Live and Die in L.A.

So my six week adventure through Victoria, B.C., Flagstaff, AZ and Los Angeles, CA are coming to a close as I sit here in LAX waiting for my flight.  All in all I had some great training, made some good friends and finished off with a successful season opener.

So there ended up being 66 guys on the line last night!  It was crazy at the start and I found myself in 20th place going through the first 400m in 69 sec.  I quickly got into the top 6 and that pack stayed together for most of the race as we lapped many runners.  I ran a 62 last lap to run 28:21.86 for 2nd place.  There were many good Canadian results last night, including Malindi Elmore, Megan Metcalfe and Beth Wightman running 15:12, 15;15 and 16:17 respectively for 5000m, Eric Kiauka ran 8:45 in the 3000m s/c and Kevin Sullivan 13:19 for 5000m (knocking my 5000m time back to 5th on the all-time Canadian list).  The group also gave me great support for the entire 25 laps, thanks guys!

But the action didn’t stop at the track.  Since the race was at 10:30 pm it was about 11:40 by the time we (Eric Kiauka and Luis, our new Mexican friend) left the track looking for food.  We had to head past our hotel and towards East L.A. to find something open at midnight other than In-and-Out Burger.   We saw Tommy’s Burgers but a lot of thugish looking individuals on the picnic tables made us decide to keep on looking.  We settled for T.G.I.Friday’s, a nice family establishment.  Pretty normal place except there was a cop standing at the end of our booth for the first 20 minutes we were there.  Five minutes after the cop left a brawl breaks out and everyone is watching.  Then the chairs start swinging and others back off… the pint glasses and bottles start flying too.  Glass is heard breaking everywhere for a bit and then the two parties settle to go outside, they all left carrying Corona bottles, a few with bloody faces.  Once outside most of the restaurant patrons are at the windows watching.  Many of the guys involved in the brawl head to their cars… must be over.  Nope, they went there to get something and the staff is telling everyone to get away from the windows.  We head back to our booth, we don’t need to find out what they were getting.  We couldn’t believe how long it took the cops to come, considering how many cops were on the streets when we were driving.  Needless to say we got an authentic LA experience.

You can watch the last 3km here http://www.flocasts.com/flotrack/mtsac2007.php   just scroll down to mens 10 000m on left hand side.

 1 Songok, Shadrack             Tex. A&M-Corpus       28:16.47
  2 Coolsaet, Reid               Reebok                28:21.86
  3 Olmedo, Pablo                Unattached            28:22.37
  4 Bizuneh, Fasil               New Balance           28:25.69
  5 Sundell, Steve               Unattached            28:28.01
  6 Romero, Juan                 Mexico                28:38.41
  7 Bodor, Oliver                Western State         28:44.71
  8 Gildea, Patrick              Nyac                  28:45.68
  9 Johnson, Jeremy              New Mexico            28:47.76
10 Solis, Jesus                 Adams State           29:06.98
11 Kyle, Jordan                 Indiana               29:14.01
12 Jellema, Paul                Southern Indiana      29:17.81
13 McDougal, Jordan             Liberty               29:36.53
14 Haji, Ahmed                  Providence            29:38.12
15 Kosgei, Julius               Harding               29:41.30
16 Eberly, Josh                 Hansons-Brooks Odp    29:43.11
17 Medigovich, Brian            Adams State           29:43.19
18 Kiplagat, Soimo              Louisville            29:44.38
19 Hamilton, Joel               Colorado Mines        29:45.25
20 Siemers, Art                 Boulder Running       29:47.96
21 Venancio, Marco              Concordia (Cal.)      29:51.77
22 Currell, Mark                Southern Utah         29:52.44
23 Pines, Justin                Princeton             29:54.96
24 Fruin, Mark                  Indiana               29:55.28
25 Clark, Aaron                 Western State         29:59.32
26 Holm, Ryan                   Grand Valley St.      30:00.99
27 McLeod, Tim                  Indiana               30:02.62
28 Scribner, Robert             Mississippi St.       30:04.16
29 Gale, James                  Grand Valley St.      30:09.95
30 Styles, Koby                 Texas-Arlington       30:16.69
31 Turgeon, Tony                South Dakota          30:17.24
32 Rosa, Paul                   Princeton             30:24.21
33 Kern, Artur                  Harding               30:25.27
34 Yeates, Richard              Providence            30:25.76
35 Rosendahl, Marty             Hansons-Brooks Odp    30:28.52
36 VanVeen, Jeremy              Northern State        30:43.06
37 Garcia, Joseph               New Mexico            30:43.71
38 Broccoli-Hickey, Jodi        Texas-Arlington       30:52.18
39 Butcher, Jimmy               Middlebury            30:53.90
40 Lares, Sergio                Unattached            30:55.26
41 Riak, John                   St. Martin’s          30:56.34
42 Seacat, Wes                  Louisville            31:01.46
43 Foolkes, Alan                McNeese State         31:06.99
44 Portwood, Chad               Western Washington    31:08.52
45 Hill, Stephen                Christian Brothers    31:28.17
46 Mohamed, Mohamed             Southern Illinois     31:38.44
47 Racine, Matt                 Idaho                 31:41.23
48 Fisher, Michael              Louisville            31:44.13
49 Carmi, Yuval                 New Mexico            32:00.15
— Wagner, Allen                Unattached                 DNF
— Blaylock, Larry              Acis Aggies                DNF
— Hains, Alex                  Butler                     DNF
— Vail, Peter                  Boulder Distance           DNF
— Sitler, Ben                  Princeton                  DNF
— Farris, Marc                 Stephen F. Austin          DNF
— Dexter, Dale                 Unattached                 DNF
— Yorek, Derek                 Adams State                DNF