A lot of things went wrong.

For those of you who follow my running career . . . yeah right, for those of you who know me then, might know that my 2 years hiatus by way of achilles tendonitis came to a glorious halt this weekend when I spiked up and ran the mile at the Husky Invite.  Well, for me it was more like a less-than-glorious 1302 meters.  A lot of things went wrong. 

I don't know if I wimped out.  I don't know if I quit because I was running backwards and already trailing by 20 meters with 307 to go.  I don't know if I was sparing myself the indignation of the courtesy clap or even if I could have picked it back up if I closed my eyes and thought of England, but I do know two things.  I know that a lot of things went wrong and I know that Andy Wheating is one cool dude.

Decelerating from 1:47 (arguably faster, with his kick) pace, Andy ran straight into a high five with coach Vin Lananna.  That was cool.  And after discussing it for a moment, the guy turns and walks right over to me (waiting for the interview, what else?), and still out of breath says, "Hey Kev, I heard you dropped in the mile today.  What happened?  Are you ok?"

Now, forgetting that most elite athletes see me with a camera in one hand and turn to run the opposite direction, Andy could have gone straight into talking about his race, he could have jogged over to his adoring fans seeking autographs, he could have turned around and caught his 800 time!  But he didn't.  He stepped right up to the plate and smacked the "Don't talk to me about my @#$!ing race" look right off my forehead and proved to anyone listening that there are more people at a track meet than just the winners, and they matter too. That's pretty cool.

And I'm not the only one who thinks Andy is a cool dude.  Tevan Everett, Nick Symmonds, his teammates, or any one of his 1799 Facebook friends will tell you the same. 

To answer your question more completely, Andy, a lot of things went wrong.  December and the ice storms went wrong, my getting in spikes for the first time last Saturday went wrong, entering myself at my PR time, thinking I can happily sit on the back of a fast field for my first race back, not passing guys when I had the chance, fading off the back and dropping out, all of these things went wrong.  But hey, I'm not injured, I've got a fire lit under my ass, and I want to get out there and race again! 

So things go wrong, but it's better than them not going at all.  I'm glad to be racing again, and in three weeks, I'll be even happier to be finishing races again!  Thanks for being heads up Andy, you're a class act!