Tuesday 21 March 2006

Mon 20 Mar 06, 2 laps of the Tan + a bit & the G

10km today and 28km for the week so far. 15/20 runs this month & 62/79 runs for the year

Started with a great session in the gym at 7am, shoulders and arms, with a little chest & abs, 50 minute session.

Tonight I had tickets for the CG, so a run after work and arrival at the G around 7-7:30 would be on the cards. I decided a few laps of the Tan would be ideal. Started with 5-7 minutes around the Barracks and surrounding area and then over to the Tan. First lap was 16:45, second lap 16:10, then I ran from Govt Dve to the Pillars (approx 1k) in 3:54 and then turned and came back up the slight hill as hard as I could in 3:43. A satisfying run.

Returned to work, had a small dinner, shower and then made my way over to the G.

A great crowd of 79,000 (compared to the small crowd of 10,000 for the Channel 9 preferred sport). The G looked great and the atmosphere was even better, but to be honest I was going for one race only, I do not find any excitement in the 100m and having to watch the semi & finals did nothing for me. Watching the stupid rule of you break and then everyone else suffers, it is very strange that the second semi sees two guys being DQ for exactly what Patrick Johnson did but he gets to continue on and race in the final??? If they had broken the rules twice well that would seem fair, but they only did what Johnson did!

The 5000m, was a great race, whilst it would have been great to see Buster win gold, it was a great race and I got to see two guys run sub 13 min and excluding the final 800m it seemed like they were doing it with ease. Well done to Buster and well done to the crowd, what an atmosphere!

5 comments:

Tesso said...

Wow, you were there for the 5000m!!! I'm soooo jealous. What a race.

Have to agree with you about the 100m though. Funny rules. And when they do start its all over and done with so quickly anyway!

Stu Mac said...

tesso, not sure if you will check here in my comments, but so true re its over so quickly, I was trying to explain to someone how I find the 100m so boring, one thing I LOVE about racing is the tactics, and if there are any in a 100m, I am not quick enough to see all 8 competitors to work out what they are doing! In a 200, not a big fan, but you can look at each athlete and see what he/she is upto and get into it a bit more. To be 100% honest, I did not see Patrick Johnson in the final, I just didn't get to him after checking out the leaders, where as in the 5k, I can tell you heaps about Louis Rowan's race!

Tesso said...

Hey Stu, don't normally check comments after I commented .... but I did with this one cos I wanted to see if anyone else had a similar opinion on the sprints.

I didn't want to mention aobut tactics in the longer stuff cos for all I know there are tactics in the shorter stuff!

Unknown said...

i agree also, the 100 doesn't do that
much for me either but the 5000, well
that was something else! I was there at the "G" for it and it's something i
won't forget in a hurry! He'll win
one sooner or later I'm sure of it!


Paul
http://40somethingathlete.blogspot.com

Ewen said...

Tesso, the 'one break' rule was brought in to keep meetings on schedule - primarily for television.

Previously there might have been five or six false starts. Usually we are not seeing meetings 'live' so no problem.

In swimming they have a 'no false start' rule (you are DQed if you false start). Nobody false started in the swimming. I think in running they still like to see fast times in sprints - if nobody false starts this is still possible.

Glad you enjoyed the 5000 Stu - amazingly they showed the whole brilliant race on TV whereas the cut the middle of the women's steeple.