Pre-Race

So. Here I am. Thursday night, the night before the 1500m heats. You must be thinking: "Goodness gracious, he must be so nervous. What must be going through his head right now?" The answer: not much. (May not be a surprice to many of you!) My mind does occasionally wander to my hamstring and how it will fare, or stray to my knee cap which I bashed against a wall today, and even flicks to images of me in a pack at various stages of the race (often pulling away!), but mostly I am calm. I think I am anyway. I have had my bouts of nervousness in the past few days and I am sure that it will come in fits and spurts tomorrow, but I think I am dealing with it alright.

One race at a time. Heats. And then Finals.

I am in the second heat tomorrow, which means that I have the luxury of observing the times that my competitors in the first heat run. From there we will know how fast we have to run to ensure our qualification. In races such as these the top 4 runners in each heat will qualify automatically and then the next 4 fastest times (from either heat) advance to the final. Potentially, if the first race is slow, the second will run faster to make sure, so only 4 runners from the 1st heat will advance and 8 will go from the 2nd heat. That's a little bit of an extreme example but I think you get the picture. However, racing can be unpredictable so we'll just play it as it unfolds. Yet I have a quiet confidence that if I run as I can and have practiced, things will turn out just fine.

I think that this is all I will blog tonight. I need to get to bed by 11 so I can be up in time to leave for Toronto at 8am. I still need to make my lunch for tomorrow and finish packing my bags too. I need to make sure that I have every accoutrement (including all lucky items) necessary make the racing a success.

By the way, I believe that CBC is broadcasting the races. Maybe not live and maybe not the heats, but the finals should be on there for sure. Or stay tuned to this blog. I will try to keep it current after the race.

So to conclude: your thoughts and prayers are most appreciated at this time. Thanks for supporting me over this season and I hope to do you all proud this weekend!

Be Easy.