Stop and Smell the Millroses

by Jarrett Felix

It started like any logical person's Saturday would start. Waking up early and banging out a "workout" on the track (I did a not fast 4k tempo) before catching a train into the city to watch a track meet. Maybe logical isn't the right word. But, after a successful start, we traveled through the underground tunnels and finished our journey entering the Armory as one of the day's first spectators.

My girlfriend's sister was competing in the day's opening event, the women's club DMR, so we were there from the start, ready to cheer and vaguely stalk good runners. And things begin quite well for those goals. Our two person cheering section watched our target run a gutsy, strong anchor leg in a pretty strong field. Then (after watching a thrilling men's club DMR that included ESPN star Mikey Brannigan and an epic anchor duel between PA's own Alfredo Santana and former Stanford star Mike Atchoo) we wandered down to meet up with Jenn and checked off another item on our list. After creeping out Nick Dahl by wishing him luck (pretty sure he had no idea who I was and I doubt Dave Waterman did either), we came across Olympic Silver Medalist Leo Manzano just chilling out on the main level of the Armory. He was taking pictures with some kids, so I didn't want to just fanboy obnoxiously right through the kids, but I did kinda awkwardly wait just outside the photo range and kinda awkwardly stare in his general direction.

He saw us and waved and smiled, so I figured that was a good sign. Amazingly, he wasn't getting bombarded by fans either, so it seemed pretty clear he would be down to get a picture with us and, once we asked, he confirmed. So we got a picture with Leo Manzano (who amazingly I'm taller than but also, unamazingly I'm about 40 seconds slower than over 1,500m). He was super nice and friendly (and decked out with Hoka One One gear being a dynamite sponsoree if that's the right word, which spell check is telling me it's not). He even asked me if I was running (maybe because I was wearing my Oregon sweatshirt). It was probably the biggest compliment I've ever been payed in my life (right up there with Ryan James wearing the etrain shirt outside the TFCAofGP Meet of Champions). Leo, as I've mentioned, was super nice and totally would have struck up a track conversation with us if I DIDN'T CHOKE HARD CORE. I got pretty darn nervous, not gonna lie. And then, I just couldn't find something interesting to say (thankfully I didn't just blurt out something along the lines of, "Remember that time you got the Silver in London? That was pretty cool" because that was the first thing that came to mind). We just had a normal discussion and then we said thank you and parted ways. Afterwards, naturally, I had a million ideas like "Who you got today in this Wannamaker?" or "How fast will they run?" or even something obvious like "How's your training going?", "What's your next race?" or "Is Robby Andrews really as awesome in person as I imagine he is during really grueling long runs?". All kinda your standard questions for a runner.

But anyway, eventually we went back to spectator duties and the action slowly heated up. We saw some young kids run really fast, we saw some old dudes run really fast and overall just watched a lot of people of all ages, genders and sizes run times faster than I could run right now. Oh, and Andrew Hunter walked right by me and I DIDN'T REALIZE UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE. Not my best moment as etrain. Woulda been cool to meet the guy, who knows what he is going to end up becoming. Plus, he was rocking an Oregon shirt while walking around and I was rocking an Oregon sweatshirt while walking around so we probably would have bonded, become great friends and then, eventually, been the best man at my wedding. It's really not that crazy.

Shortly thereafter, I watched our boys from State College do PA proud with a huge win in the 4x8. It was a pretty big season best and PA #1 (7:51 on the clock) and they really dominated the race in my opinion. Owen Wing ran a killer lead off and Degleris exploded with a huge kick at the end of his leg. Might be PA's first win in a while (Abington in 2010?) so that was fun to see. Then, a little while down the line, we watched Drew Hunter break his own high school indoor mile record with a 3:57. Since he's not running the mile again this season apparently, that record may be the record that stands for the rest of my life. Who can say for sure at this point.

It was a pretty incredible race. They didn't go out incredibly fast (shout out to Ford Palmer for doing a great job pacing and for exiting the Armory directly in front of me after the meet was over), but Hunter just stuck his nose in it and hung on. And funny you should mention nose. We were sitting next to one of the kids in the boys high school mile and his family (just by chance) and they were all from Virginia so they kinda knew Hunter. They had talked to him or his coach (I think his coach) before the race and he had set Hunter was still sick. Mostly coughing and trouble sleeping. And watching him run you could see it, he was running kinda sniffly and his breathing seemed a little off. But every time it looked like he might get dropped, he just found a way to keep it close, threw down a kick and held on. Place went crazy for this one, perhaps the loudest it got besides the day's final race honestly. And like everybody only cared about Hunter in the whole crowd (and a little bit for hometown boy Awad). But like Gregorek won the race, he's from NY and Columbia or whatever, but I didn't even know Gregorek was the dude that even won the race (with a real nice 3:56 mind you) until the train ride back to my house. Crazy.

Then we had a bit of a gap, so I hit the bathroom. Happened to Jaxson before his race and wished him luck as well (worked out well so that no one can accuse me of playing favorites out there) and then saw Jesse Williams walk into the bathroom right after me. There's just the one bathroom I think so everybody just kind shares it. Which is crazy to me. Like I know it's not the same but imagine if like Steph Curry shared a bathroom with fans. It just wouldn't work. There'd be dudes taking selfies with Steph Curry while he's just trying to check his hydration. But in track it works. Same thing happened post meet when I was walking out of the building. We saw Cam Levins and Eric Jenkins just chillin at an intersection completely alone. I said nice race to them and then moved on cause I didn't want to bother them or anything like that, but like you couldn't do that for 90% of sports because the athletes are too darn famous. It's kinda a perfect atmosphere for someone like me, who is such a track nerd and can just get up close to some of the absolute best to ever do it. Shout out to track athletes for being so chill and shout out to people who don't care about track for making it easier for said track athletes to be chill.

But anyway, back to topic here. Things really stared to heat up once we got in the TV window. It was a good thing I had hit the bathroom when I did because there was basically nothing else I wanted to miss. From where we were sitting it was a bit hard to watch the 60 meter events, but we still were just behind guys like Ashton Eaton and Jason Richardson and girls like Allyson Felix (AKA the Cuz) and Brianna Rollins. Plus, eventually the high jump went on right in front of us and that was really cool to watch up close. I also really like Kynard so that made it a bit more fun.

They were all sick races (the 3k might have been my favorite because there were just so many guys all locked together), but the Wannamaker really sealed the show. Kyle Merber took on pacing duties and did a pretty solid job I thought. He took them nicely through 1200 and then the kicking ensued in earnest. Centro and Willis were just awesome competitors and everybody was going crazy at the finish (including former meet record holder Lopez Lomong and Andy Bayer who just happened to come up and sit like 6 seats away from us). Once I saw the time, my jaw just dropped. Me and dudes sitting around me who I didn't even know were exchange looks like "Oh my, that was dirty". It made Centro the #4 performer all time in the mile for indoor track, even faster than Rupp's crazy 3:50.92 from a little ways back. It's the fastest mile I've ever seen in person and I got no clue when I will ever see a faster one. What a day to cap off the meet.

But can we just give a shout out to Robby Andrews? The dude used to be real bad at the full mile not gonna lie (I can say it because I'm his biggest fan), but he ran 3:53 at this meet and mixed up with some studs! That's a big time PR and, considering he is likely better suited for both the slightly shorter 1500 and the more tactical races, he's in fantastic shape to make some noise. So big things on the horizon for RA. And there was no better way to cap off the night than realizing that.