Gold,Silver And Bronze Under The Terrordome

Hard on the heals of Saturdays mile at Eastern Regionals in Landover Maryland it was up Route 70 today through the Pine Barrens and over to Toms River New Jersey for the New Jersey C,ships and the 800m.
When I rewrote my indoor schedule to accomodate my stress fracture the idea was to pick back to back meets to replicate the Indoor Nationals schedule,Mile on Saturday,800m on Sunday and although my schedule has since altered to run the 3,000m on the Friday and the 800m on Sunday GP saw no need to deviate from the back to back race weekend to help get me ready,even if it meant me having to do the unthinkable......miss a cup final w/ my beloved Spurs!!!!!!!!.
As much as a bleed blue for my beloved N.17 warriors I,ve missed too many races through my injury to be able to blow off this one,I,d known since we clobbered "the enemy" in the semi final on Jan 22nd that the Carling Cup Final and the NJ C,ships both fell on Sun Feb 24th and there was little I could do about it......the delicious ironic twist{and we all know how deliciously ironically twisted I am!!!!!}was we were playing Chelsea....GP,s team,on the same nite as the Oscars could Hollywood have written a better script???
By the time Chuck and I arrived at Toms River it was 12pm,5pm back home in London,the game should,ve been over,when GP and I met he asked if I wanted to know the score....I did and I didn,t,if we,d won it,d be a boost to my morale,if we,d lost I,d have to haul myself up by my shoe laces for the race....ah what the hell!!!
GP told me last time he checked it was 1.1 and w/ the aid of his Blackberry he could look up the latest score.........you,ll have to imagine the tension setting music......2.1 to Spurs......but the game was still in extra time.By the time GP checked again it was official,we,d won 2.1,our first trophy in 9 years.....and I,d missed it.
Credit to GP he was a good sport about it....although I can,t help but feel had Chelsea had won 2.1 my workout for tomorrow would,ve been a nice easy 3 miler on account of my back to back races,suddenly we win and it,s "7 miles tomorrow"I type this w/ a smile on my face cos GP knows I,m only teasing,his actual quote was "shoot for 4 or 5 miles but if you,re feeling ok 7 would be good".
As for my actual race I,d rather not get into all the bruhaha about which heat I,d be allowed to run in,let,s just say I,ve yet to run a NJ C,ship meet where there wasn,t drama,I got into heat two but it was touch and go if I,d get in,the field was practically lining up on the starting line as I was allowed to join them,here goes nothing!!!
The game plan was to just go after it from the gun,if yesterday had been about easing my way back in in the paddling pool today was a full blown cannonball into the deep end,splash,drown or swim to shore!!!
I came through 200m in 30 seconds,great if I weren,t weeks behind where I,d like to be but I needed this test to see where I was,400m in 62 seconds,I knew lap 3 would be the killer and it was I,m not even sure what I came through 600m in but I knew I was feeling it,in an indoor 800m that 3rd lap is key,today I failed but two weeks from now when I run the 800m again at the Mid Atlantic C,ships I hope to much stronger and faster and then again three weeks from then in Boston at Indoor Nationals I aim to be even stronger and even faster again.
6th out of 10 runners in 2.13 is not going to scare anybody right now,I,ve got 5 weeks to drop 10 seconds if I,ve any hope of adding to last years Indoor 800m bronze but if I didn,t think I could pull it off I wouldn,t be going.
Dispite my woeful 2.13 I earnt a gold medal since I was an out of state runner,2.13 and gold feels kind of cheesey but considering I had to drop $42 to race today I had no problem picking it up on my way out,gold for me,a hard fought bronze for GP in his 3,000m and a nice shiney silver Carling Cup trophy for my beloved Spurs,it,s all good!