1. Congratulations on breaking the Washington 400 meter record previously held by Ja'Warren Hooker with your winning time of 44.82 at the Arizona State Sun Angel Classic. It must have been a thrill to look at the scoreboard after the race realizing you just broke 45 seconds. How did the race fold out for you and were you surprised by the time?

I was definitely excited to see my time when I crossed the finish line. Before the race I felt very good warming up and knew that I was going to have a good race. During the race my goal was to just get out hard and maintain as long as I could, the competition definitely helped me run fast because ASU has some great 400 runners. I wouldn't say I was surprised by my time because I knew I could run that especially after running 46.34 indoors and feeling disappointed with that. I knew I could have run faster. Ja'Warren Hooker was actually at my race where I ran 46.37 indoors and broke the school record, and he told our head coach Greg Metcalf that if anyone was going to break his outdoor school record it was going to be me, so that gave me a lot of confidence.

2. What many people don't realize is that you took the entire 2006-07 season off as you were unsure if the sport was right for you. Now that you've found success on the track, including a third-place finish at the 2008 NCAA Indoor Championships, do you look back and realize that you made the right decision?

Yeah, well I only ran track for a couple months in high school, so what people don't realize is that track was still new to me my freshman and sophomore year, because those were really my first and second years ever running track. So after my sophomore year I just needed some time away from the sport, but in the end I’m happy with my decision, I think it helped me a lot this year.