Keeping The Tradition Going

Since my debut at Outdoor Nationals in Charlotte 06 the 4x800m has become almost a rite of passage if you like
In 06 it proved to be my first ever medal at Nationals and was also my first Gold,a year later in Orono I came into Nationals w/ 97 career medals,following my gold at 800m and silver in the 1,500m we won the 4x800m to give me medal #100,a year later in Spokane we{Greater Philadelphia Track Club} didn't have enough team members for a 4x800m so I went non club/ad hoc and thanks to Rob Van Cleve,Francis Burdett and Scott Pesch another gold at 4x800m so you can see why I was keen to run the 4x800m again this year.

Up until 2 days b4 Sacramento it looked like GPTC would have 2 4x800m teams,myself,Nick,Joe and Bob, in the M40 and Chuck,Sean,Mark and Joel in the M50 however Bob had only planned to run the 3,000m s/c on Friday and scheduled his flight home on Saturday which in turn meant Joe opted out as he was only prepared to travel to Sacramento to help out w/ the 4x800m.
I began to think about an ad hoc relay but clearly my 5,000m and 800m races needed my full focus,w/ them out of the way I had 3 hours to find three other M40 runners to form a non club 4x800m b4 the deadline for entries closed.
Team mate Nick Berra was an obvious choice but I wasn't sure if Nick wanted to run a relay,unlike me he had run a prelim in the 800m 2 days ago and still had a 1,500m so I would've understood if he said thanks but no thanks but he said he was down w/ it and frankly when you go recruiting for a 4x800m and you tell them Nick is going to anchor it's not hard to get people on board!!
Francis Burdett who had ran ad hoc w/ me in Spokane said yes and Tom Fitzpatrick who had ran on the b team at The Armory in December when Scott,Bob Mc,myself and Nick set the world record also said yes,done deal.

Given there were only 4 non club 4x800m teams maybe they could have ran club and non club together,I forget how many club teams lined up,w/ no disrespect meant to the other non club 4x800 it might've been a more competitive race for us,at M40 we were the youngest team and after the first lap of the lead off leg{Francis} it was over as a contest,but after 4 days of racing you never know what might happen but Tom who was the freshest of the four of us having only ran the 1,500m handed off to me.
I ran a 2.07 leg,{I must find out from Armondo what the other splits were},I handed off to Nick who promptly brought us home in first and gave me my 4th Outdoor Nationals 4x800m Gold and brought the curtain down on my Sacramento 10 Nationals.

I'm not sure I'll make it to Albuquerque for Indoor Nationals in March so it could be Berea Ohio next July for Outdoor Nationals when I next meet up w/ the clans again,I'm looking forward to it already.