{"id":878,"date":"2013-03-05T18:37:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T18:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/?p=878"},"modified":"2013-03-05T18:37:18","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T18:37:18","slug":"willis-starts-fast-in-auckland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/news\/willis-starts-fast-in-auckland","title":{"rendered":"Willis starts fast in Auckland"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_659\" style=\"width: 541px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/willis-london.590.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-659\" class=\" wp-image-659 \" title=\"Nick Willis\" alt=\"Nick Willis\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/willis-london.590.jpg?resize=531%2C225\" width=\"531\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/willis-london.590.jpg?w=590&amp;ssl=1 590w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/willis-london.590.jpg?resize=300%2C127&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 531px) 100vw, 531px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-659\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Willis<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b>FAST 1500m, AUT Millennium Stadium North Shore \u2013 28 February 2013<br \/>\n<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Beijing Olympic Games 1500m silver medallist Nick Willis ran a quick 1500 metres in Auckland on Thursday evening. Preparing for an attempt to run a qualifying time of 3m 35.00s at the Sydney Track Classic on 9 March, he came up with an impressive 3m 36.51s, setting him up nicely for \u00a0Saturday\u2019s race.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Thomas Monnery and UK\u2019s Sam Petty provided the early pace which had Willis through the 800m in 1m 55s.<\/p>\n<p>Willis was on target to this point but was unable to sustain it over the second half.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t able to go that extra gear which in some of those Grand Prix races I\u2019m able to do in Europe, so it will come. This is the best I\u2019ve run in the early season for a long time,\u201d said Willis.<\/p>\n<p>Willis said it sets him up beautifully for the race in Sydney.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m only a second off doing it on my own, so get me to Sydney. I haven\u2019t won a race in Australia since the Commonwealth Games in 06, so it\u2019d be nice to finally win one over the ditch seven years after that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Willis returns to the States with his wife Sierra to prepare for the birth of their first baby expected in June.<\/p>\n<p>Malcolm Hicks was second in 3m 44.95s with Hamish Carson third in 3m 45.11s, followed by Hugo Beamish 3m 45.49s, Aaron Pulford 3m 48.13s, Alex Parlane 3m 48.30s,<\/p>\n<p>Ben Moynihan 3m 48.72s, Matt Harris 3m 49.47s, Matt Lambert 3m 50.16s, Jono Jackson 3m 51.64s, Brent Henley 3m 52.23s and Michael Vercoe-Curtis 3m 53.33s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FAST 1500m, AUT Millennium Stadium North Shore \u2013 28 February 2013 Beijing Olympic Games 1500m silver medallist Nick Willis ran a quick 1500 metres in Auckland on Thursday evening. Preparing for an attempt to run a qualifying time of 3m 35.00s at the Sydney Track Classic on 9 March, he came up with an impressive [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[302,8,1],"tags":[496,479,34,478],"class_list":["post-878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1500m","category-featured","category-news","tag-1500m","tag-auckland","tag-nick-willis","tag-track"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/willis-london.590.jpg?fit=590%2C250&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.time-to-run.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}