DIARIES OF SETH HALL: 2009 SUN BELT OUTDOOR TRACK AND FIELD CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!

May 17, 2009

May 6 – May 11, 2009

Destination: Murfreesboro, TN (Middle Tennessee State University)

I want to let my Louisiana running company in on my trip to conference. Like diaries past, I will not focus wholly on running, but also the experience of a runner! I tried to keep things detailed, but I also had to worry about my race. Hope you enjoy…

Wednesday, May 6

We departed Monroe, LA at 10:38 in the pouring rain! Yes…everybody got to load their bags to the bus in the rain…starting things out not cool! My seat partner for the trip was Hunter Russell (a talented freshmen from Lufkin, TX who claims to be the future ULM 1500 record holder…3:43 is the mark. He’s talented, but he’ll have to put in some incredible work). Finals were this week. Several of us had to schedule our finals early. Luckily for me, I only had three finals this semester and rescheduling wasn’t much of a hassle. But finals are over now, and now it’s time to get my track on! Our minds are free! As we pulled out of the parking lot, ULM track and field’s biggest fan, Corey Williams, called me wishing us luck….which was a nice thing to do considering he’d be making the trip to Murfreesboro in just two days time to see us in person. A quick note about Corey Williams (former St. Michaels standout)….he is a redshirt freshmen who has literally traveled to every meet we’ve had this year. He drove all the way to Lubbock, TX (11 hours from Monroe) to watch us run an indoor meet! For CC Conference, he drove to Western Kentucky with our fan van….and slept in the bottom of our charter bus…yes, in the hatch where everybody stores their bags…he slept there! Okay…back to the story. We had about 8-9 hours of driving ahead of us…so movie time here we come. The first movie we watched was Bride Wars. A chick flick…but I hate to say this, I like chick flicks. I liked the movie, but the ending was a bit cheesy! At 12:53 we stopped at a Ryan’s in Jackson, MS for lunch. Most people don’t like those types of places, but I’ve always been fine with eating there…what gives? At 1:40 the distance runners made the move….we stood up and acted like it was time to get back on the road…and guess what?? The sprinters, jumpers, and throwers followed us! On the road again….the second movie we watched was Princess Bride…pretty good movie, but I had seen it several times before. The third movie we watched was Bedtime Stories…I really liked this movie. I had watched it about 1 week earlier, but it was good enough to watch again…I don’t normally like Adam Sandler, but he didn’t do his kid voice too much…that would have ruined it for me, ha! A side note to all this movie talk…I cannot what-so-ever sleep on a bus!!! And I was extremely jealous to watch my homie Kendall Robbins sleep several hours with ease on that bus! The fourth movie was probably the best one….Slumdog Millionaire! I had not seen this movie yet…and it was pretty freaking good! If you’re thinking about watching it…do it! At about 7:58, we stopped at a Shoney’s (I think in Columbus, TN…maybe not though…didn’t take good notes on that one). I hit up the breakfast bar…which was pretty good. We arrived to our hotel in Murfreesboro at 9:36. The distance crew and I did a 12 minute shakeout in the rain…I felt pretty decent considering the long drive. I took a shower and hit the sack by about 10:30.

Thursday, May 7

I woke up right at 8:30 – 10 hours of sleep…that’s wassup! Jorel Torres is my roommate for the week (he also happens to be my training partner…we run every workout side by side). We hit up our complimentary breakfast at 8:55, and it turned out being money…they had some good stuff. I went back to my room and had to shave the legs. I’m not going to lie…I look pretty incredibly sexy now! I shouldn’t have waited so long to shave though…it had been about 2 weeks and the hairs were a little too long to make my shaving experience easy. At 11:30 the team packed up and we headed to the mall for lunch. I ate some Chinese food (rice and orange chicken). I hit up Pac Sun while we were in the mall and I got a pair of jeans for $5.48!! And I’m not going to lie (again)…the jeans were pretty sexy on me! As we walked through the mall a bit, my coach (William Rogers) and I realized we needed to use the bathrooms. When we found the bathrooms, we realized they were single bathrooms. Liam (as I like to call my coach) said he was going to use the first available bathroom…so sure enough the women’s bathroom freed up first (and humorously enough…it was a guy who came out of it). Liam jumped right in the women’s bathroom. About 2 minutes later the guys bathroom freed up…I jumped in there and handled my business real quick like…because my stomach is weak and that’s just how I work, ha! As I was leaving, I noticed there was a girl waiting for the women’s bathroom to free up (yeah…the women’s bathroom that my male coach is using). I wanted to stay and watch her face as Liam left the bathroom…but I just couldn’t…I had to wait for Liam to tell me the story. A few minutes later I see Liam…he’s got a smile on his face…let’s just say that girl waiting to use the women’s bathroom wasn’t running to us it after Liam left, ha! At 3:00 we headed to the track. I ran about 25 minutes through campus. The campus is pretty big…and nice. To keep things fun, as we were running through campus…any girl that drove by with her windows down would hear us scream to her “Drink it in…girrrrrlllll.” When we got back to the track, I ran 4 strides and got a partner stretch in and then added one more mile. My legs are feeling good….and I think I’m ready to roll! We got back to the hotel at about 5:53 and showered up. At 6:45 we headed to Ryan’s and hooked it up with the buffet. While eating our food, the joke of the night was how fat my coach’s face is (or maybe how self-conscious he is about thinking his face is fat). We had a team meeting at 9:00 – we got schedules and our bib numbers. At 9:30 the distance crew had our meeting with Liam. He told the guys flat out that he wanted 20 points from the distance crew. I got to bed at 10:30

