The Running Network’s Larry Eder and Paul McMullen recap a day of stunning distances races in the men’s 800 (Nick Symmonds, Andrew Wheating, Christian Smith), the men’s 5,000 (Bernard Lagat, Matt Tegenkamp, Ian Dobson), & women’s 800 (Hazel Clark, Alice Schmidt, Nicole Teter). They also review the conclusion of the decathlon (Bryan Clay, Trey Hardee, Tom Pappas) and preview the men’s 400 (Jeremy Wariner, LaShawn Merritt).
It is early on Wednesday morning. I had fallen asleep about for a short nap about five pm and did not wake up until after nine. I caught up on my emails from the office. With seven magazines near deadline most of the time and our ad deadlines for 34 pubs at least every other month, it gets hairy. Alex, my production manager, keeps me up to date on the happenings in office while I am traveling. Everyone else reaches me by phone or text.
While I walked down to the Villard Street Pub to grab some dinner and see friends, I was thinking about seeing Tegenkamp today and his teammates Chris Solinsky and Jonathan Riley. How does one note feel for your friends who ran gallantly, but who did not make the team? Does that make the victory phyrric?
What changed my mind was to see the three of the, Tegenkamp, Solinaky and Riley with friends,burning off nine or ten months of steam. Seeing that after speaking with each other, they were able to hang out after such intense emotion, and such an intense experience had me reconsider my each of my concerns.
For Tegenkamp, his time is starting, for Solinsky and Riley, they have the future. Time to sleep and dream of new races and great runners.