5.14.2009

Brett Birkeland! ALL CONFERENCE IN DECATHLON!

Brett did it! He took THIRD PLACE! He made all conference as a Freshman, following two years of no training on his mission, and as a newlywed who's been commuting to BYU every day to make practices. I'd say it's quite the feat!

It was a pretty dramatic finish. He was going in to finals in fourth place and was lagging the Air Force guy in third by around 70 points... and second place Wyoming by 175 points. It also just so happened that Air Force's favorite event was the 1500. Gripes.... But Brett ran his heart out and managed to beat the guy in second by over 30 seconds!!!! He bumped Wyoming to fourth place and beat him by 3 points! You can't write this stuff!!! It was incredible.

He had a great overall two days in all of his events with All-time/ seasonal PRs in:
Long Jump
100 m Dash
110 Hurdles
Discus

He also had consistent solid performances in Pole Vault and High Jump.

We are SOOO Proud! Pictures to follow!

5.12.2009

Conference Championships

Brett and I will both be competing at the Mountain West Conference Championships this week in Laramie Wyoming.


Brett is going in ranked 2nd in the Decathlon! Decathletes are pretty hard core, they compete in 10 events: 100, long jump, shot put, high jump, 400, 100 hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin, and the 1,500. It's a two day competition that will take place Wednesday and Thursday. It's a big deal that he is competing because his team only took 28 of their athletes. over 35 of their athletes qualified for Regionals!


On Friday Brett and I will be long jumping at the same time with 40 mph winds. Could be very interesting. :) Then I will be running the starting leg of the 4x100 relay on Saturday. I'm also the alternate for the 4x400.

I am so excited that we get to both go and share this experience together.


Also, I am sooo excited to see how Utah does! We have worked so hard to make this program what it is today. I am so proud of all of our Regional Qualifiers and the girls who work hard everyday to get better. It's sad for me that this may be my last meet as an NCAA athlete. I'm going to miss it, but I am also looking foward to the next phase of my life.


I'll post again after the meet to let everyone know how both of our teams do. :)