I went to watch the Boston Indoor Games this evening, and it was great. There was a lot of really good competition, and we got to see numerous meet and national records, as well as a world record 5k.

Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopa absolutely crushed her old mark of 14:32.93 set two years ago. She ran over 5 seconds faster in 14:27.42! It was a great race. The rabbits, Bridget Binning and Marina Muncan led through the first two kilometers right on pace, and Tiru finished strong to absolutely demolish her own time. We kept watching to see if she would implode; it was very exciting.

The boy’s high school mile was a very well run race as well. Duncan Phillips ran a conservative start to take control at the end of the race. The lead changed a few times, and you didn’t know until the last quarter who was likely to be able to maintain through the finish.

Meseret Defar could not keep down to record pace, but she finished in a very strong 8:30.31 in the 3000 meters. Shalane Flanagan had a great race, though, despite not having set foot on a track to race for over a year and a half. She challenged Mezzy for the lead on a few different occasions, and even though she couldn’t keep up with the final surge she still crushed the US record by almost six seconds by running an 8:33.25.

Craig Mottram of Australia won the men’s 3000 meters in 7:39.24, showboating the bell lap. He followed the rabbit, Alexandr Skvortsov, for 1100 meters, and then let the field follow on his heels until there was about 350 meters left. Then he dropped a whole bag full of hammers and dropped about 7 seconds off of his lap time.

The men’s sprints were riddled with false starts, which delayed things a little. Aries Merritt was d/qed in the 60m hurdles, and Steve Mullings in the dash. I was looking forward to seeing Merritt race for the first time.

We were sitting in the front row near the pole vaulting, so we got to see some great jumps by Jenn Stuczynski (4.63 meters) and Steven Hooker (5.81 meters). Unfortunately, Steve only jumped until he won and did not try to push his limits at all. The only unfortunate part of where we sat was that people kept stopping right in front of us to find their seats for the first 40 minutes of the meet or so, so we could not see every jump.

The meet was a lot of fun. The two teammates of mine that were supposed to run both scratched, but I got to see some people that were winning everything when I was in college and even a few that I had raced against. They are much faster right now than I am. I am looking forward to the indoor national championships meet in about a month; there should be some good competition there, as well, and fewer rabbits. If my history for going to see professional track meets with my friend holds, then there will be at least one more world record that will go down. So far, we are 2 for 2 when we both go to the same pro meet.