Even a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs with a pancake and four events wasn’t enough to stop Devon Allen at the Pepsi Invitational Saturday. The sophomore plowed through his event schedule, winning the 110-meter hurdles and 400-meter hurdles, and helping Oregon’s relay teams to a win 4×100 meter and a third-place finish in the 4×400.
Never one to doubt himself, Allen acknowledged the difficulty of the his meet schedule.
“Being able to run four events at 25 or 30 minutes apart, the only other person I know that can do that is Edward Cheserek,” Allen said, referring to his distance-running teammate, a 14-time All-American and a 13-time NCAA champion in track and cross country.
Allen opened the event-heavy day with a big breakfast at the Wild Duck restaurant with his family.
He followed up the breakfast by competing in the 4×100, running the first leg. He quickly gained ground for the men’s team on the opening corner before handing off to Kirk Merritt, who maintained that speed.
The men won the relay in 40.06 seconds, edging out Penn State by less than a half second.
Allen readied for his next event just 25 minutes later. Next up was his specialty, the 110 hurdles.
Allen shot out of the blocks strong and maintained until about the halfway mark, at which point he said he “just fell apart.”
For Allen, falling apart means losing form, yet he still won the event and secured a meet record in 13.40.
Allen maintained the momentum, running the 400 hurdles just over an hour later.
In this race, the dual-sport athlete gunned the first 100 meters, making up the stagger. With 300 to go, Allen had the clear advantage.
He finished the race in 52.25, a second off his personal best, winning his third event of the day.
With just one event to go, Allen started to feel sick. That big breakfast began catching up to him, and he questioned if he wanted to compete in the last event of day: the 4×400 meter relay.
“I talked to my coaches about not running,” Allen said. “But then I went and threw up and felt better.”
Allen took on the second leg of the relay for the Ducks, who took third in the event in 3:15.50 behind Penn State and Washington.
Though he confirmed he will be competing for the Ducks next weekend in the Oregon Relays, joking that he may even compete in the decathlon, for today, Allen is going to take things easy.
“I’m going to go hang out with my family tonight, enjoy the day.”