Friday, May 8 10,000 meter Race Day

I woke up at 7:34 and hit up breakfast at 8:00. I had a muffin, a banana, 2 pieces of toast with grape jelly, and some apple juice. I went back to my room and napped for a while. Jorel and I watched Mystery Men while we were waiting to eat our late lunch. At 1:30 the 10kers went to lunch. We ate a place called Newk’s…which had some pretty good sandwiches! I had a roast beef sandwich. We also went to the jewelry store Jared afterwards….so that we could say “he went to Jared!” We went back to the hotel…and I took another little nap and watched some Seinfeld. The 10kers left the hotel at 6:30 and hit up the track. We chilled at the track for a while. We warmed up at 8:10 with a 9:00 start in mind….my legs were good on the warm-up. For my race I wore flats and half tights….for whatever reason, I feel more comfortable in our half tights than I do in our shorts.

Goals for this 10K:

Finish in the top 8….score points!
Run faster than 33:57…my personal best
Run under 33:30….to be specific

I ended up accomplishing one of my goals…and was fairly close to the other two. I ran 33:37 and finished 10^th overall. On the very bright side…this time was 3 minutes and 10 seconds faster than I ran at the conference meet last year. My first 5k was 16:49 and the second was 16:47…a small negative split. I lost my 33:30 goal on the 6^th mile. On miles 4 and 5 I was hitting 79’s and 80’s…but that 6^th mile I started hitting 82’s and maybe an 83. My final 400 was nice though….I didn’t get a time on it, but I did put 6 seconds on a South Alabama guy who had a 20 meter lead going into the final lap. Overall, I was pleased with my race…but I would have loved to score! Afterwards my stomach was jacked up!!! I could barely cool down. I have to throw a shout out to my teammates and fans now! Corey Williams, Andres Granada, and my distance boys were located right near the steeple pit. On the second half of the race, those guys would be screaming out “WHO? SETH HALL!!! WHO SETH HALL!!!” They don’t know this…but they seriously helped me finish that race! We left the track pretty late and hit up an Italian joint called Carrabba’s for dinner – I got the chicken pizza…which would have been amazing if my stomach wasn’t completely killing me! A side note…our waiter was probably the best waiter I have ever had! I got to bed at about 12.

Saturday, May 9 Track Prelims, 3000 steeple final, and some field events

I got up to eat breakfast at 9:00 and had some time to reflect on my race with Coach Liam. I was pretty pleased….if I could have changed anything; it would have been my last mile. At 11:00 we headed to lunch…I ate a 10 piece (Teriyaki flavored) at Wing Stop…the cornerstone to any nutritious lunch! We hit up the track for about an hour and I got to watch a small portion of the decathlon (which our guys ended up 1^st and 4^th in). We went back to the hotel and chilled for a bit, but at 3:45 headed right back to the track…to get some serious track on!!! As soon as we got to the track, we hit up the long jump pit. Luther Ambrose and our decathlete Isaac Combs had made it to the final. Luther is a freshmen football player who was an absolute stud in high school…I’m not lying when I say this, this is Luther’s first meet of the year and he practiced about 4 times before conference…just keep that in mind! Luther didn’t have a jump under 23 feet the whole competition. On his 5^th jump he jumped over the regional mark and was probably sitting about 4^th or 5^th overall….but on his 6^th and final jump, he leaped to a 7.69 meter mark…yes, that’s over 25 feet! That was good enough for 2^nd overall…only behind the 3^rd longest jump in the country! That pretty much set the tone for Saturday night! Prelims went a little like this…Jarvis Mansfield posted the 3^rd best time in the 110 Hurdles with a 14.50, freshman Keyon Jones posted the 5^th best time in the 400 with a 47.89, Mychal Word posted a 47.43 in the 400 and shortly afterwards ran 53.98 in the 400 Hurdles, Luther Ambrose (true freshmen…with close to no training) ran a wind legal 10.46 in the 100 prelims, and Andrew Opata won his 800 heat in 1:54.30. Hunter Russell ran 1:56.8 in his 800 heat, but it took a 1:54.4 to make it to the finals. Luther Ambrose seemed to be the story of the night….but for the distance guys, it turned out not to be. The story of the night came from my good friend Moses Kiptoo Chelimo!!! Moses Was scheduled to run the 3K steeple. He was ranked 8^th or 9^th, but everything was super close. The top guy had run 9:00 at Stanford earlier this season, but the second best time was 9:33. Moses had only run 9:49 this season. Going into the race, Moses knew we needed him to get 2^nd. The gun goes off and Moses gets on the back end of the lead pack (Johnathon Cherono….who is the younger brother of Said Saif Shaheen(sp?) was out ahead of the lead pack). Moses ran in about 6^th position for the first 2200 meters. With 800 to go he moved up one position. I was standing at the 200 mark and with 600 to go I promise he heard me cheering for him and he started moving up…I promise! With 400 to go he was about 4^th and he quickly moved to 3^rd and on the back stretch he moved to 2^nd. He not only held those guys off, but he almost ran down Cherono. Cherono ended up running 9:09 and Moses was 9:12!!! That’s a 37 second chop off the season best!!! That was literally the happiest moment of the meet for me!! After the race, the distance guys ran to Moses and basically wrapped him up in pure excitement. I was later told by one of our coaches that if Moses was pregnant, the baby is mine! He said I was dry humping Moses so bad…the baby is mine! During some down time that day…I did get a chance to jump in an ice bath for 8 minutes…dang that sucked! We headed to the hotel after Moses’s big race and ate some Pizza Hut pasta at about 10:00. Corey Williams and I stayed up for a while going over our point situation as a team. We were in 2^nd after two days….about 15 points behind Western Kentucky and only about 10 points ahead of the next closest teams.

