poisonwood's Diaryland Diary

Date: Aug. 19, 2008 . Time: 11:54 a.m.

10K again Entry:

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10K again

An article about the previously mentioned race.

11:54 a.m. - Aug. 19, 2008

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10K

If I had to pick my two performances of the games right now, they would be Phelps and his eight medals . . . and the women's 10,000 m race. More on Phelps later - I could write a book on that subject.

The women's 10,000m you say? What 10,000m? An excellent question! Despite airing most the women's marathon with no Americans in contention and most of the men's 10,000 m with no Americans in contention, the powers at be at NBC decided it would be wise to only show a few minutes of the women's 10,000 m in the middle of the night. (I missed it and heard the coverage was beyond bad anyway.) Fear not. It turns out that video does exist. You can see the video here. It's about 3 hours and 15 minutes in, and there is no commentary. Nevertheless, the race is amazing.

The highlight? Sha*lane Flanagan took the bronze medal for the US. It's the first distance running medal for the US, male or female, since a bronze in 1992. The race was extremely competitive, with two women running under 30 minutes. For me, the glory events are the ones on the track - the 1500, 5K and the 10K. The 10K is an amazing event, typically dominated by Africans, and usually by Ethiopians. Watching the US men get knocked out in the heats of the 1500, the 5000 and be totally out of contention in the 10K shows what a great achievement Shalane's race was. In order to medal, she had to run a PR and American record by 20 seconds. When you're competing at that level, that's no joke. Anyway, I don't think anyone expected it, especially in a fast race like the one that was run.

The great news is that all 3 American women made the 5K final. The bad news is that their best times are much slower in all three cases than the fastest runners.

8:37 a.m. - Aug. 19, 2008

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knitting status

I finally finished the Aran cardigan I'd been working on a few days back - almost. I can't find buttons that I like, so for the moment, no buttons.

7:07 p.m. - Aug. 17, 2008

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