Flat Hills Road

It’s official: Wilson Kipketer and I entered the same race, and I finished ahead.

They have a Media Race at the World Championships, usually an 800m. I gather this happens every time; this is only my fourth Worlds, and I don’t recall it happening in Seville, but I raced in Edmonton and Osaka. I had hoped to improve both my place and time over Osaka (9th and 2:18.8x, if I recall correctly) but I wondered about place when I realized how many sub-2:00 runners were entered here, including World Record holder Wilson Kipketer.

The field was indeed both larger (eight heats) and faster; I ran the fast heat in Osaka, but was in the second-best here. There were four men under 2:00 in the fast heat, with the winner in 1:55.19 (apparently a competitor at the French indoor championships last winter) and second in 1:55.67. Kipketer jogged.

Many of the same runners from my Osaka heat lined up with me this year. I had gone out too fast last time and vowed to follow a smarter strategy this time, so I held back a bit. I shouldn’t have. The leader went through 400m in 1:07.14 and split evenly to finish in 2:14.20. I sat 10th and passed four rivals in the third 200m, but the closing half-lap was very tough; I’d used too much making up ground after the bell. Four runners within a second of each other were like a wall in front of me, and I couldn’t close on them let alone find my way around. I wound up in 2:20.41. I’d say my tactics were OK, but my sense of pace needs work; a month ago, however, I wouldn’t have expected to run one 70-second lap, let alone two, so I’ll take what I can get.

In the composite results, I placed 13th overall, and the first American (again). Kipketer was 15th in 2:21.11.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 6:45 am and is filed under berlin, fun, racing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.