After the success of the Portland Track Festival, were we really surprised at the initial entries for tomorrow evening's Portland Summer Twilight? The program will begin at 10:30pm CT and end with the highly-anticipated men's 1500m race featuring Robby Andrews and Edward Cheserek. More entries may roll in before tomorrow evening, but take a look at some of the big names that will race LIVE on FloTrack this Thursday, July 2nd.

Men’s 800m, 10:30pm CT
NCAA 1500m champion Chad Noelle will look to improve upon his 1:48 personal best set one year ago. He’ll be in good company with David Torrence in the field. Torrence has an 800m PB of 1:45, 1500m PB of 3:33 and 5K PB of 13:16, the event in which he recently placed fifth in the U.S. Championships. OTC Elite’s Tyler Mulder has been struggling in 2015, but has run under 1:45.00 eight times in his career and will also toe the line.

Men’s 1500m, 11:15pm CT
We all saw Robby Andrews finish second in the 1500m final at the U.S. Championships, and now we get to watch his attempt at locking down his spot on Team USA. The IAAF “A” standard is 3:36.20, and he flew to 3:38 in the finals on Saturday, in a race that went out in a pedestrian pace. The crew assembled for this race should be perfect for Andrews to take care of this as early as possible. Nobody wants to spend all summer trying to chase a time.

First is Edward Cheserek, the 8-time NCAA individual champion from Oregon. It will be a treat for fans to watch King Ches run fast in Portland. We know he’s got finishing wheels, but his three best PBs come from either racing against Lawi Lalang or a field of professionals at this year’s Millrose Games. Cheserek’s PB of 3:36 is from racing wire-to-wire with Lalang at the 2014 Pac-12 Championships, and he’s obviously in this race to run fast, not sit-and-kick like an NCAA Championship final.

Riley Masters will look to improve upon his 3:37.19 PB from 2012, coincidentally in the same Oxy Invite race as Andrews’ 3:34 PB. Masters had great success moving up to the 5K this season, running 13:17 at Payton Jordan then finishing ninth in the very tactical U.S. final. He ran 3:37 in the Furman Elite race and should be right with Andrews and Cheserek in this field.

NCAA finalists Daniel Winn, and Zach Perkins are slated to race in this standard chasing event, as is Oregon Duck Colby Alexander.

Winn and Alexander didn’t even score at NCAAs (Alexander didn’t even make it out of the NCAA prelims) but both made the U.S. final. Perkins has now finished runner-up twice in the NCAA final but did not qualify for USAs. With the appropriate pacing, this could be the best 1500m field, consisting of pros and unsponsored folk, of the summer.

Watch James preview the meet while trying to find parking in Portland: