Pre Classic

 

I’ve just touched down in London but I will run you through the last week or so. I flew into Portland, Oregon, last Monday and met up with Collis Birmingham and Garry Henry. Garry rides on the bike with the training group. We hung out in Portland for a few days and spent a fair bit of time at the Nike World Headquarters which is in Portland. We were pretty well looked after for the week. I picked up some good new gear and actually got a bit of golf gear for my dad so he will be looking like Tiger Woods when he tees off from the hackers marks at the Wollongong Links.

 

Garry drove us down to Eugene on Friday for the Prefontaine Classic which was on the Saturday. It’s usually a pretty big meet but this year it was one of the 12 Diamond League meets so there were celebrities everywhere. Somebody said that Eugene is the grass capital of the world or something like that so my allergies were going bananas. My race was at midday so I had to get up pretty early. It’s a good stadium, only fits around 13 thousand but the crowd is really close to the track so it creates a good atmosphere.

 

There were 2 mile races on the day. One was the traditional Bowerman Mile which is the signature event of the meet, but there was also an International Mile which I was a part of. The Bowerman Mile had something like 7 of the top 10 in the world from last year. My race still had a couple of Olympic finalists so that just shows how strong both races were. I raced well, got out early, held my spot, the other boys made some moves with a lap to go but I just held my ground and started moving to a good spot with 200m to go, then hit it with about 120m to go and actually ended up winning pretty comfortably. I remember on the back straight of the last lap feeling like I was holding back so I knew I was going to be in the mix. Last year I didn’t do too well overseas so it was great to start off the trip with a win and a big PB, running 3:53.19 for the Mile. After the race I watched Collis do big PB in the 5000m which capped off a successful day for the Melbourne Track Club.

 

The following morning I flew out to London and I settled in to the house my advisor/manager Nic Bideau sets up for his athletes. Currently Nick Bromley, Lachlan Renshaw, Mitch Kealey and Mark Draper are in the house with me. I love it here in London. We live in a suburb called Teddington and it’s to the south-west of London. To me it just feels like England is the same as Australia. Same kind of people. There are plenty of places to run around here and it’s only a 20 minute bus ride from Heathrow airport.

 

In the next couple of races I have an 800m in Sardinia and a 1500m at the Monaco Diamond League. I will write again after those races. I’m in good shape so I’m looking forward to it.