Last weekend I was fortunate enough to spend the weekend in the Carribbean in Ponce (pronounced Ponse-say) in Puerto Rico. The meet hotel was a Hilton resort, golf course, and casino, definitely a vacation destination hotel. It was sort of out by itself on what had to be at least 60 acres of land so I didn't get to do much outside of that area. But the hotel was right on the coast so there was almost no need to go anywhere else.

The day before the meet I went to the stadium to get credentials and do my pre meet workout. In the van on the way over was Dwain Chambers; he seems like a nice guy. I did the first half of my pre-meet in the rain. The difference is that this was 75-degree rain, not Oregon's 40-degree rain. So it wasn't too bad. It's very humid here too. I can definitely tell I'm in the tropics. The scenery and landscape here are amazing too. Looking one way I can see the sea and the other the mountains on the inner part of the island. I can see why people vacation and honeymoon to the Caribbean.

That night I had the hotel seafood buffet. It was pretty amazing. They had alot of different kinds of fresh seafood. The crab was probably the best. There was also whole fried snapper... it was definitely whole, eyes and all. I should have taken a picture of that. I also had probably some of the best clam chowder too. Clams and muscles deserve an honorable mention as well.

The weather on the day of the race was perfect. We ran at 8:45pm so the wind had died down and the humidity was very low. They had tried to find us a rabbit but by the time the race came around we learned that there wasn't one. And partially for that reason, the raace wend out in a pedestrian 52.5 for the first lap. I was in the middle of the pack so was probably about 53.0 for my first lap. Then I started a string of stupid mistakes. I started picking it up around the first curve of the second lap. That is ok but I probalby moved a little too hard from getting panicked about the slow pace. Then with 300m to go I let myself get sucked into a couple people's moves. I am usually not strong enough to start kicking with 300m to go. This race was no different. At the 200m mark I thought I still felt pretty good and made my real move to try and catch Jonathon Johnson, who was 5-6 meters in front of me. Again, not a good idea when it is my third move in a 200m span. I should have kept my pace and kicked with 120m to go. But I didn't and because of that I started running out of gas with 30 meters left and got passed a few meters before the line for a 3rd place finish.

My time was 1:48.02, which to be honest, isn't good at all. I feel like I'm in 1:45 shape right now. But I can only do so much with a 53 first lap. So I didn't really care about the time, it is irrelevant. What was important was being in the race mentally and being competitive, which I was. What I wasn't happy with was my tactics. I've been beating myself up for the last several days for not racing smarter. But, you live and you learn and hopefully I learned and won't make that mistake again.

Check out some of the photos I took over the weekend here.