2010 Boston Indoor Games

My daughter Hannah accompanied me down to Boston Saturday evening to watch the 2010 Boston Indoor Games. We had a great time and enjoyed some sensational races. We sat in the same place the my son Andrew and I sat last year, the seats at the corner right after the starting line. We tooks  front row seats, but rarely sat there as this is the only place in the field house where you can go down by the track and watch the race from trackside, which is what we did.

The highlight of the event was Bernard Lagat's American record in the 5000m race. After the race Bernard came over to where we were seated on the floor and handed his victory bouquet to the girl sitting next to Hannah (if you watched the coverage on ESPN2 you would have seen us). Here is our video of the last lap and finish (I forgot to recharge my batteries and we used Hannah's camera and most photos and videos came out poorly).



The women's 5000m wasn't as exciting, as Tirunesh Dibaba ran well, but mostly by herself. Here is the finish. I like second place finisher Sally Kipyego's excitement at setting a new PR.



Other interesting thoughts on the races includes the women's 400m. Dee Dee Trotter is suprisingly tall and thin runner and started right in front of us. She ran a great race and won even after stumbling at the 200m mark. I was pulling for Monica Hargrove, though. She smiled over at us (we were about 5 feet away) a couple of times before she got in the starting blocks. She has a very friendly smile!

It was exciting to see Will Leer try to take the mile run from Nick Willis. He did not win but set a PR.

The last two jumps Chelsea Johnson made in the pole vault looked very dangerous. She held on to the pole both times and it snapped out of her arms.

All the results are here.

Our seats were about 20 feet away from the track, but we usually watched at trackside or walked another 20 feet to go to  the autograph booth where Hannah was happy to get a poster authographed by many stars. I talked briefly with a few of the runners.

 Brian Ollinger was very friendly and I asked him how his training was going for the steeple. He asked if I was an ex-steepler. Well, I gave it a try once and ran quickly up to the barrier and decided even more quickly to stick to the 1500m and 5000m B team during my college career. Actually, I wasn't too good at those distances and ran spring marathons mostly during college track season.

Jorge Torres was also very talkative and friendly. I asked him how he felt after his NYC Marathon debut. He said he could run after the race, but it really beat him up and it took 6 weeks to start getting his legs back. Fernado Cabada said he was getting over injuries and just had a relatively good run. I know how that feels (the injuries-not the relatively good runs at his speed). Hannah told Katie MacGregor that when she ran her first race Katie was also in it. Hannah won first place for 4 year olds in the Millenium Mile a few years back. She is used to meeting famous runners. Deena Kastor gave her the award at that race! Aries Merrit kept looking at me and smiling about something. I think some high school girls were giving him a hard time! Hannah also met Martin Fagan, Amy Mortimer, and a few other runners. Ato Bolton, former sprinter now announcer, came over to talk with a woman sitting next to us. He is much shorter than you would think! We had a great time enjoying the track and field show! I would rather be trackside at a meet like this, then stuck up in the stands at some Super Bowl. It is much more up close and personal.