This post might sound like an excuse section but here it goes:
Today everything went wrong that could have gone wrong. Started with my inability to sleep last night. Went to bed at 11:45 last night and didn't fall asleep until 3:15 in the morning. And it wasn't nerves, I wasn't overly nervous for today. Over the past few days my lower back has also been somewhat tight which also hindered my performance marginally. However, these were minor issues compared to what happened.
On the meet program/online information page it says:
"** WE WILL RUN AHEAD OF SCHEDULE WHEN POSSIBLE; BUT NO MORE THAN 15 MINUTES **"
Well guess who decided to run 25-30 minutes ahead of schedule despite having this on their site?
The 800m was supposed to start at 2:55pm, and there were 3 sections (I was in the 2nd of the 3). So at the earliest I should have ran at 2:42pm. I finished my warm up jog just after 2:30pm and walked back into the facility with my uniform on at around 2:35. At this point I watched as Alan Webb ran past me along with the rest of the heat I was supposed to be in. I then panicked and was furious, but I asked the official over on that side of the track if I could jump in the third heat and complained that they were running ahead of schedule which they explicitly said they wouldn't. So I ran in the 3rd heat which was almost all pro runners/elite post collegiate with a USC guy and an Oregon guy. To top it all off I some how managed to put one old spike and one new spike in my spike bag. They were both nike zoom victory elites but one was green and one was blue. This wouldn't have been an issue if not for the fact that I have run my old spikes into the ground so they actually feel totally different than the new ones, despite them being the same shoe for the most part.
Okay on to the race!
So I was put in the outside lane and they ran a two alley start. I immediately tucked into the back of the pack from the beginning knowing I was WAYYY over my head. Joe Abott was way ahead of everyone for the whole race but everyone else including me was in the main pack. We came through the 186m mark in 24-25, the 400 in 55-56 (I would guess I was through between 55.8 and 56.2ish. I didn't hear any other splits but I was still in the back of the pack up until 550ish meters when the main pack of guys dropped me. I think it was much more about me slowing down rather than them speeding up. Sounds kind of funny to say, but not having anyone to chase in the last 150m probably made my time suffer a little bit more. I was way out of my league in that heat. However, being able to look back on it, I think will be a great learning experience for me running against that high of a caliber of athletes and it gave me the confidence that I can run against those guys in a couple years!
If you take the pros out my overall finish would be 10th out of 21. Not too bad for a true freshman in his first college race that he almost didn't get to run haha.
Overall I am disappointed with the final time, but given the circumstances (the events that happened) and the fact that it was my first actual race, I am optimistic about my next race two weeks from now. I have never ran a good opening race. Last year I opened up in the 1600m in 4:32.95. Just 3 1/2 days later I ran 4:30.7 (both races had good competition as I lost both races). I am confident in two weeks that I will be able to break 1:57 for sure with a good performance. 1:58.37 is actually an official pr since this was the first fresh 800 I have ran since 2010 (freshman year hs). While I have relay split 1:56.5 fresh and 1:56.8 (after a 1200), my best official open 800 time was 1:59.20.
Also I'll check to see if this race video is posted online since I was racing a lot of elite runners. Plus how often do you see a sub 1:50 on the first weekend of the indoor season.