Only inches from a living legend! By Chris Hussey

The last day in January of this year marked the 9th annual Boston Indoor Games at the Reggie Lewis Center. I wanted to attend the previous 8 times but finally made it this year thanks to Santa leaving 4 tickets in my stocking. Julie, myself and our two oldest (Matt & James) went and thanks to me we were running late. As we arrived indoors there was standing room only! The place was packed! So, we sat right at the edge of the track (first turn from the start) and the slight disappointment turned to joy knowing we were so close we could see if they double-looped their shoe-lace's, felt the breeze of speed or heard the strain of world class performances. The 60m sprints stopped right at us (on the cushioned backstop) and they stop in dramatic fashion shaking the track in the process.

There were many multiple Olympic & World Champ medalists here but the marquee athlete was no other than Haile Gabrselassie of Ethiopia. To see him race would be amazing and the buzz was an attempt at the indoor world record right here, in front of us on only his third race on US soil (1 st 1992 World Xcountry as a junior, 2nd 1996 Olympics in Atlanta).

The race was exciting and close for the first 2000 meters of the 3K until he shifted gears and stretched the gap with only his Ethiopian teammate (Geneti) in tow with his finish the fastest of the season and about 10 seconds off the best ever. The crowd was standing and screaming the entire time trying to help give him our Beantown welcome which we think helped a lot. During Geb's victory lap we reached out for touch of the legend and just missed but, the fun college kiddies next to us made contact in a big way and word around town is that hand is still unwashed and sealed in a zip-lock.

All the events were exciting and one of the last races was the Women's 5000! 25 laps go by quite fast when you're not doing it yourself so the field was a four person race with one women from the U.K. being lapped. Checking her time at the finish she ran a 15:41, but the first three bettered the world indoor so one lap is not bad. In less than 24 hours after this WR, it was lowered again in Germany to something like 14:51. In a final note, the Ethiopian community was here in a large way. They had an entire section to cheer their national heroes and as James and I stood at the finish line at the end of the event, "Haile" "Geb" made his way over to the fans and the stands emptied. James was buried as I pulled and pushed my way out of the mosh pit uninjured with no chance to get close to one of the greats! I hope the lOth annual is just as exciting.