Husky Classic

Today was one of those days that doesn’t come round very often. Opportunities that are unlikely to arise more than once in a lifetime. For those that haven’t seen some of the latest blogs I’m talking about the Husky Classic indoor track and field meeting in Seattle, Washington. Arguably the biggest and best quality indoor meeting in the USA, and a far higher standard and depth than any races available to sub-elite athletes in the UK. So it was very disappointing when last Sunday Andrea had to pull out of training due to an Achilles injury. Tears ensued and we were both concerned about the severity of the injury. Fortunately it only required a couple of days rest before it felt recovered. Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t have risked Andrea to race if she wasn’t 100%, however as I mentioned previously opportunities like this do not arise very often. They are the sort of meetings that you want to be able to look back on at the end of your athletic career and be really pleased that you were a part of. We had been in two minds about what to do for a couple of days but as the weekend approached we both knew that Andrea would race.

So we arrived at the Dempsey Indoor facility on the University of Washington campus around 5 hours before Andrea was due to compete. We were both much more nervous than normal as the race was a lot more high profile and intense than anything we have done so far this winter. Our preparation hadn’t done much to calm the nerves either.

The field was strong, Andrea was about mid-pack on seed times so we expected a competitive race. The race started pretty steady - none of the athletes went with the quick initial pace of the rabbit - which meant that the race had turned from a time trial into a much more competitive affair. In the early stages Andrea was in a bit of trouble with all the shoving and barging about, but as the race progressed she made progress through the field until with around 3 laps remaining she sat in second place, in isolation and a fair way behind Jordan Hasay, one of the US’s biggest rising stars - she even has her own wikipedia page, click here! By this point Andrea was driving hard and managed to hold her position through to the line to finish in a big personal best of 9:17.82min (nearly 11 seconds off her previous best). It was a big relief to both of us that things had gone well. The race wasn’t as fast as we had expected but it probably played to our advantage as a fast early pace may have come as too much of a shock considering the week we had had.

I have embedded a video of the race - filmed by the enthusiastic guys at flotrack (Andrea is in the bright pink singlet). You can see how busy it was at the meeting and for the fastest sections of each event it was a fantastic atmosphere to be a part of. You will actually get a better view than I did (even though I was there). I was located on the straight near the start but could hardly see anything when the athletes were on the other side.



Hope you enjoy the video, it is a record of what was a fantastic experience for us and one that I’m sure we’ll never forget.