BU price scam wrote:
Just walked in the door from the race. I live and work in Boston, so I was able to bike there after work and made it around 6:30.
BU was charging $10 for single day admissions. So tomorrow when I want to watch any of the other men's races I'll need to pay another 10$... This is my biggest gripe. They also did not open up the lower tier to anyone but athletes, so I wasn't able to get super close to the track. Seating is fairly limited and if BU continues to develop as a venue for elite runners, then they will likely need to expand their facility.
The place was pretty packed and unlike in 2013/2014 when Rupp ran, they didn't pop open the doors to cool down the facility. Obviously Ches is not as soft as Rupp/Alberto. Most everyone in the place, including parents, were pretty aware of what was happening and everyone was going wild from the second Ches started doing strides on the track.
I will say, this race very much had a time trial vibe with only 3 athletes. This felt less true in Rupp's 3:50.9, when Jenkins, and others rode on the back of the train to run 3:57-8. Funny to think Jenkins is probably a much better miler than Rupp now.
The race:
Kidder was out a little slow, around 31s for 209m, and I imagine they would've wanted to be out fast, if anything. Kidder was able to pick it up a little bit and keep them on pace through the next few laps, but you could see Ches move up close behind Piazza whenever the pace was lagging. When Kidder stepped off, it was obvious that Piazza was already starting to feel the pace but he was pretty game to pick it up for Ches, who was running up Piazza's heels by then. Around a 1000m, Piazza started to drift wide and give Ches the inside lane. To his credit, Piazza kicked it in well to stay in front of Ches just through the 1200m mark and from there it seemed less a question of could Ches close it out, and more of a question of just how fast he could go. In fact, down the back stretch I wondered if Ches knew he had 2 laps to go as he was moving so well. Basically from this point on, it was so loud you could not hear a thing as the crowd could tell this was a special performance. In a lot of ways, it was more exciting than when Rupp was out hard and clearly struggling the last few laps of his 3:50.9, because you could just tell Ches had so much in the tank.
My 2 cents are that Ches could break the WR in a more evenly paced race, or with more competition. This track is also not as fast as the armory, despite what many will tell you.