Sunday, May 10 Finals on the track and some more field events

I woke up at 7:45….called my mom (who didn’t answer) to wish her happy mother’s day…and took a shower and shaved my face. At 8:30 we hit up Shoney’s for some breakfast action. I sat with Coach Liam and my head track coach JD Malone. After breakfast I took a little nap at the hotel. Lunch was delivered to our bus at the hotel. I had a turkey wrap…I forget where they were from (again poor note taking by me). At 12:00 on the dot….Corey Williams and I headed to the track to catch some pole vault. We got to the track at 12:12 for the final day of competition. PV didn’t go as well as we had hoped…our top guy no heighted, but our two decathletes stepped up and finished 6^th and 7^th. The triple jump wasn’t great either…our freshmen who finished 3^rd indoors just couldn’t get a good jump in, but another guy (primarily a long jumper) stepped up and finished 6^th for us. At three I headed to the javelin runway to watch our stud jav guys. We did what we expected and finished 1-2!!! Our All-American Kyle Kent finished just behind our redshirt freshmen Richard McKay…both throwing around 65 meters. Track events here we come!!! Our 4x100 hasn’t done anything special all year long, but we get to put Luther Ambrose on the anchor leg this time! We still didn’t do anything amazing, but we did run 41.00 which was a big season best and finished 5^th overall…not bad! The 1500 was up next and Kendall Robbins and Hunter Russell were scheduled to run for us, but both of them were in the slow heat. Kendall ended up running really well…running a 4:03 off of a slow first lap of 66. Jarvis Mansfield finished 5^th in the 110 Hurdles after a pretty decent showing…he wanted top three and so did I, but he definitely didn’t run bad! Up next was the 400…where Mychal Word would not be defeated. After having run 46.37 two weeks earlier at our home meet, Mychal was ready to roll. He won alright…he ran 46.68 and cruised in…trying to save some for his 400 Hurdles less than an hour away. Freshmen Keyon Jones finished 5^th overall in 48.10…solid! Luther Ambrose once again amazed us and finished second in the 100 in 10.44 (I’m not exaggerating when I say this….he could be the next Trindon Holliday….if football allows him to practice more than 4 times!). 10.44 is not amazing, but he definitely beat some 10.3 guys in the process!! And he never looked back! Andrew Opata finished 3^rd in the 800 in 1:52.92 (man this guy should be way faster…he got injured after the first outdoor meet and was out for several weeks…he only had about 4 weeks training under his belt…ah the potential!). Mychal Word ended up coming back to finish 2^nd in the 400H….this dude is a straight up beast! The 5000 didn’t go too well for ULM. I definitely couldn’t finish…that 10,000destroyed me. Moses ran somewhere around 15:30 (I think) and Kendall Robbins ran a good second race of the day in 15:54. Neither of these guys were able to score. And all that’s left is the 4x400…the dessert of every track meet. Our guys finished 2 in 3:10…Keyon Jones led off with a 47.7, Andrew Opata went second in 47.7, Joseph Dameon Gilyard ran a 49.1 third leg, and Mychal Word anchored a 45.9!!!!!

As a team we finished 3^rd just a mere 9 points behind Middle Tennessee State University! Western Kentucky was the team champion on the men’s side. We had a pretty good meet as a team, but 2^nd would have been much more satisfying and if a few things would have gone our way, we would have some hardware right now! We left Murfreesboro at about 11:00 p.m. and got to Monroe at 7:28 Monday morning. And did I tell yall that I can’t sleep on a bus…well I can’t…and that trip home was miserable!!!

Overall, the trip was pretty awesome. I ran over 3 minutes faster than I did last year (which is a huge tribute to my new coach William Rogers!!!) and I ran a personal best by 20 seconds!

Sorry for such a long diary…if you read this whole thing, I hope you enjoyed it!

One last note….and I hate to end it on this…but Running Lawyer – I just want you to know that we are closing the gap on MTSU and WK! And if we had Adam Saloom, we just might be a second place team right now!

Seth Hall