This week I have a more legitamate excuse for not writing a blog on, say, Monday. The fact is that I actually did write a blog on Monday and I was about to add one more link to it and press submit when my Firefox browser crashed and I lost it. This time I wrote it on my Stickies App on my computer and then just copied and pasted into the blog. Much safer! So without further delay, here goes my blog.

Last weekend was my triumphant return to the 400m at Hayward Field in Eugene, OR. The last time I ran a 400 at Hayward was when I won the Pac-10 Championships in 2006 with my still lifetime PR of 45.19 (video below). I have ran a hand full of 400's since that time but none at Hayward.

My main competition for this race was 4x400 anchor aficionado Chad Barlow. I was actually a little nervous about racing him head to head. At the Oregon UCLA Dual meet he set a PR at 46.7 or so and I hadn't ran sub 47 for over a year. But on Friday, the day before the meet, I took 6-7 block starts and my confidence was back. I got out of the blocks extremely well and the race was over in about 15 meters. I powered through the final 100m to cross the line in 46.59 (video below) - about 1.25 seconds ahead of Barlow and a new meet record. What I enjoyed most about the race was my victory lap. It was almost like a homecoming for me to hear people clapping and cheering for me as a 400m runner.

i also ran a pretty non-chalant leg of a non-chalant 4x400 relay. I split 46.9 as our team won in 3:12.13 (video below). Even though we weren't out there running really fast it was still good enough for a new meet record. I thought that was strange until I remembered that while at Oregon we never ran this meet because Pac-10's is the following week.

In all it was a good day. The objective was to get in a really good speed workout and I definitely did that. Now I am looking forward to this weekend where I am running the 800m in Ponce, Puerto Rico. It should be a fun little trip except the weather forecast shows rain the entire time I'm there. The picture to the right is from the Hilton hotel website where I am staying. Pretty nice huh?

Check out my website Saturday/Sunday for updates on my race. And also be sure to vote on my poll to predict what time I will run. Here are some links of interest:

VIDEO - Oregon Twilight 400m - 46.59

VIDEO - Oregon Twilight 4x400m relay - 3:12.13

VIDEO - Oregon Twilight Interview

VIDEO - 2006 Pac-10 400m - 45.19

LINK - Ponce Grand Prix de Atletismo (Meet Website)