The Road To Indoor Nationals Starts Here

I hadn,t planned to race the Dec 21st meet at Swarthmore,"Charlie Dibble"is not a big lover of the facility,I on the other hand being a shameless romantic have sentimental ties to Swarthmore,it was here on Jan 9th 2005 I ran my first ever indoor race,an unearth shattering 10.26.50 3,000m,how times.....and distances have changed!!!!
Following on from last weeks heartning 400m splits I began to think about coming here for the 800m,problem was getting"Dibble"to give me his blessing,mother nature and my powers of persuasion aided and abetted that and so rather than mess w/ freezing rain and temps hovering just above freezing for outdoor mile repeats it was off to Swarthmore for a fast 800m indoor.
Part of my persuasive plea bargining to "Dibble" was that given how fast I,d cranked out 400m splits last Sunday I could in all probability come here and post a fast 800m time,use that as a seed time for Indoor Nationals{13 weeks and counting!!!}and then focus on the mile for the next three meets b4 coming back to the 800m in late Jan/early Feb and try and improve upon whatever I ran today,"Dib"gave me his blessing and here I was primed and ready!
I seeded myself at 2.02,an honest seed time/expectation,first indoor meet of the season and all that,coming off of a injury shortened indoor season in 07/08 w/ no great 800m times to show for myself I was hell bent on laying down a marker today,I think I did.
Lining up on the inside lane w/ the remaining 6 runners in heat 1 I knew to get out fast from the gun down the back straight and give myself as clear a start as possible,what surprized me was the tall purple clad Roman Catholic high schooler who blew by me on the home straight..........game on indeed!!!
I thought I heard 26 seconds for the first lap to be honest I was focusing on the back of this kids vest,58-59 was the 400m split, a brisk pace but one I felt comfortable to handle early season or not,w/ two laps to go I began to increase my pace,down the back straight I closed the gap on the high schooler who moved off the insideof lane but clearly wasn,t giving me the room to overtake him inside,rather than play possum I attacked b4 the bend and began to drive up the home straight to the bell.
Missed that split,1.28-1.30 I,m gussing it was all about the final lap now,it seemed my move had broken the high schooler as I cruised to a comfortable 2.03.01 winning time,a nice start to the 08/09 indoor season and a decent seed time to put for Landover on March 22nd w/ time to hone and sharpen my speed.
For the next few weeks I can look at the mile to get ready for Hartshorne first,Masters Invitational 1,500m second,Indoor Nationals third................oh it,s on now baby!!!!