats for the Steeple and realized that there had been a jump off in the high jump. Four jumpers had tied for second and had to jump off to make the team.
Steeplechase: Another opportunity to cheer for CU runners. Billy Nelson of Colorado had run well in the semis and I hoped he would make the team as Jenny Barringer had done earlier in the Trials.
Anthony Famiglietti took it out hard from the gun. By 1200 meters the field was starting to spread out, and by 2000 meters it was clearly a three-man race. Billy Nelson and Joshua McAdams closing at the finish with only 1.5 seconds separating the first three. Famiglietti time of 8:20:24 was the best time in the US this year.
That was it for today, but since it was only 3 pm it was microbrew time. Judd came into town to pick me up and we toured the couple of microbreweries I had not yet sampled. Apparently this was a popular idea as we saw many runners form the dorms out drinking beers. Got back to the dorms in time for a quick bite to eat then walked over to the pavilions to listen to some music. Called it early, since tomorrow will be a big day.