Coleman Hoover (Winter Park), placed 12th in the Nike Race of Champions to be the first finisher from Florida and to lead his team to a 10th place finish.
Matt Baum (flrunners.com)- Top finisher from Florida today in the Race of Champions. What'd you think about that?
Coleman Hoover- Man, it was fun. I felt great during the race. I loved the course. It was one of my goals to beat all of the BK guys and some Brookwood guys. We're friends, but competitors as well. I'm really glad I placed that well.
MB: Can you run us through the race a little bit? Splits, etc.
CH: I didn't hear a single one of my splits. I kind of had a strategy at first to just stay back, but after I saw all of the other people I usually race with just take off it was tough to stay back. I think I went out in 5:05 and that was perfect for me. It felt great.
MB: How'd you think about the team performance?
CH: I'm really excited about my team. I wish our back end guys could pick up a little more and get closer to us. They train with us all the time. Caleb [Vogt] did amazing. Donnie [Anguish] and Scott [Lindsey] did great. So did Willy [Kingsley]. I'm proud of them all.
MB: Did you and your team do anything special to prepare yourselves for this race?
CH: We didn't swim on Thursday.
MB: So, you guys swim on a regular basis?
CH: We swim Tuesday and Thursday morning and we took off this Thursday.