Spectating at UNCC

AM: 4 miles
15 mins. core
PM: 56 mins.
7.5 miles

With the promise of another busy day, I was up early and out the door soon after. After my standard morning loop around the park and back, I headed out to meet up with my parents one last time before their 10am departure. We had a great visit and I was sad to see them go, but glad they got to see so much of the city and enjoy some of the nicest weather we've had since I moved here.

Tanya and I spent the rest of the morning running errands and planning our afternoon trip to the track meet at UNC-Charlotte. Several of our teammates ran the 5k and 1500 the previous evening, and more of them would be racing the 800 and 3k today. We also learned that our guys team would be putting together an impromptu team for the 4x4, consisting of Devin (800/miler), Nelson (800/miler), Mike (5ker) and Eli (rando kid from the soccer team who doesn't actually run for Queens but volunteered to help us attain the 14 participants necessary to earn our status as an official "team"). I will say with no hesitation that this relay ended up being the highlight of my entire day. Basically it went down like this:

Leg 1: Mike leads off. He splits a blazing 51-high and puts the team comfortably in the mix.
Leg 2: Devin takes control, totally demolishes the field and hands off with a ~10m lead.
Leg 3: Nelson, wearing a singlet four times too large for him, runs strong and widens the lead to at least 25 meters. Granted this is the slow heat but still, they're running strong. Eli (rando soccer kid) looks increasingly panicked as Nelson approaches.
Leg 4: Eli takes the baton and sprints like he's been poked with a cattle prod, maintains the lead through the first 100 meters. By the time he hits the backstretch we all know that disaster is imminent. Sure enough, the field chews him up and spits him out before they hit the final turn. Eli is giving it his all, fists pumping, arms flailing, trying to hold off the one kid who is even farther out the back than him. He drives to the tape to finish in an official time of 3:35.

Sadly, his 61-second split is about ten seconds faster than I could run. Sigh. Needless to say, this was a fantastic way to end the meet and good times were had by all in attendance.


The most entertaining relay team at the entire meet
L to R: Devin, Eli, Mike, Nelson