Saturday at the Oregon Relays, the sun brought Devon Allen out to run.
After running the 200 meters Friday, he was going to compete only in the 4×100 meter relay and the 400 hurdles.
“I wasn’t going to run the 110s until I got here and it was like 70 degrees and it was the perfect day to run,” Allen said.
Allen ran .08 seconds short of the Pepsi Invitational meet record he set last weekend,13.48. He won by almost a full second Saturday, but even that wasn’t good enough for him.
“I was a little frustrated because I wanted to run faster with a 1.9 tailwind,” Allen said.
He went on to win the 400 hurdles and helped the 4×100 relay team to win in a close finish. Allen ran first leg for the men’s A team that ran 40.18, edging the crew from Ultimate Speed Athletic, 40.35.
Even Allen’s three wins weren’t enough to make the top of head coach Robert Johnson’s highlight list.
“I’d say it’s par for the course,” Johnson said. “Probably the highlight today for us was Cole Walsh.”
Walsh set a personal record in the pole vault, 17 feet, 9 inches, to win the event and make up for no-heighting in the Pepsi Invitational last weekend.
“Last year, I was really inconsistent in my approach, and that’s something that I worked pretty hard on over the summer,” Walsh said. “That was one of the biggest things that affected how I jumped today.”
Walsh and his teammate Matt Hidalgo have been training with the decathletes in recent practices.
“They’re always working hard,” Walsh said. “Having people who are looking towards the same goals as you can be very valuable.”
After winning at 17-9, Walsh tried for the 18-1 mark. He missed all three attempts, but setting a personal best for the first time in two years was enough to keep him happy.
“You can never be mad with a PR,” he said.
Pole vault wasn’t the only field event to have a field day.
Oregon men’s triple jumper Chance Whitehurst won the event in 49-9¼ , breaking his own personal record from last weekend.
“Chance is somebody that we’ve been working a lot on a few things,” Johnson said. “Let’s keep him on that runway and maybe we can keep getting PRs.”
Now finished with back-to-back weekends of home meets, the Ducks are taking a bye week before heading to Pennsylvania on April 28.
