The USATF Indoor Championship meet was last weekend in Boston, as well as NCAA conference meets.
Not everyone showed up for nationals. By "everyone" I mostly mean Bernard Lagat and Nick Symmonds. At the Tyson Invitational we saw Khadevis Robinson make a comeback since an injury to almost beat Symmonds in the 800m. It would have been fun to see those two race again last weekend. Without Symmonds, KD won in 1:48.61.
Another popular rivalry is between Lagat and Alan Webb in the 1500m. Of course Webb has not had a good year, but there's always some hope, especially if he is pushed by Lagat. But Lagat was not there. Webb was 2nd (3:45.82) in Boston, behind Rob Myers (3:45.73). It was a close race, but was it an improvement? That's hard to say. Surely Webb will peak this spring/summer. He normally doesn't always run indoor track.
I'm just glad I picked Myers for the win on the LetsRun poll. He had the lowest percentage of votes too. This means I am getting better with my predictions.
In college running news, the Big 12 meet was rather eventful, which just goes to show that the A&M Track is just as good as the one at Arkansas, if not better. Oklahoma State's German Fernandez ran a 3:55.02 mile, a new college record. The women's collegiate mile record also fell as Colorado's Jenny Barringer ran 4:25.91. She beat Sally Kipyego in that race.
The NCAA national meet will be held at Texas A&M, March 13-14. I will be there to cover the meet for PreRaceJitters.com. I am currently working on some preview articles. It should be a good meet, but the best part is that it's in Texas! Only a 3 hour drive for me.
I wish Shalane would have participated in the Visa Championships instead of running in the Worlds Best 10K this past weekend, at least we would have been able to see her compete, that and she probably would have done well at the Visa. Great blog by the way
ReplyDeleteI suppose the US competition wasn't enough of a challenge for Shalane and there's no world indoor championships to qualify for. Not to undermine Begley, etc., but Flanagan is on a completely different level.
ReplyDeleteThe talent up top and the depth of each distance race was pathetic. USATF needs to completely revamp what they are doing. They might call this a national championship, but most of the major college conference meets had more talent in their fields. My question is...what can USATF do to make this event more enticing to the top pro runners besides increasing prize money.
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