Yesterday my parents and I went down to Eugene for the Oregon Twilight Meet. The headlining event: men's 4x1mile relay. They were out to set the collegiate record--and they succeeded! They beat the old record with a time of 16:03.24, beating the old collegiate record (set by Michigan in '05) by more than a second. The team also beat the Hayward Field record by almost 2 seconds. Members of the relay (in order of leg ran): Matthew Centrowitz, Andrew Wheating, Shadrack Biwott, Galen Rupp.
Here's Rupp's last lap to finish the race:
It was a pretty cool race in that they let the fans down onto the track for the race--so there was a crowd of fans all the way around the track to cheer on the runners. That will probably never happen again...or at least not for a very long time. I am sure this was a highlight for many people, as Hayward's track has hosted many outstanding track and field athletes.
Another highlight: we got to see Jesse Williams of Nike high jump. His jump of 7'8 is the second best outdoor height in the world right now. His attempts at 7'9 were close, but he was not able to pull a fair jump off.
Otherwise, the meet was fun, and I'm glad I went. I'm hoping I'll be able to make it to the Prefontaine Classic June 7th.
Oh yeah--and Dan O'Brien sat like 10 feet away from me. Be jealous.