Signing Off In Style

Dispite having a handful of more races to pick from between now and my departure for Nationals in Spokane I,d chosen to make this my last race b4 then,last year I raced 8 times prior to Nationals and I felt it was the right amount so why tweak that this year?
Once it became clear we weren,t going to run a 4x400m relay last Thursday I began to mentally prep for the 800m,having ran 3 1,500m races 1 mile race and 3 800m races already it seemed obvious to add one more 800m to my list.
Once again the weather gods smiled on me,when I first arrived at Plymouth Whitemarsh at 5pm it was a litle on the hot side as I sought shade from the heat,however once again come race time conditions were ideal,no sun,no wind and more importantly no rain or thunderstorms as predicted by the so called weather experts.
A six man heat,credit again to the officials for seeding the heats on times rather than overloading them to expidite the meet,2.06 was was the cut off,the line up was Bobby the high schooler I,d raced last week,Phil Reiley,Brian Gould,me,Scott Landis and another high schooler from last weeks mile,w/ Phil in the race I knew I had a built in pace setter,Phil always goes out fast and it was clear to me Brian Gould was going to pace him,once again I got a clear start as my reaction to the gun was good into the first turn it was Bobby,Brian,Phil,me.
28 seconds at 200m the pace was what I expected and hoped for,I knew Brian would pull off to the side once we went through 400m and I heard the time keeper call"57,58,59" as Bobby,Phil and I went through the bell.
GP,s race instructions to me were go through the bell in 58.5,run the first turn smoothly and then cover the final 300m in 45 seconds,my only flaw this evening was not passing Phil at 500m,I knew come 600m he,d start to fade,sure enough he did and had I,ve postioned myself on Bobby,s shoulder down the back straight I might,ve been better prepared to challenge him going into the final 200m.
As it was I swung wide of Phil going into the turn and gave chase and while my momentum carried me past Phil ,Bobby had the rail and was driving for home,this week I was the one in lane 2 giving chase up the home straight,Bobby crossed the line in 1.59 and change......I crossed the line in................2.00
YEP,2.00 my first ever at 800m,outside of my 1.59.17 at Nationals my 800s were all 2.02,2.03 etc,never had I ran a 2.01 or a 2.00 till tonite and while I was disappointed not to get the win I,ll take the 2.00 period muchless as a timely boost going into Nationals.
In my final 4 races I,ve ran my 2nd fastest 1,500m,my fastest ever mile and now my 2nd and 3rd fastest ever 800m,I couldn,t have asked for a better platform to build on going to Spokane and upon my return from Ireland GP and I will sit down and map out how best to sharpen and hone my training to get ready for the final two weeks b4 leaving for Spokane on Aug 6th.