Hello from Albuquerque, New Mexico! We’re here at the Albuquerque Convention Center to bring you all the latest and greatest from the 2017 U.S. Track and Field Indoor Championships. Paul Snyder and Stephen Kersh have infiltrated the mixed zone to share results, analysis and quotes from trackside.

The championship will be broadcast live March 4-5 on USATF.TV and NBCSN. If you miss the meet live, you can catch everything on-demand on USATF.TV. The online stream requires a RunnerSpace +PLUS subscription.

Here are all the start lists and live results should be available just moments after the race.

Stay tuned on this page for the latest from ABQ:

7:54 PM: The last event of the day was the men’s two-mile and Paul Chelimo pretty much decided he would throw down from the gun. He strung out the pack to his liking, and then started kicking from about a mile and a half out. He was obviously the best on the day, and he walked away with a national title in a time of 8:28.24.

Woody Kincaid closed in a MF’n 26 seconds and took second place in 8:38.66. Check out my interview with him here and his new podcast here.

Ryan Hill rounded out the podium with a 8:38.81.

[iframe src=”https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r5s3SLthzAA_1ZeU1Kqbf1gVd3qxkWxLjTguzb7SAvc/pubchart?oid=239393979&format=interactive” width=”100%” height=”500″]

A solid day of track and field, and now it’s time to never look at a computer screen again and douse our bodies in chile and beer.

See you tomorrow! – SK

7:30 PM: Hi all – I’ll be gone soon. If anyone is reading this, please let me know. I know I can push through for a few more races, but at the end of the day, I’m a mere mortal. Not some sort of BlobbingMachine.

Anyways – the men’s 300-meter was colloquially LIT. Sporting an all-red kit, Brycen Spratling spun his wheels to a personal-best and a heat one win with a 32.63. He looked like a Ferrari out there, but NOAH LYLES WENT APE S**T IN THE SECOND HEAT AND SET A WORLD-RECORD!!!!! He ran 31.87 and is now the fastest man to ever run 1.5 laps indoors! – SK

7:15 PM: In the men’s 600-meter, Erik Sowinski popped off a new personal-best of 1:15.51 to take the win in heat 1, while also running the day’s fastest time by quite a bit. Sowinski pulled Russell Dinkins (1:16.07) to the day’s third fastest time. Also qualifying were Donovan Brazier (1:16.02), Shaq Walker (same time as Brazier), 600-GAWD Casimir Loxsom (1:16.14), and Chris Giestling narrowly grabbed the sixth spot with 1:16.26.

Curtis Beach was the last man out of the final which means I would have qualified for this final because I beat him in an 800 once in high school. Follow me on Twitter! I’m great at parties! – SK

6:48 PM: The ol’ two-heat final! Candace Hill ripped a new personal-best in first heat of the women’s 300-meter with a 36.56. From my view, she couldn’t have picked a better time to run that fast! Her time cemented her as the fastest high schooler ever over that distance as she set a new record. Her time didn’t hold up, though. Non-High-Schooler Phyllis Francis pulled off the win with a 36.15 in a race that featured some tumbles at the end!

LUKEWARM TAKE: Is it just me, or are high school kids getting a lot faster? Phew. I’m tired of blobbing! – SK

6:34 PM: Some household names stole the show in the prelims of the women’s 600-meter. Courtney Okolo won heat 2 with a #nice 1:27.10, but Ajee Wilson stole the show in the third heat – covering three laps in 1:26.56. McKayla Fricker galloped her way to a 1:27.38 to win the first heat.

The Big Three (Wilson, Okolo, and Fricker) will be accompanied by Cecilia Barowski, Kendra Chambers, and Olicia Williams. – SK

6:10 PM: OUR FIRST FINAL! A pretty bizarre race because only five women toed the start line, thus meaning they all would earn some cash. Paul thought Southern Pride would overtake Cory McGee and force her to drop out before the race because she would only race if there was a chance she had something to lose but, alas, Paul was wrong.

After jogging for a few laps, they began to race at the 800-meter mark. Houlihan blitzed to the lead and never relinquished the lead winning in 4:45.18. Houlihan’s Bowerman Track Club teammate Colleen Quigley ended up in second after closing hard, and Heather Kampf snagged third with a 4:46.06. – SK

A statistical note:

Brannon Kidder (2:22.13) snagged the win in heat 1 of the men’s 1,000-meter. Native Burqueño Edwin Herring (2:22.70) closed hard to finish second, and Drew Windle (2:24.24) rounded out the auto-qualifiers. These slow times set up heat 2 to qualify five total races – and they did just that! Olympians Clayton Murphy, Andrew Wheating and Robby Andrews rounded out a impressive top-three. Tony Clement (2:24.59) and Brandon Lasater (2:22:00) get into the final on time.

“This is a wonky event.” said Andrew Wheating to confirm our suspicions. – SK

5:23 PM: Not sure if you’re aware, but the Citius Mag staff has been doing a lot of navel-gazing this week with regard to the 1,000-meter race. Simply put: it’s a weird distance! Heat 1 of the women’s 1,000-meter saw Charlene Lipsey, Hannah Fields, and Lauren Johnson run 2:41.86, 2:42.63, 2:42.65 (respectively) to snag the three-auto qualifiers. High schooler Samantha Watson took a break from her SAT studies and ran 2:43.18 to win heat 2, auto qualify for the final, AND set a new high-school record. Accompanying her were Eleanor Fulton (2:43.69) and Claudia Saunders (2:43.73). Stephanie Schappert (2:42.67) and Megan Krumpoch (2:43.76) sneak into the final on time from heat 1. – SK

4:55 PM: For us uninformed members of the press, the action that unfolded in the men’s two-mile race walk raised more questions than it answered. Olympian John Nunn crushed the field (in a very impressive 12:38.37), while a handful of officials scurried about the track, brandishing red cards. If there’s possible DQs/drama, we fans would sure like to be made aware of it, in real time! -PS

4:18 PM: The women’s 300-meter prelims basically didn’t need to happen, as all eight entrants automatically qualified onto the final. The women who ran the four fastest times (Phyllis Francis’s 36.49 set a new meet record, followed by Joanna Atkins, Robin Reynolds and Jessica Beard) ensured their spot in the faster of tomorrow’s two final heats, which was the only incentive to not just jog. The slower of the two heats will still be plenty fast though, with Jordan Lavendar, Candace Hill, Asha Ruth, and De’Shayln Jones all in possessing the ability to score. The times are fast up here at 5,300 feet, ya’ll. And trackside interviews, with people who finished seconds earlier, are pretty funny in how concise they are. When asked if her strategy changes when running the 300m as opposed to her usual 400m, she responded “No.” -PS

4:05 PM: 300-meter men’s prelims just wrapped up and wouldn’t ya know – it’s wünderkind Noah Lyles taking the top qualifying time into the final. Lyles clocked a 32.16 which is a personal best, as well as a world-lead and the 6th-fastest time ever. “300-meter World Record Holder” Wallace Spearmon was the first man out of the final.

INTERESTING FACT: All the men who qualified for tomorrow’s final ran UNDER the previous meet record. Holy cow! – SK

2:05 PM: Greetings from inside the Albuquerque Convention Center. Nice ambient temperature in here. The first race we will be “live-bloggin” is the Men’s 300-meter and that will launch in about two hours. Until then, we will be looking for the promised free coffee and looking to not get kicked out of our seats! – SK

 

👋🏻 Hello from ABQ! pic.twitter.com/zUti2Z6Lzg

— CITIUS MAG (@CitiusMag) March 4, 2017

Follow us on Twitter: @CitiusMag

Follow us on Instagram: @CitiusMag