Now For The Fun And Games

So,the group stage of the World Cup has come and gone and now it's knock out time,lose and go home be it in 90 minutes,120 minutes if extra time is needed or God forbid the dreaded penalty shoot out{between now and possibly the final I'm willing to bet on at least one game going to pens}
Today also saw the first deadline for Nationals,granted the very final deadline is next Saturday so it may be Tuesday of the following week b4 we all know who we'll line up against in Sacramento but for now I'm sure Sacramento bound athletes are looking at the status of entries and sizing things up.....I know I am.

I was at Temple's track at 11am this morning to conduct my 4x1mile repeats and by 11.30am I was ready to have at it following my warm up and stretches
#1 mile,1.15-1.18-1.18-69-5.00.2.A brisk start if I say so myself,I wasn't expecting to open in 75 seconds and had it not been for the fact that not once but twice I was forced into lane two to swing wide past one runner I'm confident I'd have gone sub 5.
#2 mile,1.15-1.19-1.17-68-4.59.4.Another 75 second opener and a fairly consistent repeat compared to #1,who knows when if ever I've opened mile repeats w/ back to back 75 second opening laps?
#3 mile,1.16-1.17-1.17-73-5.03.0.It was right there for the taking another sub 5 as I came through 1,200m in 3.50 and yet somehow all I could muster was a 73 second closing lap,I did feel my legs get a little heavy after the opening lap,maybe the heat was taking it's toll as we got close to noon.
#4 mile,1.17-1.20-1.20-67-5.04.2.Anytime 1.20s creep in you're not going sub 5 and back to back 80s killed me off,credit where it's due I didn't mail it in and dropped a 67 second closing lap to at least make it semi respectable.

While I'm disappointed that things started so well but then got away from me I haven't spent too long analysing why,somedays it doesn't go to plan,you accept it and move on.....hoping to do better next time out.
Tomorrow is another day,a 10 miler on tap and then the USA Ghana game w/ one eye on the Uruguay South Korea game,after all if the Stars And Stripes make it by Ghana they'll face the winner of Uruguay South Korea in the quarter finals.