[Breeze]

Event 5 - 400 Meters


The runners are all on the infield, warming up and stretching waiting on the official to announce the start of the race...which will happen shortly. We come into the last event of day 1 with Babson riding his strong performance on the 1st 3 events to a big lead. However, it is well known that this is a terrible event for him, and it will be interesting to see how much ground the field can make up here...

The official has the athletes at the line and the gun sounds...


Ginsberg is out quickly, jumping in front of the pack so as not to get caught up in the fight for position...Llyw tucks in behind him, with McGiillicuddy on his outside hip and Ashkayev right behind. Gonzalez is a few feet back followed by Bafou and Justice...Rambis and Nielsen are a little off their pace, but way behind the leaders...and then there is already a pretty good gap to the remainder of the runners...who are well off the pace. In fact, in the first 100 it looks like the bottom 3 are around a full second behind Ginsberg already.

Ginsberg looks to separate himself from his tails and picks up his effort...and he starts to pull way. Ashkayev, makes a move as well, passing both Llyw and McGillicuddy to move into second. Llyw hangs on to 3rd, but McGillicuddy has fallen off the pace and he's been passed by both Bafou and Justice who had nice 2nd 100 splits. In the back of this event Babson trails the 11th place competitor McCloud by almost a full second, and we are only half way through the event...

Ginsberg continues his domination, posting for the 3rd straight split the fastest 100 meter time...and he opens a commanding lead of over a half second over Ashkayev who has a nice gap on 3rd place runner Bafou - who seems to be benefitting from all the running up and down the court in basketball...

The remainder of the pack looks like this...

Llwy - poor 3rd split has him falling back, can he hold on in the last 100?
Justice - fell into Llwy's pace in the 3rd 100 and wasn't able to pass
Gonzalez - picked up his pace and has crept into a stride for stride run on the outside hip of Justice
McGillicuddy - suffered another bad split, and maybe he went out too fast initially, half a stride behind those in front of him..
Rambis - followed McGillicuddy's pace
Nielsen - closed up slightly on those ahead of him
McCloud - picked up his pace and has caught Gunderson as they are now running stride for stride
Babson - Way off the pace...of 11th...over a full second behind and it is starting to look like he is moving a refridgerator as he tries to complete the final 100...(actually by the time you've read this the race is probably already over...)

Ginsberg posts another strong split and contines to pull away from the group...winning the event in an impressive time of 46.55. Bafou and Llyw have strong kicks at the end and they close the gap on Ashkayev, but he still beats them to the line...

Ashkayev - 47.85
Bafou - 48.10
Llyw - 48.15

Gonzalez kept up his strong effort from the 3rd split to push himself into 5th place, and McGillicuddy hopped on his heals and followed him to the line to finish 6th...Rambis continued to stay in McGillicuddy's pace and was able to slip past Justice who really finished poorly...

Gonzalez - 48.45
McGillicuddy - 48.5
Rambis - 48.65
Justice - 48.8

In the back of the pack Nielsen and Gunderson increase there effort enough to finish ahead of McCloud...and of course Babson, who will finish eventuallly...

Nielsen - 49.25
Gunderson - 49.55
Babson - 51.20