A festivus for the rest of us

Festival of Excellence was a great track meet and I really hope it’s here to stay.  Bolt was the highlight for the majority of the fans but the real exciting races were the Women’s 100 hurdles and the Men’s Mile.  Bolt just creamed everyone and didn’t run all that fast (relatively speaking, as 10.00 is still a world class time).  Whereas the Women’s 100 hurdles saw a great battle between Priscilla Lopes-Schliep and Perdita Felicien. A mere 0.02 separated last year’s Olympic Bronze medallist and the  former World Champion.  And in the Men’s 1500m  Mile there was a good battle between Nate Brannen and Taylor Milne (both were Olympians last year) who went 3:55 and 3:56 respectively.  The media didn’t focus enough on showcasing these Canadian racers and let people know that they can watch these same athletes compete again in two weeks time at the same track at the National Championships.

The street festival (aka Lane 9) was better than I thought.  In the beginning they were going to have bleachers on Devonshire and then they just sold standing tickets without the seats.  And when I found out that there would 1400 people looking through the fence I figured it was going to be pretty crappy.  But in the end they did have bleachers to accommodate the crowds on Devonshire. 

Hopefully this event goes off next year with or without Bolt.  I couldn’t imagine last night happening without him but now that he got the event rolling perhaps they can continue to bring world class athletes to Toronto.  Bolt overshadowed everyone last night so much so that LaShawn Merrit (last year’s Olympic Gold 400m runner) went pretty much unnoticed.

My workout yesterday felt a lot better than Monday’s workout.  I think the farther away I get from May 24th the better I’ll feel.  It also helps only running 18km the day before opposed to 29km on a hilly route.  Sunday I have a marathon type workout lined up.  It will be my first long workout since I raced the marathon three weeks ago however it won’t be a crazy marathon workout by any means.

Here is a vid of the Men’s Mile from the Festival of Excellence. Eight guys under Four Minutes.  Way to go Milne and Boorsma!